Digital Life in the Slow Lane

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Collin Hansen
In the digital age, it feels like life moves too far too fast. That’s why we need wise guides such as Jay Kim, author of analog Christian, cultivating contentment, resilience and wisdom in the digital age. New from IVP. Jay writes this, this is where we are in the digital age existing in an untenable state of unceasing connection to the curated lives of others. All of their highlights, none of their lowlights. Now, perhaps the simple solution for us would be to spend more time offline. But our colorful smartphones make the real world look grayscale. In comparison, Jay writes this quote, because much of life in the real world is uncomfortable, awkward or boring. So we opt for digital escape. We increasingly prefer and default to worlds of our own making, and quote, and you might know Jay, from his previous book, analog church is lead pastor of teaching at Westgate church in Silicon Valley and teacher in residence at Vintage Faith Church in Santa Cruz, California, and joins me now and gospel bound to discuss comparison and contempt. Love on the move the design of social media hate and hurt, chronological snobbery. And more. Jay, thanks for joining me and gospel bone.

Jay Kim
Thanks so much for having me. Colin,

Collin Hansen
did you how did growing up in Silicon Valley shaped your perspective and writing this book?

Jay Kim
Yeah, I get asked that question quite a bit. So I’ve thought about it quite a bit, I think, you know, I grew up in a single parent home, just my mother and I, when I was a kid, we actually lived with my uncle, who worked at IBM, and worked on computers at IBM. So our house, you know, this is like the mid 80s. It was chock full of these big giant, you know, PCs. And I remember playing these little Winter Olympics, video games, these computers. So, you know, the ubiquity of technology, digital technology. It’s just, it’s been the air I’ve breathed for 40 years. And so in some ways, you know, I think one of the things that’s done for me, is it’s taken some of the sheen off some of the gloss off, you know, even today, the church where I serve on staff, we are 10 minutes from the main campus of Apple. And one of the things that means for us is that a very high percentage of our folks work in tech, and a great percentage of those folks work at Apple, there are three people in my small group alone, three out of the eight, you know, who work at Apple. And so, I, it’s a benefit, you know, and I consider it a privilege in my conversations with these friends, I get to see peek behind the curtain a little bit. And it helps me actually think about the devices in our back pockets and in our offices, for what they actually are in the real world, which are these boxes, you know, these little black boxes that we find ourselves staring into. So I think that’s one of the gifts of having been here, my entire life having sort of breathed this digital air is that I just have a propensity for seeing it for what it actually is in the real world in a tactile sort of analog way. That’s not to say I don’t struggle with digital addiction, just like the rest. I do. I certainly do. It’s one of the reasons why I wrote the book. But yeah, it has been a gift living here.

Collin Hansen
Well, I was let’s go right off that statement there. Explain the connection you found between discontentment and Digital Influence on comparison and contempt.

Jay Kim
Yeah, you know, some psychologist a couple of decades ago coined this term the hedonic treadmill. Meaning you know, hedonic coming from hedonism, the pursuit of pleasure, and they said, it’s a treadmill, because on a treadmill, you’re constantly chasing, but you’re never arriving. And they use that phrase to describe the modern and late modern Western world that most of us in the developed Western world live life on a hedonic treadmill. And, for me, especially with the rise of social media in the past decade or so, personally, I found myself sort of exhausted on that treadmill. And I was fascinated by the discontent, the disconnection between what I intellectually knew, which was that these sort of glossy feeds of my friends were not real life. I knew that that was true. I knew that my friends weren’t spending every moment of their life on a white sand beach in the Maldives. I knew that on a Monday they’d be right back at the cubicle just like me. And yeah, There was something disconnected from what I knew, in my mind to everything else I felt in my body, which essentially was, why isn’t your life like that? Why? Why are you sitting here in the boredom of your mundane, ordinary Tuesday, while they’re living the dream, and I could not make the connection between my intellect, my knowledge, and my physical body.

Jay Kim
And I think it’s one of the really powerful formative, you know, effects of social media in particular, but just the digital age as a whole, is that because it’s primarily a disembodied reality, we we end up you know, in the complexity of navigating, how we bodily react and respond to the to the disembodied feeds that we are seeing. And I think our bodies in some ways don’t even know what to do with it. We’re so this is so new, it’s a new technology in the sort of long span of history, that I think humans are still adjusting. And in the chaos of that adjustment, I think, you know, comparison and contempt are really unraveling us in significant ways. And I still, you know, even have after having written a couple of books about analog, the reality is, in my everyday life, I still have to be really intentional about not spiraling into the sort of vortex of comparison. And you know, discontentment and contempt toward those who are sort of presenting a particular life online. I think most people can can probably relate to that in some form or fashion.

