Technology Increasing In Churches
I’m reading Marva J. Dawn’s book Unfettered Hope: A Call to Faithful Living in an Affluent Society in preparation for the National Association of Professors of Christian Education conference in San Jose next month (she’s the speaker and I’m preparing a rejoinder from the publisher/practitioner perspective). I’m getting an eyeful of “milieu” and Jaques Ellul and how horrible technology is but this is what passes for insightful and thoughtful Christian education in academe. Anyway, I stumbled on an excellent article that shows just how much technology (which Dr. Downs really takes to task in the tradition of Ellul) has taken over the church:
Last year, churches spent $8.1 billion on audio and projection equipment, according to Texas-based TFCinfo, an audiovisual market research firm. Today, 80 percent of churches integrate elaborate video and audio systems as well as an array of online materials into their worship services, and at least a dozen magazines cater to the high-tech pious.
Sixty percent of churches have a Web site, and more than half send e-mail blasts to their congregants, according to TFCinfo. Houses of worship often offer downloads of their services, and some send families recordings of special services involving their children. Central Synagogue in Manhattan mails CDs of bar and bat mitzvahs to its members, said Executive Director Livia Thompson.
Read the article here (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/24/AR2007092401853.html) and note how it is used to CREATE community instead of eliminating it!
Yesterday I posted a link in my blog to the same article asking people to weigh in on it. I am all for technology. I think it is a tool that can be used to really help create community.
Todd, Technology isn’t good or bad. It’s just another media, like paint or the printing press. The issue is do we fully understand how the technology changes us before we use it. An artist will study paint and understand how a certain type of paint adheres, blends, and reflects like. Then the artist paints.
I’m afraid that children’s ministries skipped the examination of the medium and just started using video because its so cool.
The plus of technology is that there is the potential for community building. The unexamined downside is the potential to build passive learners.
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Keith, I recently read some Ellul and found him to be very insightful. His discussion of “technique” is very important when discussing technology.