Technology and the Church

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Technology and the Church
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Technology Friend and Foe

• Neil Postman
• most people believe that technology is a staunch
  friend it makes life easier, cleaner and longer
  Its gifts are not without a heavy cost it
  creates a culture without a moral foundation. It
  undermines certain mental processes and social
  relations that make human life worth living

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Technology and the Church

• Exposing the problem that technology has created
  in communicating Theology, Doctrine, and the
  Gospel

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Technology and the Church

• What problem?
• The History of our communication problem.
• Text Me Communication Today!
• What are the current communication tools?
• From Smoke Signals to Books to Twitter
• What is the problem with todays communication
  tools?
• What should we then do?
• Is this a fad or a paradigm shift in
  communication?

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What Problem?

• Remember When?
• People would travel from miles around to listen
  to a three hour debate.
• Lincoln-Douglas Debates
• Lincolns Gettysburg Address was an anomaly
• Two hour sermons brought revival instead of a
  pink slip.

• Chicago Newpaper Reporter re Abraham Lincoln
  (1858)
• "Of his speech I will only say that it lasted
  three hours, and that during all that time the
  whole audience seemed perfectly wrapt in
  attention"
• Timothy Turner
• Consider the old preaching modelhearers came to
  church with a sober-minded sense of
  responsibility to pay attention to and to
  concentrate on the sermon regardless of whether
  or not the sermon was effortless to hear or
  enjoyable to experience.

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I Dont See a ProblemTV

• I dont even remember the 60s and 70s
• More than POT and LSD
• Sesame Street, the Great Educator
• Not Lazy, just streamlined
• Active to Passive
• My Job to Your Job
• Work to Entertainment
• Learning in the 80s and 90s
• Tell ME Why I Should Listen!
• Be Quick Re-engage Me!
• Entertain ME!

• Neil Postman
• Our cultures adjustment to the epistemology of
  television is by now all but complete we have so
  thoroughly accepted its definitions of truth,
  knowledge, and reality that irrelevance seems to
  us to be filled with import, and incoherence
  seems eminently sane.
• Timothy Turner
• Every adult in your congregation has watched
  30-40,000 hours of TV the people to whom you
  preach have a love affair with TV.

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I Still Dont See a Problemtwitter
The more I press in to Him, the more He presses
me out to be useful
Nothing u do 4 the lord is in vain.
I have a hard time recognizing God in the middle
of everything
Nice shirt JVo
Sometimes healing is painful
To be selfless, humble
He has given me so much
could you in your church?
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Talk to Me!

• The Technologies
• Email
• IM / Texting
• Blog
• Personal
• Facebook
• Discussion
• SharperIron
• Twitter
• The Style
• Short Messages
• Coherency and Cohesion Optional
• Multiple Conversations

• George Barna
• technologies have begun to rewire the ways in
  which people (especially the young) meet,
  express themselves, use content and stay
  connected.
• TIME
• the creation of Twitter is as significant and
  paradigm-shifting as the invention of Morse code,
  the telephone, radio, television or the personal
  computer.

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Smoke Signals?

• Communication Mediums
• Smoke Signals
• Books
• Twitter

• Marshall McLuhan
• The medium is the message

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What Should We Then Do?

• Remember Step 1
• Admit we have a problem
• Challenge the Source of the Problem

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Technology and the Church - Recap

• History of our Communication Problem
• Some Current Communication Tools
• Problem with Todays Communication
• Fad or Paradigm Shift?

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Bibliography

• Gilley, Gary E. This Little Church Went to Market
  The Church in the Age of Entertainment. Fairfax
  VA Xulon Press, 2002.
• Postman, Neil. Amusing Ourselves to Death
  Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business. New
  York Penguin Books, 1985.
• Postman, Neil. Technopoly The Surrender of
  Culture to Technology. New York Vintage Books,
  1993.
• Turner, Timothy A. Preaching to Programmed People
  Effective Communication in a Media-Saturated
  Society. Grand Rapids, MI Kregel Resources,
  1995.

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To Continue the Discussion

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