Seeing the big picture

This year we had the "good fortune" of having a TV die at our home so we entered into the realm of HDTV. Getting our TV up and running was a month-long ordeal which I will save for another blog. Last week I was reading a book by Len Wilson and Jason Moore called Digital Storytellers: The Art of Communicating the Gospel in Worship when I hit upon an interesting quote. The authors mentioned that mostly HDTV consumers did not want a better picture, they wanted better content.

Technology is here, and it is making an inroads into your worship experience. Consider the modern extravagances that we have in our sanctuary. We have carpeting, comfortable seating, lighting, heating and air-conditioning, running water in the bathrooms, a heated baptistery, etc. Most of these conveniences do not guarantee that our worship service will have better content. Instead as they unobtrusively perform their functions they help us to comfortably participate in worship. until they are missing...

Consider the image below. You've seen it every week, but do you know what it is?

Here is a larger view of the same item. Do you recognize it now? Your experience of the same item was improved because the second view was not limited to a small portion of the item. The same is true of technology. Used appropriately it can help us to experience God more fully.

Consider the progression of technology in the church

• Jesus and disciples - oral tradition
• The early church - oral tradition
• The missionary Paul - circular hand-written letters
• The gospel authors - oral tradition organized in a written form
• The great cathedrals - artisans sharing the gospel through stone, sculpture and art
• Monks - copying the text of the Bible by hand
• Gutenberg - The gospel in movable type
• Charles Wesley - The gospel in song
• Billy Graham - The gospel on radio and TV to a worldwide audience.
• WHBC - The gospel on the net. (OK, I admit the last one is a stretch; we were not the first. I just wanted to see if you were still reading.)

In each of these progressions the content was the same, but technology enabled the content to reach more people. Even the brute-force copying approach used by dedicated monks was an effective tool in ensuring that you have access to a Bible today.

Part of the purpose of this blog is to open our eyes on creative ways we could use the technology of today (and tomorrow) to reach this world, without sacrificing content.