New to the Blogosphere

Welcome to the pastor’s blog. Thank you Matt Cruz for all your hard work building our new website.

This is a new frontier in technology for me. When I started in ministry over 20 years ago computers had yet to make it into churches. It was in my second church that I learned the wonders of WORD and email. In my third church it was the Net and Facebook. Now a blog. I wonder what this will mean?

I have an abiding interest in technology as it affects us. I am not at all tech savvy, but I wonder about how certain innovations affect how we think, live, relate. I am convinced that the automobile has encouraged our independence, our sense of being self contained and maybe even our communication as we gesture fellow drivers – does it encourage rage? One other example is the remote control. Once again I feel old as I say that when I was young there were 13 channels and one had to get up to change the channel – not only that, but in my case I would usually engage in an argument with my brother over what we would watch since there was only one TV in the house. Now I find that I enjoy sitting in front of the TV with the remote scanning channels, often over and over again. While there is no argument with this, it pretty much necessitates my being alone. (Have you ever sat next to someone who is roaming the channels?!) When I was young we watched TV together more than we did alone. I venture to guess that today more people are watching alone.

Not only that, but I wonder what happens in our brians when we are swtiching channels all the time? What happens when we train ourselves to look forward to the next thing, and feel that we can bring it into being with the push of our thumb? In fact, I think it is a characteristic of our day for us to always be thinking of the next thing. Pretty soon life is a succession of often disconnected next things and then we wonder why we feel anxious.

One final affect wrought by the remote. Have you ever been in a conversation with someone and you are tired of listening and reflexively image having a remote so you could mute them? Maybe I’m confessing here but I bet this is pretty common.

I believe there is a lag between technology and both our psychology and spirituality. Inovations come so fast we don’t have time to think about how they affect us – so in some sense we are out of control. Again, is it any wonder we feel anxious? I also believe it is part of the mission of the church to interpret changes in lifestyle including technological changes; to incorporate all of these changes into some sense of meaning.

So as I type this first blog I can’t help but wonder, how will this change me? In any case, I’m sure it will be an adventure.

Come and join us on Sunday mornings! Pastor Jim