Collin Hansen
No doubt about that. Here’s a quote of yours that stood out, you write social medias algorithms are designed to feed us a never ending loop of our desired lives, always just a handful of steps ahead of where we are, deceptively within arm’s reach, but always just beyond our grasp. By design, we find ourselves envying upward and desiring downward. I think, Jay, the key phrase there is by design, and it makes me wonder, do we have any option except abstinence from social media when we’re combating this problem?

Jay Kim
That’s a great question. I mean, I will say, I think abstinence is a fantastic option, if you are able, and I would say for the follower of Jesus, who wants to experience, you know, the spirit filled life and experience the fruit of the Spirit in their life, I would say, engagement, and especially heavy, regular, consistent engagement on social media should only come after the long journey of doing the work, right, creating particular parameters in your life, to guard against the ill effects of social media. So abstinence is a beautiful, and profoundly effective option, I think that if Christians are going to engage in social media, I think we need to emphatically engage with a redemptive edge and a purpose, rather than the way social media typically lols us in which is, hey, fill every moment of downtime and boredom with me, you know what I mean? When you’re waiting at the grocery store, and the line or the DMV, or waiting for your coffee, as your barista makes your coffee, or the first thing you do in the morning, when you wake up, open me up and engage, you know, I think that’s a very dangerous way to engage.

Jay Kim
I don’t think social media, especially for the Christian should be a recreational endeavor, I think it needs to be a redemptive engagement, meaning, we have a purpose for why we are going online. It is to add redemptive voice to the conversation. And you know, we need to do so with again, the characteristics of the fruit of the Spirit, you know, is this engagement making you a more loving person, you know, is it is it adding to your joy? Are you are you a bearer of peace, you know, on and on? Are you being kind are you being good? And that’s not to fudge on truth. It’s not to say like, oh, you know, everyone do their thing. And I support everybody. That’s not it at all, of course, but can you engage, be a bearer of truth, for example, with kindness and with goodness, you know, with self control? So, yeah, I think that every follower of Jesus needs to ask some hard questions before they engage online.

Collin Hansen
So you alluded there to, to the the fruit of the Spirit, starting there with love. You write in the book Love comes alive when it’s on the move. Have you seen anyone do that?

Jay Kim
Rarely, rarely, but I have seen I have seen steps in that direction. You know, in fact, just recently a mutual friend of ours, Patrick Miller, who’s done some work for the gospel coalition. He just recently wrote a fantastic article about Facebook in particular, and sort of the algorithms, you know, I just saw him tweet and Patrick is, is quite active on Twitter. And he’s quite winsome on Twitter. I think he’s an example of what maybe an extension of love on social media can look like. He just recently tweeted about a conversation he had with somebody with whom he very staunchly disagrees on key matters. But what he said was, this was an example of a loving conversation, where we can disagree, where we can have a healthy, robust debate, but in love, and then what he did was he actually highlighted what he learned in this conversation from this person with whom he disagrees, you know, when I think that’s, it’s not love and its fullest, for sure. My my suggestion would be that love in its fullest is primarily, again, an analog embodied experience, but it is at least an extension of of love and a redemptive, stepping into what is sort of a wasteland, you know, the digital world. So, yeah, I mean, there are other people who do this well. But but it is difficult is what I would say. And the algorithms are not designed to support that sort of behavior online.

Collin Hansen
It’s not a neutral medium. I think a lot of Christians want to assume that everything’s about what you make of it, that everything’s more or less adult tool in the end, and they don’t realize that they are, even each different social media platform itself has different characteristics, different incentives, different modes of communication, ultimately, different cultures. And I think we get ourselves into a lot of trouble seeing them as merely utilitarian, as opposed to formative. Now, of course, Jay, your book, analog Christian is about discipleship, more or less in a digital age, it’s not exclusively about things like social media, it’s just kind of a big part of what you talked about in here. But you, you reflect on a number of broader themes. And one of them is, I’ll just say it’s not naturally for Americans, a lot of the people listening here to assume that struggle leads to blessing. And then to joy, like you talked about in the book, that we don’t find happiness by looking for it. This makes me wonder, does that mean we should then go looking for struggle?

