Learning Curves...

Almost everyone I know in ministry is doing something new. We have become broadcasters. We are worried about "production values." Some are more worried than others. We are trying to figure out how to do pastoral care, evangelism, teaching, and leadership while not physically present with those we are trying to pastor, evangelize, teach, and lead.

Don't flinch. At least two times (probably more, but let's keep it simple) in the vast history of the Christian enterprise the Church has been at the cutting edge of technological innovation. First there was the codex. At a very early date the church deliberately chose to preserve the New Testament in the Codex (folded book) form. This reflected a desire to leverage an emerging technology to gain some kind of an advantage. We are not even sure what advantage was being sought; cost, transportability, size have all been posited-we don't really know. Whatever the reasoning the New Testament, for all intents and purposes, broke away from the tradition of recording and preserving religious literature on scrolls.

Second the Church was at the very heart of the printing revolution which began with the emergence of Gutenberg's printing press. Some would even think that the Protestant Reformation was more a matter of printing than preaching. Again a new technology was adapted and whatever went before exists only in memory.

I don't think that things will be quite that drastic this time around. We will return to gathering in our church-houses. We will visit the sick in hospital and the lonely in their homes. We will preach and teach God's Word. We will make an appeal to the lost, and shepherds will meet and consider how to lead the flock. But make no mistake-we have new tools and we need not fear using them. When the leaning curve is so steep and the stakes are so great why abandon newly learned skills when they can extend the reach of ministry. That is today's Bobservation.