We started a new 6 week series today at Vintage Faith Church called "Shalom: Reclaiming a life of peace and wholeness". It is a series where we identified key areas of our lives where we can be out of balance in and seeking "peace" in wrong or false places. Today in all three gatherings I taught on the biblical meaning of "Shalom" and how it differs from "peace" as we say the word in English. But it is about wholeness, completeness, fullness and something that is beyond just peace as we normally think of it. In the Old Testament there are 397 usages of the word "shalom" and in the New Testament the equivalent word in Greek is used 89 times.

So I taught on wholism in terms of life and "shalom" and how over the next 5 weeks we will look at specific areas.

Shalom in rhythm of life. Shalom in relationships. Shalom in finances. Shalom in health. Eternal Shalom.

I spent some time walking through the commitments that Becky and I have talked about for us personally and individually in some of these areas. Some areas were bigger commitments depending on where we feel we may want to get more in balance and others we felt good about being in "shalom". I used props for each to explain what I will be doing and there was a bowling ball for "Shalom in health" (which would need explanation... and it isn't that I am going bowling).

For the "Shalom in Rhythm of Life" one we felt we wanted to experiment for 6 weeks as this series goes on with not having distractions in the home in the evenings. So for the next 6 weeks we are committing to:

• No television after 7:30 PM
• No internet connection after 7:30 PM (which means no blog reading, Facebook, emails)
• From sundown Friday to sundown Saturday no television or internet. Saturday night can be the one night to be on past 7:30.
  

We want to experiment for 6 weeks just to see how much we have adapted to having our laptops on and going on Facebook or blogs in the evenings instead of fully being present. Or watching TV simply as a filler of time in the evenings. Are we addicted to patterns of television as background or being on Facebook or blog browsing in evenings? Will we notice anything different in our homes as a result and our state of mind? Will it be difficult to fast from internet, email and television entirely for one day a week?
This isn't to make this legalistic and add on all these sub-rules, as it is a short-term experiment - but when you do something like this, you have to think through how you can actually do it. So we can write on our computers and be working on something, but we won't be on the internet. As then it is too easy to check email, look at Facebook, read blogs etc. We can be on-line during the day as we need to for work and communication. But not in evenings as we settle in. And we are going to Sabbath and fast a full day each week from both television and internet. It will be interesting to see what we notice. We have done this on vacation and not gone online for a week or checked emails. But never in the day to day normal season of work and life. Our cell phones do not connect to internet or check emails from cell phones so we don't have to worry about that. I believe we will be including shutting off our cell phones for most of the time as well as we can use our home phone if needed.

My mind already started thinking of loopholes as I am going to Korea to speak there for 5 days in early February. So when I am in Korea, does the same thing apply if the time zones are different so I can watch TV at night there since it will be daytime hours here. But I will stick to the practical time for what we are doing.

I am dreading it to some degree, as I am online so much in the evenings. BUT... that may be causing lack of full Shalom. So it begins tonight. I only have an hour and half left to be online. So this is it till morning. Shalom.