Jay Kim
You know, I know, I would say first and foremost, and now, you know, we shouldn’t go looking for struggle. However, we don’t really need to look for the human experience, you know, it is inevitable, fine, you will struggle. So it’s almost like, you know, a fish asking, should I go looking for water? Well, no, you swim in water. So so the question is, how will you navigate the waters that you swim in? And I think in again, in America, in particular, particularly because of you know, despite all of the conversation about how bad things are, the reality is, we are still the most affluent society in the history of humankind at this point. So I think we have sort of bought the cultural myth and the cultural narrative that humans in and of themselves, with our ingenuity and a lack skill, resources, that we can invent and create and cultivate some sort of human utopia. And the biblical narrative seems to indicate that that is utterly false, right? That it is God and only God and His redemptive action in the world through Jesus, his son, that can can lead us essentially lead us home, you know, lead us to the sort of reality that God always intended, you know, in Genesis one and two. So, you know, in the book, I quote, Bob Dylan, and he juxtaposes in this Rolling Stone magazine interview.

Jay Kim
Several decades ago, he juxtaposes happiness with blessedness. You know, and I think that the, it’s not the Christians are not called to be happy. I think that’s a misnomer. In fact, the New Testament word for bless can actually probably be translated into the English word, happy in some ways. However, the word happiness has been sort of, in some ways hijacked by culture, and essentially what we mean is feeling good, you know, and that’s what most of us really want. It at least in our flesh, we want to medicate to the point where we can just feel good, you know, the data bears this out and terms of the various addictions that are running rampant in our culture today. But the blessed life, you know, in God’s blessing, the power of it is that it has the strength to withstand struggle, it has the strength to become our foundation and a bedrock not after struggle, but in the midst of struggle, you know, in the midst of, of the valley, but it takes a lot of work. And it really does take a significant sort of paradigm shift in terms of what we think a blessed life looks like, you know, it’s so funny, you go on Instagram, and there are so many posts with the Hashtag blessed. And they’re all images of, you know, some fantastic lunch. It’s a Michelin star restaurant, or some vacation in Europe. But the biblical image of and vision of blessing looks nothing like that, you know, you think about the Beatitudes, it looks nothing like that. It’s the poor in spirit who are blessed, you know, and those who mourn and on and on. So I think that paradigm shift needs to happen. But once it happens, life takes on a whole new color.

Collin Hansen
You mentioned just there that if we feel like things are so bad, there’s so much attention on that. And yet, the reality is quite different. Well, I think that’s part of what you’re getting at here. What you say about political division, you’re right, this, the depth and breadth of political division I’ve experienced within our congregation, in the past few years far exceeds anything I’ve ever experienced, in all previous years as a pastor combine, I think there’s a couple of different ways that we can look at this, one of them is that there have been many periods of political division throughout world history, certainly cluding American history. So in that sense, this is kind of normative. At the same time, there does seem to be something different about our perceptions of it at least. And I think that’s what you’re primarily getting at here. So I’m wondering, to what do you attribute that change in the sense of how we are now perceiving our political conflicts and then experiencing these political divisions?

Jay Kim
Yeah, that’s a great question, Colin, in psychology, there’s this term, it’s called motive attribution asymmetry. And it’s like a big, long, fancy phrase. But essentially, what it means is, when that takes ahold, motive, attribution asymmetry, and its asymmetry, not symmetry, what it means is, we begin to assume essentially, the worst about the other and the best about ourselves. So it’s not just with politics, but it’s with anything, it’s just a psychologic psychological idea that when you engage in any sort of tension or debate, or any any conflict or disagreement, when that happens to you motive, motive, attribution asymmetry, you begin to assume I am engaging this process in love and kindness. The other person is engaging this process with hatred and anger, you just assume that to be true. And the danger of that reality that psychological reality as it sort of intersects with the digital age and social media, Facebook, Twitter, and on and on, is that these social media platforms are actually designed to accentuate and highlight and leverage and take advantage of that sort of tendency in human beings to assume the worst about the other and assume the best about self. And there’s various reasons for it one of the two two reasons, in particular one, the algorithms are designed to feed off of that sort of energy. And it, it just increases the bottom dollar. For companies like Twitter and Facebook, right? It just reveals more engagement.

