It's on mornings like this, however, that I begin to appreciate what a mediated life I really live. As I walked, I began to feel clear.  I had no music playing, no t.v. or computer to look at and no clock dictating my every step. It was me and my neighborhood. There is something significant that happens when we step out from our environmentally controlled homes and workplaces and put aside the technology that fills in our days.  We come one step closer to connecting with reality--not the pre-processed, virtual kind of reality, but the real kind.  The kind where we have no technology sitting between us and creation. The kind where we catch a bigger glimpse of who our creator is.

This kind of reality gives us silence and a space to think.  It gives us fresh air and the clarity to breathe. Its on mornings like this that I wonder what I sacrifice as my world becomes increasingly contained and mediated.  Walking in a brisk Minnesota morning reminds me that God has so much more for me than highly scheduled days, exhausted evenings and a life that settles for controlled and superficial experiences. Reality can be a little uncomfortable (yes, my cheeks were pretty much frozen as I walked back up my driveway after my walk), but sometimes that clarity and that space are exactly what we need to reconnect and wake up to the adventure that God has prepared just for us.

As nice as this pre-processed worship experience is, it dawned on me that worship--true worship--probably can not be mediated. Just watching moving pictures or listening to electrified music is not worship. And just like the technology that is put between me and my pastor mediates and changes our relationship, so is my worship experience changed when it is mediated by someone else doing the worship work for me. Real worship happens when I enter in.  When my entire body, mind and soul becomes engaged in praising God, that is when I catch a glimpse of the awesome power of God--that is when I catch a glimpse of a God who is overwhlemingly bigger than any problem or hang up I might have.

Unfortunately, those true worship experiences don't happen that often.  I tend to get caught up in the technology and the experience that has been pre-processed for me.  It makes me lazy and only involves part of my being.  But every now and then, I let it go. I remember why I am really there--not to be entertained but to participate--not to have someone else bring me to the throne of God, but to enter in myself.

So, I think this Sunday, I won't think so much.  I won't worry about what everyone else is doing.  I won't wait for the billowing clouds or the musical interludes.  I will be committed to humble myself and enter into the presence of the Almighty God.

First of all, Marshall McLuhan's voice rings in my ears...the medium is the message.  Well, the medium is a sleek, shiny gadget with a touch screen and colors that will make my book reading more toteable and certainly more sophisticated.  The message, however, may be that the multi-functional device will make my reading time multi-purposed. The upside is that I no longer need to spend my time JUST reading--imagine how much more productive I can be.  The downside, however, is that reading a book is one of the very few things I do that is concentrated, single purposed, and focused. The new iPad may be the next step in taking away what little focus I have left in my life.

The second possible problem is that this new gadget adds one more layer to the complexity and consumerism I like to call my modern life.  I hate to say it, but sometimes the simple things are the best.  As I search for more places to stuff my old phones, dead computers, analogue tv's, chords, adapters, and headphones, I can't help but wonder if I really need all this stuff.  After all, sometimes chopping an onion with a knife instead of a Ronco slicer-dicer might be the choice that simplifies my life. And sometimes reading in bed with a book--the old fashioned kind with real pages--may be the solution that keeps my bank account in better shape, my closet easier to use, and my life less complex. As hard as it is to say, sometimes I don't need the newest and the fastest and the best. Scripture has ALOT to say about how we spend our money.  (Something about where our treasure is our hearts will soon follow.)

So, does that mean that Steve Jobs has introduced just one more way to sabatouge our future and destroy our humanity?  Well, probably not. I guess it means, however, that I can wait a little while longer to see if this cool new toy will really add some value to my day or just clutter up an already overcrowded life.

As much as we have always tried to keep my son's life as uncomplicated as possible, this recent trip to the ICU has reminded me how very fragile his life is and how close we live every day to chaos.  Today, he has a machine breathing for him, a tube feeding him, and a bed that turns him every 10 minutes to help clear his lungs. I sit here on a Sunday morning, contemplating God's love for my son. Put quite plainly, my son wouldn't be here if it wasn't for the technology that often complicates his life. Just like God works through nature and simple beauty, he also works through ugly and cluttered technologies. He works through the curt and dismissive doctor at the same time he works through a mother's loving caress.  God is here in this hospital room and, even though he may be difficult to hear through the noisy machines, he ministers to my heart more clearly than he does on a silent summer day.  I guess this may be the ultimate joining of live-giving technology and soul-refreshing faith. 

