Supernaturally Natural: Rethink The Way We, The Church, Worships Corporately – Part XVI
from Supernaturally Natural: Chapter 15 manuscript by Anthony Bachman
A Mind Set: Technology And The Church
I have been told that the twenty-thirty’s age group is multi-sensing. They are use not only seeing the big screen with digital sight and sound, but also smell can also accentuate a movie theater. Try going by the popcorn machine before going into the theater without salivating. That generation uses “touch” screens on tabletops and tables. Since today’s younger adults multi-task daily, their involvement in church has demanded that be natural in a church setting too! Technology allows you to text message during services, “stream” your services on line through the Internet, “podcast” your Sunday programs so that they can be downloaded during the week, blog with each other or get in Christian Chat Rooms, join “communities” or “families” on Facebook or MySpace, and who knows what in the near future. I remember the “old days” when Pat Roberson founded Christian Broadcasting Network with technological reaching the world. Today God.TV.com can reach anywhere in the world where there is computer and Internet accessibility.
When studying the history of major revivals, one discovered that they parallel with new technology. Johanne Guttenburg’s invention of the printing press led the Church out of the Dark Ages into the Age of Enlightenment. The masses could now read for themselves the scriptures. Many preachers utilized radio in the early nineteen hundreds. Billy Graham has successfully utilized television to take the gospel all over the world. Now we are in the computer age.
It is getting natural to use technology to get out the message, thus we have huge mega-churches with tremendously huge screens projecting images of those on the front stage so people in the far back can still see them. I know of churches where you can plug in our computer, palm pilot, I-phone, etc. to call up the sermon outline to follow during its delivery. Why buy a Bible? There are web cites that feature the Bible in multiple translations for study purposes.
But I do know one thing about technology, if you turn the power off, if the batteries die, you lose the function of this splendid technology. The same is true with the church, when the power, the supernatural, is turned off, church can become naturally dysfunctional. Can the supernatural compete with what is natural in today’s technology as far as getting out the gospel? You know it can, because it has for centuries.