Jay Kim
You think about, you know, last year, there was the whistleblower from Facebook, right. And she revealed all this documentation from the company that revealed, they’re very aware of how this works, and they’re propagating it. I’m not here to bash any sort of platform. It’s just reality. And so, you know, for me, I think that’s the danger. It’s one of the unique dangers we face in the digital age, is that there was already sort of a built in psychological reality that pushes us as human beings to assume the worst about the other assume the best about myself in my tribe. And now all of those conversations are being mediated on platforms that essentially feed off of that reality accentuating it, amplifying it, deepening it in us, which is why we’re losing in the digital age or aptitude for nuance, for kindness for listening for learning, and everything’s becoming far more black and white. And I’m not saying there isn’t black and white. There is Black and White with particular issues. But the way we engage one another, you know, I think in terms of the way of Jesus has to be with gentleness, kindness, love, you know, hospitality, openness, compassion. And the danger is we’re losing our aptitude for that, particularly when it comes to politics.

Collin Hansen
Seems that especially as a pastor, and as an authority figure, you’ve had to learn this. But I think this will be helpful for anybody who’s listening. How do you know when you’re experiencing hate from someone, but it’s actually their hurt that you’re experiencing.

Jay Kim
Almost always, you know, I’ll stop just short of saying always, but I think almost always hate is, in some ways, connected to deep hurt. I think that’s almost always true. So I actually would suggest, just my opinion, that I think one of the most healthy ways to engage disagreement and tension is to assume that any sort of expression of hate is connected to some deep hurt. Now, if you are wrong, and there is no deep hurt, and the person is just a hateful person, it’s not really much of a loss, you’re just right back where you started, the person hates me, the person hates my ideas, the person is hateful, you know, and, and, and in those instances, in my experience, it can be difficult to make any sort of real significant progress. But again, most of the time, almost all of the time, hate is connected in some form, or fashion to hurt. And if you can tap into that reality, one, empathy begins to increase. And I think that empathy creates the necessary space for the sort of meaningful engagement and dialogue that can move things forward. It’s one of the reasons why I love you know the gospel coalition’s work with the good faith debates, you know, there are these disagreements, but the whole premise of those debates is we’re not going to yell and scream at one another. We’re going to engage with kindness, compassion, generosity, and love in the midst of disagreement, and I think it models for us, you know, how we might engage.

Collin Hansen
Another challenge that you pick up on here in the book, I thought was really helpful that I think maybe we take for granted. It’s such a big problem. He right, this truth established over the long span of history matters little in the chronological snobbery of the digital age. You know, we could, J, we could talk about all kinds of different all kinds of different situations, all kinds of different ways that our society has transformed. But this might be most fundamental. The way and that’s why I started off the podcast by talking about how quick life moves. And look, I think every generation for at least the last 150 years has felt like life just is moving too quickly. It’s one reason why the Amish, they literally slow down what they’re doing. That’s why they do horses, buggies, things like that slowing down the pace of life. But it seems like underneath everything. Digital Media, meat and digital mediation seems to erode any sense of connectedness to the past. That is a problem for us as people of the book. What are we supposed to do about this?

Jay Kim
I think we need to see the sort of cultural clout that comes with being post something for what it is that it’s a sham. And that it’s essentially trying to wear hip cool clothes. And I know that that sounds really harsh. You know, and I, and I know that there are what I’m not saying is that people don’t have new ideas that are valid and helpful. But, you know, Dr. Ajay Swoboda, who’s a good friend, he writes, in his book, he says that being post anything now is a sign of maturity. And that is that is I would suggest that is actually a pretty new phenomenon in the long history.

Collin Hansen
And you’re saying that’s, that’s the way our culture is seeing things? A B? Yeah. Host whatever. And essentially, what you’re saying is ideology is fashion. Yes, sir. Yes, yeah.

Jay Kim
Yeah, absolutely. And new ideologies are fascists, and it literally works like fashion. It’s not so much that we are having a sort of rich, robust, sort of in depth, you know, constructive assessment of a past ideology. It’s just moving so fast, where we now say, Oh, that was last week, man. Today, this week. It’s all about this new ideology and it’s, it’s moving at the pace of cool, rather than moving at the pace of wisdom and truth.

Collin Hansen
Well, I was t alking with a number of the gospel Coalition. We meet with pastors, people in ministry on a regular basis in person and zoom just to hear about what they’re going through. And a group of people working with youth and young adults, college students, people like that. And, and what they were describing was so dystopian. And I said, I don’t understand. They, they don’t sound very happy. Why don’t what this does this really working for them? And it’s ministers looked at me and said, these, these people don’t, these young people don’t care about being happy. They just don’t want to get canceled. So it’s not about this, these ideas leading to somewhere good. It’s about I just need to make sure I’m up with those ideas so that I’m not cast out. That’s right to the wilderness.

