Maybe you've heard of FOMO: the Fear of Missing Out? It's the fear that somewhere someone is watching, reading, tweeting, or experiencing something better than what you are experiencing right now. It's the low level of anxiety so many of us feel that keeps us tethered to our devices, constantly texting and scrolling to see what we might be missing.
Newsflash: what we're missing – more often than not – is life, which continues to go on all around us while we have our eyeballs glued to a screen.
So let's talk about JOMO - the Joy of Missing Out - the joy that comes when we close our laptops, put away our phones, and choose to be present in the moment rather than informed, entertained, or engaged by the steady stream of information coming from our devices.
Our relationship to technology might seem like more of a practical issue than a spiritual one, but as communities of faith we need to be talking about how to have a spiritually healthy relationship to our devices, because these phones that we have created are re-creating us. These devices we have wired are re-wiring us: the way we see the world, the way we spend our time, the way we interact with one another, and the way we interact with God.
Youth are invited to come spend the weekend with Rev. Matt Carriker and Rev. Sarah Buteux for a weekend retreat where we’ll talk together about how to have a spiritually healthy relationship with our smartphones. Come experience the joy of missing out and see where God might be found if we put down our screens for a moment and just look up.
The Rev. Sarah Buteux is Co-Pastor of First Churches in Northampton, MA and the founding pastor of Common Ground, a farm-to-table dinner ministry of First Churches. She lives in Amherst with her husband Andrew, her son George, her daughter Genevieve, and their cat, Poe.
Read more about the retreat and register your group today.
Newsflash: what we're missing – more often than not – is life, which continues to go on all around us while we have our eyeballs glued to a screen.
So let's talk about JOMO - the Joy of Missing Out - the joy that comes when we close our laptops, put away our phones, and choose to be present in the moment rather than informed, entertained, or engaged by the steady stream of information coming from our devices.
Our relationship to technology might seem like more of a practical issue than a spiritual one, but as communities of faith we need to be talking about how to have a spiritually healthy relationship to our devices, because these phones that we have created are re-creating us. These devices we have wired are re-wiring us: the way we see the world, the way we spend our time, the way we interact with one another, and the way we interact with God.
Youth are invited to come spend the weekend with Rev. Matt Carriker and Rev. Sarah Buteux for a weekend retreat where we’ll talk together about how to have a spiritually healthy relationship with our smartphones. Come experience the joy of missing out and see where God might be found if we put down our screens for a moment and just look up.
The Rev. Sarah Buteux is Co-Pastor of First Churches in Northampton, MA and the founding pastor of Common Ground, a farm-to-table dinner ministry of First Churches. She lives in Amherst with her husband Andrew, her son George, her daughter Genevieve, and their cat, Poe.
Read more about the retreat and register your group today.
