Technology blues

This has been a frustrating week with my Internet service. After having intermittant service the past few days I called tech support. They sent a technician over who found that I have a weak signal coming into my house. The signal is strong in their box but by the time it gets to the house it is very weak. They are supposed to come today to bury a new line, but it's been raining so I don't know if they'll be able to do it or not. They have responded very well to my problem, but I have learned how dependent I am on my Internet connection and to technology in general.

When I began my pastoral ministry in 1981 my primary communication tools were the telephone and an old upright Underwood typewriter. Mistakes were corrected with White-out, not a delete button. It's funny to look back on the changes that have occurred since those days.

Many of our churches still function like it was 1981, or 1950, and they wonder why the unchurched think we are largely irrelevant to their 21st century lives. We're still singing the same songs, played the same way, and doing church like we've done it for the past 50 (or more) years. We have an ageless message, but we must continue finding new ways to present that message. Our churches may not always like the new methods, but the church is not to built upon our likes and dislikes. Frankly, I would be just as content to still rely on my telephone and typewriter, but my ministry would suffer if I depended on them to do everything the new technology allows me to do.

I encourage you to challenge your congregations to begin to think creatively how you could present the message of Jesus Christ to your communities in new ways. Everything you try won't always work the way you had hoped,but it is through those failures that you will find the methods that will work. Let me know what new ideas you come up with.