E-mail, cyberspace, Internet, information highway, CD ROM, telecommunications, modem, Ecunet, chat rooms, screen name, electronic archives, computer network, Christian Interactive Network, web site, online, AOL, Christianity Online, discussion folders, telephone bridge, compressed video link, flame wars, interactive TV - say what? If you know what half of these terms means chances are you have a computer attached to your fingertips and spend three to five hours a day "surfing the net".
Beginning approximately 1950 we left the "industrial age" and entered the "information age". There is more money to be made organizing information than producing new information. Supposedly, by the second decade of the 3rd millennium - 2020 - we will have transitioned to the bio-techno age. Computer chips will be integrated with organisms to produce new life forms. What an intriguing but scary concept. Christian futurists submit that when the creature becomes the creator Christ will come. Until that day ministry must continue.
Effective ministry now and in the future demands men and women of integrity committed to the redemptive activity of God. But what does the terrain look like? What does the ministry environment look like? What will it look like in the future? For 200 years concluding with the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 modernism promised a new world through the focus on and allegiance to reason, science and technology. All our problems would be solved. The results were terribly disappointing to say the least. The increasing pressures of data saturation, designed isolationism, frenetic lifestyles, relational poverty, institutional disillusionment, competing value systems, ethical bankruptcy and future uncertainties abound. Modernism's successor, postmodernism, promises little more. With its cynicism and skepticism, self-serving eclecticism, rejection of absolute truth, and "cafeteria" mentality where you go along a line of options, pick what you want and leave the rest postmodernism has no answers.
The world of today and tomorrow, should our Lord tarry, promises but one thing - CHANGE! Jay Kesler, commenting "on the road ahead" made the following observations. "Interactive television, college education delivered in our living rooms, shopping trips by remote cameras, diagnostic imaging, topographical and geological mapping, retrieval of information buried in ancient libraries, the tracking of small packages by satellite and hundreds more are all current realities. Technologies and applications are one thing. Their impact on human beings and our quality of life is quite another. It is the interface between mankind and technology that the modern challenge seems to exist."
What a wonderful time to minister for Christ. Rather than hide our heads in the proverbial sand we need to be like the men of Issachar who knew their times and knew what Israel should do. With relentless and often times chaotic change come unceasing pressures. Basic needs, suppressed by shear discipline in the past, are surfacing in the lives of people demanding attention. People are seeking spiritual meaning, ethical clarity, relational intimacy and practical answers to life's many problems. We have the answer and the answer is Christ. But how do we reach those who seem so unreachable? How do we relate? How do we meet them where they are at so that, by God's grace, we can bring them where they need to be - abiding in Christ?
As pastors and lay leaders we can no longer expect to remain "on the cutting edge" unless we are willing to look beyond our immediate circumstances and learn new ways to proclaim the gospel and build the church. If ministry leaders aren't agile and growing, see change as opportunity, and become "user-friendly" with technology to promote the gospel they may be paved over by the information highway and become a relic of the past. The message of the gospel is as relevant today as it was 2000 years ago. Ministry and its methodologies, however, must change with the times. The rate of change in the world is meteoric while the rate of change in most churches and ministry agencies is galatial in comparison. Instead of seeing technology as a threat why not make it an ally? According to a recent poll the average number of hours in a pastor's work week is 60. Let's make the most of the time.
We have access to a world of information through computers, a modem and a mouse pad. But unless that information becomes knowledge and knowledge becomes wisdom what's the point of accessing and acquiring more information. Information processed through the filter of Biblical understanding can bring order out of anarchy and chaos. In his book, Quantum Spirituality, Leonard Sweet suggested that "the human mind has a low 'byte rate.' We are slow in taking in data when it comes dribbling in. Yet at the same time the human mind has a 'high resolution.' When the information is set in a wider context, placed in larger patterns and purposes, the human mind can absorb almost limitless amounts of information because it can turn that data into knowledge."
Sweet goes on to say "if learning is knowledge transmission, wisdom is knowledge transaction. People are suffering from information anxiety, their minds' storage bins are stuffed with unstrung beads of information. People need help in selecting which bits of facts, figures, and forecasts to drop into the waste bin and which to retain and use (wisdom)." As pastors and lay leaders we are called to "inform" those to whom we seek to minister. To inform means to "give form to, put into form and shape." Sweet contends, and I agree, that "the purpose of the church is to give form to, to put into form and shape" the person and work of Christ. We are to interpret our cultural context through the lens of biblical principles and insight. We are to impart understanding, to communicate the abundant life available to all who call upon the name of Jesus.
The accumulation of information and the pursuit of knowledge is useless without wisdom to discern its meaning, relevance and function in our lives. According to Mary Midgley, author of Wisdom, Information, and Wonder: What is knowledge for?, "the devolution of wisdom into knowledge into information maybe the supreme source of degeneration in postmodern society." We can't let that happen. We must educate ourselves and those God has called us to serve. But even the practice of education has undergone drastic changes. Leith Anderson, Christian futurist and senior pastor of Woodale Church in Eden Prairie, Minnesota, compares the old approach with the new approach. "The old approach was more theoretical, time-and-place oriented, deductive, linear, sequential, process-oriented, long-term, and standardized (everyone fit into the same schedule and curriculum). The new approach is more practical, experiential, inductive, rooted in relationships with models and mentors, short term (like field trips, seminars, and retreats), interactive, hands-on, product-oriented, issue driven, and customized (offering options that fit individual needs)." This amazing shift has ramifications for academic institutions and churches alike.
Technology is not THE answer for man's dilemma. Technology is merely a tool, a means to a greater end, the transformation of the heart of man by the power of the Holy Spirit. Why not use it to further the gospel? Why not adapt it to ministry uses so that we can help others navigate through life? Technology is not to be feared it is to be used for the glory of God. The information highway can lead to wisdom if we take our directions from the word of God and apply them in our journey to spiritual maturity.
Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of men in their deceitful scheming (Ephesians 4:14). Be very careful, then, how you live-- not as unwise but as wise, making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil (Ephesians 5:15-16).
Copyright ©1997 G.W. Bourgond
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