Posts Tagged Technology

Perplexity From The Puplit

Posted by mike in Emerging Church, Lutheran Church, Thelology on October 20, 2009

(Thanks to @somelutheranguy for sharing this with me!)

It’s like 5 minutes of your time. Just watch it already! :)

This is fantastic:

Part of it is making the pulpit a place where perplexity, where doubt is spoken and shared in the community. Where we really face darkness together, where we really stare down darkness in the thickness of life. [...] I think part of the reason younger populations of people don’t hear much in preaching is because they don’t hear anything that’s at stake and there’s no one that seems to, in this moment, bare reality.

I find myself thinking a lot about relevance and what it means to be relevant. Specifically, what it means for a church to be relevant. There have been a few blog posts over the last couple of weeks to address what young people are looking for from a church. Obviously, items like modern worship made the list. But oddly enough, theology seemed to play an important role. Young people seem to crave not just cultural or generational relevance, but theological relevance.

I find what Andy Root says here to be quite significant. How often do you hear real perplexity or doubt or darkness shared from the pulpit? These are things that are plaguing young people on a daily basis, and yet are often missing from the sermons of many pastors and preachers.

One word that keeps getting lodged in my head is accessibility. Today’s young people are amazingly accessible. They’re on Twitter and Facebook and blogs. They’re used to sharing openly and they expect such openness from others. Consider this from a 2004 article on the subject of the online disinhibition effect:

It’s well known that people say and do things in cyberspace that they wouldn’t ordinarily say or do in the face-to-face world. They loosen up, feel more uninhibited, express themselves more openly. Researchers call this the “disinhibition effect.” [...] Sometimes people share very personal things about themselves. They reveal secret emotions, fears, wishes. Or they show unusual acts of kindness and generosity.

This new generation is comfortable online. As a result, they’re more open and accessible than any generation before them. How open are we, as a church? How open are we when we preach Christ? Are we tackling real issues head-on? Are we embracing perplexity from the pulpit? Are we facing the doubt and the darkness?

Are we speaking out of the thickness of life?

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The Connected Church: Before You Log On

Posted by mike in Emerging Church, Lutheran Church, Tech on July 10, 2009

Navigating the stormy seas of the web...

Navigating the stormy seas of the web...

When I first moved to this city, my wife and I began our search for a church home. I, like many others in my demographic (20-30 year olds), began this search online. Now, I’m biased here because I’ve always been disappointed in church web sites. I have a bit of a background in technology, especially web-based technology, so I admit that my perspective is already skewed. I don’t typically view so many church web sites all at once, so this little binge on church web sites was immensely frustrating. I was literally turned off of some churches based on their web sites alone.

Fickle? Perhaps. But we live in a connected world now, and these churches were failing to connect.

What was wrong with these sites? I’ll let others speak for me. Consider these responses to my “why are church web sites ineffective?” question on twitter:

It comes down to being cheap & perceived unimportance, IMO. (http://twitter.com/manovotny/statuses/2556424452)

Outdated design & content. Too much info. Pics of bldg – not ppl (http://twitter.com/lightenupgear/statuses/2556758121)

no one takes junk sites and trifold brochures seriously, thats for drug awareness campaigns not the places we form our faith (http://twitter.com/joe_makes_art/statuses/2555392201)

There’s been a lot of discussion lately on technology in the church. While I’m obviously a Lutheran, churches across the world and across all denominational divides are struggling with the ever-changing technological landscape. It’s not really a new problem though. Churches have always struggled to adapt to changing environments. In some cases the church struggles because they are too slow to change. In other cases, churches willfully refuse to adapt, claiming that the timelessness of the message should not bend to the latest trends.

While the latest technology may be a trend in and of itself, the concept of the web will not go away any time soon. We’ve opened a huge can of worms. People are more connected than ever before. The world is shrinking. We are becoming, more and more every day, a global community. While facebook and twitter may be replaced six months from now with some other trending technology, the constant crave for connectivity reflects a paradigm shift in human interaction. Never before has it been so easy to spread a message or connect to someone across the globe. Whether church leadership embraces technology or not, the church is already online. Your church members are already e-mailing, instant messaging, tweeting, and facebooking. Why, then, are so few churches successful when it comes to their online ministry? How do you even measure this success?

I’m a geek at heart, so I’d love to just start a run-down of current technologies and explore their applications for a church. But, I feel the need to address a few underlying issues that I see. Mainly, what causes the struggle between the church and technology? Is online success for a church as easy as creating an account and logging on? Are there any prerequisites for online ministry?

For churches that want to be online but can’t seem to make it work, what are we missing?

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