A New Thing

Do not remember the former things,
     or consider the things of old.
I am about to do a new thing;
     now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?

--Isaiah 43:18-19, New Revised Standard Version

USA Today recently reported on a major shift in our culture.  The headline caught my eye, "States Hanging Up on Land Lines."  The article said that Indiana, Wisconsin, Alabama, Kentucky, and Ohio have allowed public service communication companies to discontinue land-line telephone services in their states.  This is not our grandparents' generation.  New things are coming.

That caused me to remember stories about my Uncle Louie, who opposed the expansion of telephone lines in his rural neighborhood in the Twentieth Century.  Uncle Louie apparently saw little use for having party-line phones in every home.  Maybe he objected to having the landscape marred with poles and wires or maybe he saw danger in wasting too much precious time by gossipping over the phone.  Whatever his reason, Uncle Louie was remembered for his crusading spirit on the issue of the telephone.  He was slow to embrace technology.

Churches in the "mainline" are also slow to embrace technology that will assist them in the proclamation of their mission.  Thirty years ago, many of the churches I knew had one phone line that rang in the church office (if there was one) and in the parsonage.  The phones were all of the rotary type.  Parish halls and sanctuaries had no phones in them.  We were slow to get in the Twentieth Century. 

I recall when the Council President in the first church where I served after seminary suggested we replace the aging typewriter with a computer.  My Uncle Louie would have been proud of me, for I argued that we needed to purchase a new self-correcting typewriter instead.  Why in the world would we need a computer?  The idea seemed absurd in 1982.  When the church purchased a computer instead of a typewriter, I was hooked.  How reactionary I had been! 

No, technology is not our salvation; it is but a tool.  The way we use it makes all the difference.  I must confess that I'm not a big fan of projectors and screens in our sanctuaries.  I still appreciate a sermon that is grounded in the texts of scripture.  I like hymns with theological depth rather than endless, mindless choruses.  But, I probably should examine all of those attitudes carefully, for I am, when all is said and done, my Uncle Louie's nephew.

O God, open my eyes, that I may perceive your new thing, and open my spirit to embrace it.

Amen.