Linking with the future
Diary for November 4th, 2011.
It is incredible to recall how back in 2007 the only contact you had with people at church was when you physically saw them once a week at the service. I remember a few keen people would attend a Bible Study, but most limited their experience of ‘community’ to a Sunday morning. Where would we be without Linking Technology today? What I love about Linking Technology is the ability to communicate and connect at any point in the day. I simply write or record a video/audio message and almost instantly my church community receive a copy. Community isn’t achieved through hurriedly summarizing the week over a cup of tea after the service, but about being involved each day.
Recently I posted a video message on my link communicator around my passion to see a church that connects with people using the latest technology. Within 5 minutes I had 12 messages encouraging me to keep at it, I had 3 suggesting I check out websites (which I was able to do there and then), and numerous questions.
When Linking Technology first emerged the big concern was around how it would interrupt our lives. The early doom sayers painted images of people glued to their link communicators, ignoring those in the room with them. What happens in reality is that the alert function is customized specifically to you, no one else is aware that you have just received a message. And most are decent enough to first respond to the physical environment and then the link notification. I have no issue if people get back to me a couple of hours later!
But this physical vs link environment was a big one for the church to overcome. For too long the church stated that the only way to community was through being physically present. It also struggled to move from having just a local mission focus to incorporating a global focus. These days church can involve people who never physically meet and live all over the world.
I love the opportunity to be involved daily in the lives of those who are part of my church, my family and those dearest to me.
Hard to imagine life without Link Technology.
Filed under Anglican, Creativity, Future, Gadgets, Leadership | |
3 Responses to “Linking with the future”
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Today is All Saints’ Sunday.
Interesting that you say the church so often has lived as if “the only way to community was through being physically present,” when in theory the opposite should be true for us who week by week across 100,000 Sundays have gathered around the one table for that one community meal saying words such as “with the faithful who rest in Christ, with angels and archangels and all the company of heaven… with all who stand before you in earth and heaven we worship you…”
Maybe the web will finally help us to believe and live what we proclaim
Bosco
www.liturgy.co.nz
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