Collin Hansen
And I thought, oh, man, okay. That’s a new problem. Yeah, for an elder millennial like myself raised in the 90s. That is, as a strange thing to come to terms with, because it seemed like we were pretty concerned with happiness. Right? More and more that hedonism that you were talking about there. You know, and this, this leads into that that cool factor, that fashionable factor leads into what you what you write in the book, which here’s another quote I really liked, while achieving cultural events isn’t all bad. I think what you’re saying there as being culturally irrelevant is not a badge of honor, somehow. But when it comes to the cost of faithfulness, it’s hollow at best and destructive at worst. Again, speaking of cultural relevance, what’s the best way j that you’ve found to rescue a friend from falling into this cultural relevance trap?

Jay Kim
I think meaningful relationship, always Trump’s relevance. Because I think that pursuit you know, I love what you said, called, I think it’s a really astute point, rather than a pursuit of genuine meaning. I think most people, and especially emerging generations today are driven primarily by a fear of ostracization, you know, of being canceled. And really, what it comes down to is something that that is timelessly true since the beginning, and that human beings want to belong, nobody wants to be alone, nobody wants to live out on the margins. And it’s because God is a relational God, three, and one triune, you know, when the Bible tells us that God has love, on one hand is sort of a strange concept. But on the other hand, it makes all the sense in the world, because God is three and one he lives in exists in a loving relationship. And so because we are made in the image of that God, we are made, for relationship, to belong, to belong to God, and to belong to one another. And I think the way to help people pull out of that sort of rut of the constant chasing for relevance, driven by a fear of being cancelled, is to lean in to relationship in the most meaningful way possible.

Jay Kim
Again, not on the platforms where relevance is mediated. But to disrupt that rhythm. And to get with somebody like shoulder to shoulder over a cup of coffee, a meal, you know, with regularity and consistency, and with an invitation to take off the sort of glossy filter, and to just be yourself, and to be honest, and to be genuine. And to extend that first, you know, to go first as price went first for us. And essentially, to cut through the sort of the know all of the noise, you know, that screams at our people, you got to be relevant, you can’t be canceled, you got to say X, Y, and Z, and have these particular beliefs and make sure you propagate those beliefs online. So everybody knows, we can cut through all of that noise with real meaningful relationship. And it’s slow, right? It’s easier for me to tweet something to several 1000 people than it is for me to sit down and have an hour long lunch with a friend and ask about life. It is slow, but it’s also far more effective, far more deep and enriching, and far more human, you know, in the way God made us to be.

Collin Hansen
And one more question here with Jay Kim about analog Christian cultivating contentment, resilience, and wisdom in the digital age new from IVP. It’s actually j is probably more of a question from analog church. But that book is so interesting, because remind us when that book came out, Jay?

Jay Kim
It came out at the end of March 2020. So two weeks after COVID shut everything down.

Collin Hansen
An interesting time to be talking about the importance of in person relationships in church. Sure, yeah. And I now during that time, you and I heard a lot, I mean, really unprecedented levels of enthusiasm and interest in, in online church streaming. Let’s look back, I got to about a two and a half years or so in retrospect. What have you seen? How did that turn out? Do you still see the same level of enthusiasm? We’re not going to need buildings anymore. There won’t be locations, we’ll just we’ll do to church at home or church and a studio. Do you see people moving away from that thinking, Oh, I kind of learned our lesson. You know, let me give an analogy there. By necessity, education, moved online. Now there was education online before that wasn’t brand new, just like there were churches that were streaming before. But it seems to me that the, I’m sure this isn’t universal. But in my experience, the universal response is that virtual education is not education. I mean, it’s a it’s a, it’s a poor facsimile of education, it just seems like Nope, we that’s not like a viable future for, you know, education on a mass scale. Is it different for churches or not?

Jay Kim
Yeah, you know, I think I’m seeing the same thing with churches. Now, again, it’s not it’s not necessarily, you know, monolithic. I’ve what I’m not saying is every church in America seems to say, oh, online fell short. And there are certainly churches, particularly larger churches that are leaning in more heavily and saying, This is it like this online, streaming is actually a campus for us. And we’re going to staff a full time pastor here, and he’s going to he or she is going to pastor the, you know, online congregation and all that. So, so there’s a wide variety, but at least in my circles, and I know, that’s limited, but at least in my circles, what I am seeing, and it’s very encouraging to me, is not necessarily a wholesale rejection of online, but at least a sort of reprioritizing of the embodied in person experience, and then categorizing online, in what is, in my estimation, a more healthy way to say, this is simply maybe a front door for folks, you know, I think some of the metrics show that people who stepped foot into your church for the first time, they typically have seen sort of an online service, you know, between two and three times before they step foot. So I understand all of that.

