What could an online church look like and do?

Northpoint (Andy Stanley's church at Buckhead) is launching August 16th.

It's a live stream of their Sunday evening worship service from Buckhead plus other online ventures.

See the scoop here.

Do you find yourself working on digital files beyond work hours? Do you find yourself trying to squeeze in that moment to write something for your blog? Do you find yourself watching TV, eating dinner, talking with your spouse, and "tweaking on the internet"?

Then, you are out of balance in God's terms.

I know that hurts a bit. Some of our passions are hard to put at bay!

Balance is harder with technology. There are even productivity tools created via technology that should make life easier to manage - i.e. fit more into the time slots we have because they are managed so well. Gotta laugh at ourselves there, don't ya?

Time management is crucial. But it needs to also - or primarily - be done God's way. I'm speaking to myself and the choir.

In Making Room for Life: Trading Chaotic Lifestyles for Connected Relationships, Randy Frazee talks about how we've lost some important boundaries in contemporary life that is hurting God's idea for relationships in our families. And he points out something crucial to this call for the church to go "digital." With an agrarian society (what used to be), "the day" in America was set by sunrise and sundown. Productivity happened between the hours of sunrise and sundown.

With the advent of a more technological society, and man's invention of baseball field spotlights, etc., we no longer have to follow natural rhythms of the earth. We can defy natural for unnatural. Technology is not a "no-brainer." We have to think even harder about the "rules" around technology that affect our health.

Technology allows us to play way past dark, and way past traditional working hours. But is that good or bad? How does it affect our spiritual health?

Randy says in his book that we need to be very proactive in creating God-honoring boundaries around technology and our personal lives. I agree. He goes on to point out the "Hebrew Day Planner" method: 12 hours of PRODUCTIVITY (everything we call work, whether it be preparing for work, work on the house, paying bills, internet or a job), 3 hours of RELATIONSHIP, 1 hour of winding down and preparing for sleep, 8 hours of good SLEEP.

Can you match your life to those numbers?

• 12 hours Productivity
• 3 hours Relationship
• 1 hour winding down
• 8 hours of sleep