Tuesday, March 6, 2007

A Slave to Technology?

One of my projects for the week is figuring out how to make my computer record the worship service so that I can take the sound files and translate them into mp3s to be put on the website as well as burn them into CDs for archiving purposes. This will be very helpful I believe but will also make the service more dependent on technology. Sunday I had a problem with my dependence on technology. I managed to print thewrong copy of the bulletins for the service because I forgot to save the most recent version before sending it to be printed. The result was that we basically did not have bulletins for the service. This was easily overcome by making quick copies of the call to worship and songs for the day. It raises the question, are we becoming too dependent on technology? Or perhaps if not too dependent, unneccesarily dependent. Perhpas I am wrong in this, but it seems that the service went fine even without bulletins.
There are two reasons to record the service ... archiveal purposes and to let people know what our worship is like. A number of people, myself included like to be able to listen to the pastor and the worship service as a way of checking out a congregation. These are both good things for a church, but are we adding too much extra? Suddenly there is one more thing to work on, one of more thing to go wrong each week. Are we building up a culture that is dependent on technology and in doing so limiting ourselves from simple, authentic worship. As soon as you beginning recording services there is a temptation to make sermons more than just worship but also a marketing tool. Meaningful theology can easily be exchanged for sound bytes. I am a begin fan of technology, but as I sit here typing on my laptop using wireless internet, I am just left to wonder if it is easy for it to go too far.

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