Jay Kim
And I think that’s, that’s a step in the right direction, for us to be able to communicate to our congregations at large, you know, we’re grateful that you’re watching this live stream or whatever. But this is just content. This is not the church. And I think I’m encouraged by that. I like what you said about what we’re seeing in education. You know, my wife is a high school teacher, she certainly felt that and she’s back in the classroom now, to dramatically different experience. Early on, that was actually one of my main concerns is that so many, you know, church leaders and, and, you know, so called experts were, but I’m not mocking them. I just, I just mean, I disagree. They were essentially using companies like Amazon and Uber to talk about why the church needed to go totally digital, otherwise be left in the dust. But in reality, for me, my my argument back always was, but churches are not companies like Amazon and Uber that sell goods and services. Churches are more like schools, or they’re more like hospitals would you would you can’t get surgery, you know, online, you literally just can’t, you have to go. If your child is sick, you don’t your immediate reaction is not let me call my doctor. If your child is really sick, you rush them to an emergency room, because you want a real person to see them. And so goes to church. Same with education. So I’m encouraged by what I’m saying. Again, it’s not you know, everybody, but I think that maybe some of the tide is turning and people are beginning to see the real need for analog and body experiences

Collin Hansen
That’s good. I’m going to do a final three now with Jay Kim, author of analog Christian cultivating contentment, resilience and wisdom in the digital age. Go ahead and also check out his earlier book, analog church. Final three J. How do you find calm in the storm,

Jay Kim
Christ and intentional practices to spend time with Jesus? Also, history you know, we talked about history before. I think often these days about the fact that God has led his church through wars and famines and pandemics time and time again, right, lead his people through the wilderness, split open a sea so they could cross on dry land. I just think a lot about history. And it brings me a lot of a lot of calm. God will see us through whatever we face today.

Collin Hansen
So we get along so well, Jay, what do you find good news today?

Jay Kim
So many places, I’ll just share one that’s recent. I find good news. In You know, there’s a lot of conversation about churches saying, you know, we’re at 50%, or 60%, of pre COVID attendance or whatever. And for us, in our church community, we have stopped talking that way. And we’ve stopped discussing a pre COVID world. And instead, we’re embracing the new reality. And what I am finding is that those who are here, and certainly, we are less in physical attendance than we were before COVID. But what I’m finding is that that less, there’s a depth to them, and a commitment to them, and a commitment to the mission of God in and through our church, and then in through their lives. That feels very different than what we had two and a half years ago. And I think it these might be the seeds for something dramatic and beautiful, and gospel centered in our city, and in our country and in our world. So I’m finding a lot of joy, a lot of hope in that.

Collin Hansen
At the risk of asking a follow up that I already know the answer to did, are those people leaving? Just dropped away from church altogether? Switch different churches left California? Yes, yes. Yes. That’s what I figured. I just didn’t know if you’d see if you were leaning in any one direction there. But I mean, the leaving California dynamic, I think is it’s not unique to California, but you’re probably not going to hear a Texas pastor. Write that. Right. Exactly.

Jay Kim
Yeah. So you’re welcome to all you pastors in Boise, Idaho, Austin, Texas, Denver, Colorado, Nashville, Tennessee. You’re welcome. Please care for our people.

Collin Hansen
Oh, man. Last question, Jay, what’s the last great book you’ve read?

Jay Kim
Oh, my goodness. I just recently wrapped up. I read it for the second time managing leadership anxiety by Steve Cass. He’s going to be out here at our church doing some work with us. So I just reread his book. It’s fantastic. Not just for church leaders, but just anybody really, on managing anxiety. And then I am just beginning Arthur Brooks his new book, from strength to strength. And it’s it’s fantastic finding success, happiness and deep purpose in the second half of life, which I am not at yet. I don’t think but I’m getting closer. So I’m reading it preemptively.

Collin Hansen
Yeah. The big theme of that book is the post 40 downturn in terms of your kind of intellectual capacities and how to transition that into relational experiential strengths. Yeah. Which I find both little little jarring, but also encouraging, and insightful, and hopefully catalyzing as well. All right. Thanks, Jay. We’ve been talking with Jay Kim about analog Christian, cultivating contentment, resilience and wisdom in the digital age. Thanks for sharing that wisdom on the podcast as well as in the book. Thanks, Jay.

Jay Kim
Yeah, thank you so much.