Category Archives: Pastoral Ministry

Is the Church too High-tech?

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Hanging out with a lot of pastors for the ten days of Family Camp is good for me. It’s good because of those who encourage me, those whose perspectives stretch me, and even those who get under my skin.

This year, I observed something I hadn’t before: A stagnancy of those who refuse to embrace new technologies compared with the vibrancy of those who do. I know — vibrancy should not come from technology; it should come from the Holy Spirit. But let me tell you what I saw.

On one hand you have the pastor who resists technological change. He hates facebook, although he’s never been on it. He mocks tweets and twitters. His church doesn’t even have a web site. He’s almost a Luddite in his perspective on such things. If people want to hear from him, “…they can read the bulletin and listen to the sermon.” I can type whatever negative thing I want about the pastors in this camp because they won’t even read this blog. The problem is that he is only speaking the language of part of our society. He’s refusing to adjust the medium of his message. Believe it or not, I actually heard, some 20 years ago, an older pastor making the same case concerning technology — namely the technology of a sound system. I remember one gentleman saying to me, “We don’t need these loud speakers here at camp. People have forgotten how to listen. We need to teach their ears to hear!” What!? The mission of the church is to teach people to hear without technology!? We would all say that’s absurd. But frankly, a churches reluctance to embrace today’s mobile technology is not dissimilar.

On the other hand you have the pastor who has embraced technological change. I like to think I am this guy, but I am not. I am trying. This pastor has his hand on the pulse of technology. He emails. He has a church web site. He blogs. He uses facebook. You can text him on his phone. He might even tweet every now and again. You can listen to his sermons on your smartphone. You can find current information about the church on the web site. To a wireless generation, this pastor seems relevant. They feel they can connect with him as they could a friend. His ministry seems vibrant.

OK — now hear this: The technology does not make his ministry vibrant. The Spirit does. But the work the Spirit is doing in him is as important as the work the Spirit is doing through him. Part of that inner work is helping him adjust to changes necessary in ministry. May I suggest that, in a way, the Spirit of God is teaching him to blog. And by the way, you can tell a Spirit-filled blogger from one who is not, right? So technology does not guarantee vibrancy any more than a lack of technology guarantees stagnancy. But resistance to technology does suggest something about the pastor. Permit me to illustrate this:

When she was in her seventies, my mother got a computer. She wanted to get on that “email web thing.” And she did. She learned to email, to surf, to look at blogs, to go to family picture sites, to listen to sermons from my church web site. Why? Why did she do that? The answer is that she saw her children and grandchildren doing it and she wanted to connect with them because…. SHE LOVED THEM.

Hmm… How does the Luddite pastor compare with Mom? From my perspective, and from the perspective of many of the tech-savvy, he simply doesn’t care enough to climb the learning curve and get into the digital stream. Sadly, he is like the guy in the 1950′s who refused to get a telephone — disconnected, disenfranchised, and soon to be disaffected.

Perhaps the greatest technological advance in history was the invention of the printing press. Think about it — before the printing press, there were no Bibles in homes. Readers were rare. No one was doing family devotions. How did Christians respond to this new technology? Thank God they embraced it. Accounts vary, but many historians agree that the first book published on Gutenberg’s machine was the Gutenberg Bible, in 1454.

So, is the church too high-tech? Well, it seems to me that, if we, as Christians believe it is our job to influence people for Jesus, leading them to turn from their sin and trust in his sacrificial death on their behalf, then we will embrace every tool we possibly can.

Oh — and by the way, if you have Luddite tendencies, this post probably got under your skin. Welcome to Family Camp!

Grace — It’s Positive Energy…

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I read today about the essentiality — yeah, that’s a word — of optimism in leadership. Corporations headed by pessimists, whether they be churches or tech giants, seldom overcome obstacles necessary to grow.  I need to be optimistic. What’s frustrating is how easy it is to be negative. It’s easier to say, “Nazareth?! Can anything good come from there,” than it is to say, “We have found the Christ,” (John 1). And it’s easy to be swayed by negative energy. It has a power to stifle both productivity and creativity.

Today I was feeling anything but positive about what God was doing in my life… until the UPS man came to my door. No, he didn’t drop off that 65 inch television I’ve been dreaming about. Instead, he dropped off the cross that we ordered to replace the one Anna bought in memory of her husband. You may recall the original cross had been stolen. Immediately, Laurel and I hopped into the car and headed up to see Anna. As we drove, I shared my negative feelings with Laurel and my struggle to be optimistic.

Then we arrived at Anna’s home. She showed us in and we talked about her health, the church, her home, and her family. I showed her the new cross and told her the story of how God had provided a larger cross for the same price as the smaller one with which we’d all been dissatisfied. We rejoiced together. We then prayed together, taking time to pray that the person who had stolen the original cross would turn to Jesus and find forgiveness. That was a great visit, but probably not for the reasons you would expect. It wasn’t because of the prayer. It wasn’t because of the new cross. It was because Anna epitomizes grace. Grace toward the thief. Grace toward her brothers and sisters in Christ. And grace toward people who crank out negative energy. She was so gracious and positive I left feeling like a completely different person. I said to Laurel, “Every now and then, God surprises you with a person who brings incredible joy.” Such people are people of grace.

As you go to God in prayer, may I suggest praying three ways:

  1. Pray that you can be a person of grace, for people of grace are anything but negative.
  2. Pray that God would use you to be a gracious influence on people around you so that when they leave they feel like life is a good thing.
  3. Pray for those who struggle with negativity — that God will so bless them they can’t help but see him in the world around them.

Oh — and pray for me, that I might have the optimism essential to ministry and life.

Let your conversation be always full of grace… (Colossians 4)

John Piper and Rick Warren…

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People have opinions. Not necessarily well-reasoned or, in this case, well-informed opinions. I saw it this past week at General Council.

I presented this question, “What do you think about Mark Driscoll?” to a number of people, including my own peers, students, denominational leaders, and seminary professors. Respondents fell into one of three groups:

  1. They loved him.
  2. They didn’t like him (’cause Alliance folk don’t hate).
  3. They didn’t know him.

What stood out to me (Laurel mentioned it first) was that each of those who didn’t like him gave the same answer, using the same words and phrases, as though they had read it from the same source. Probably the same blog.

It reminded me of something that happened a few years ago. I was with a group of pastors, many of whom were trashing The Purpose Driven Life. My friend, George, asked one of the more vocal men, “Have you read the book?” You know the answer, right?

Today, George pointed me to an interview of Rick Warren, conducted by one of the most well-respected, theologically precise pastors of our day, John Piper. In this excellent interview, Piper begins with these words:

Frankly, I’m appalled at the kinds of slanders that have been brought against this book by people whose methods of critique, if they were consistently applied to the Bible, would undo it as the Word of God. ….I am one of these Reformed types and my type tends to get on your case pretty often, and when I read the book I thought, “What’s the issue here?”

The Piper / Warren Interview is here.

Take a listen. Or better yet, read the book for yourself. You can read the first few chapters here.