Technology and the Church ...

It started with the Gestetner (remember those??), then came adding machines, calculators, amplifers and microphones ... from there came electric typewriters and on to computers ... then came pagers, cel phones and even PDAs ... Like the modern business world, the Church is not immune to the use and utilization of technology in the life and ministry we embark upon.

Even in Minnedosa computers and cels are the rule of the day. In many ways, we can't do the work of the Church without the technology. Finances are done on the computer ... bulletins are done on the computer ... sermons are done on the computer ... even the lowly cel phone plays a role in keeping in touch with the community around us.

Our fire on Feb 12th showed the strengths and the weaknesses of our dependency on technology ... the fire cut off the telephone lines - yet, that simple fact didn't stop people from calling the Church phone number (bear with me on this - the fire leveled the building - yet, people continued to phone ... luckily for us, we had a phone company voice mail service, and not an answering machine) - nonetheless, for the first couple of days after the fire, I was able to check the voice mail from home, or from my cel phone. The cel phone too became indispensible in the days prior to establishing and getting an office running. It rang constantly and I have no doubt my air time is off the scale ...

Then in the hours and days that came right after the fire, the internet and the web became an equally indispensible means of communication. The blog I had established earlier for the posting of Church news quickly became a means of keeping our Church family around the world in touch with what was happening. The record of hits on the site meter I put on the blog site, had a wide variety of countries represented - from all over Canada, across the US, Australia, New Zealand, Finland, Thailand and others ... People from around the world came and visited the blog.

Emails have come and gone from a wide variety of places. Words of encouragement and best wishes from across the United Church and from sisters and brothers of faith ... technology can be an amazing thing.

Rightly used it is a means of communications and even community ... wrongly used it can be a means of devestation and destruction ... Thankfully in Minnedosa recently we've proven the benefits of the technology around us.

dayenu,