These are just some of the questions I struggle with as I attend a church I have grown to appreciate immensely.  The church is relevant and effective.  It is making a difference in our community. But how does a mediating technology like the video feed impact the experience?  After all, it is a big church, 13,000 people, and if I saw the pastor in person, he certainly wouldn't see me or change anything based on my presence. So whether I experience him in person or through a video feed probably doesn't impact him.

One thing author and pastor Shane Hipps suggests is that this kind of set up communicates something very specific about the gospel.  It says that only a few individuals are skilled enough to preach.  Only a few professional musicians are skilled enough to sing. The rest of us must acknowledge our limitations and simply take in what we are presented.  I'm not so sure. 

When I am part of the audience in a remote location, I am still there, worshipping with other people.  I am still experiencing some sort of community.  After all, watching a movie alone in my living room is different than watching in a theater with a crowd full of people.  The theater experience "connects" me to a larger community.  It helps me "feel' things in a richer way.  An audience also helps focus in on things that are particularly important, whether it means laughing at things that are funny or being completely silent when things are significant. Maybe the role of the audience is more important for the audience members. The sermon may be mediated, but the group experience is not.  Maybe that is just as important.  So, the next time the audience struggles with whether they should clap for a video person, I think I will join in, to remind people that I am there and we are all in this together.

Source: The Hidden Power of Electronic Culture (http://www.shanehipps.com/) by Shane Hipps - ISBN: 9780310262749

This is a difficult hospitilization because I struggle with whether the doctors and all of their technology and medicine are really helping my son or actually making him worse. Because his "healthy" state is never very far away from his "sick" state, the doctors tend to opt for safe rather than sorry and plug him into the high-tech, biophysical approach to health care at the smallest sign of trouble. However, when all is said and done, it is probably the soft songs sung in his ear, the cuddly stuffed animal cradled in his arm, or the KungFu Panda video playing on the tv that provides the deepest healing.

Technology has saved my son's life on several occasions and I thank God for talented medical technicians. However, I also thank God for the kind words spoken by the neurologist, the sweet caring provided by the nurses, and the patient humility and diligence shown by the group home workers. We can never forget the person who lies amidst the technology--whether it is in a hospital room or on Facebook. God has created us to respond to one another in deep and meaningful ways. We can't let technology overshadow our need for one another or reduce our willingness to open up and communicate in a way that touches the heart.

I recently attended a lecture by Bible professor Dr. Michael Holmes at Bethel University.  He described how the physical form of the Bible has changed over history.  He left us with a question--how does the form of scripture impact how we use and understand it?  It is a great question highlighted by the attached Youtube video.

Take for example ancient tablets. These things were actual rocks with words carved on the flat surfaces.  Needless to say,  an entire set of writings would be pretty heavy.  As a result, very few communities had access to anything more than part of scripture.  The rest was communicated orally because most people couldn't read anyway. So the question is, how was their faith experience different? 

For one thing, scripture reading and teaching was a corporate event.  Individuals would have to depend on the priest to do the interpretation.  That gave a lot of power to the priest but also emphasized the community over the individual. Could you imagine never having the experience of sitting by yourself in a corner with your Bible and having a nice little quiet time? That contemplation happened in a group and it happened orally.  People had to memorize scripture if they wanted access to it ouside of the Sabbath.  In a certain sense, when someone memorizes and talks through scripture, it seems to stick. An oral approach to scripture certainly has some great benefits.

Once the printing press came, that oral culture began to change.  Individuals suddenly had access to their own Bible. Can you imagine how exciting that would have been to get your very own Bible? The Bible would be a precious thing.  Maybe that meant that each word was more precious than it is today, or maybe it meant that the Bible itself became something so precious it wasn't to be touched and certainly didn't apply to the trivial and dirty things of everyday life. The biggest change was that scripture reading became an individual event.  Individuals could read and interpret things on their own. It is possible that this one piece of technology did more than anything to move Christianity from a corporate to an individual experience.

So where does that leave us today? With the iPhone, we can read the Bible anytime and anywhere.  With Google and sites like Biblegateway.com, we have access to information about exegesis, archeology, history, translations, and various interpretations--all at our fingertips.  These new technologies certainly help us become more informed consumers of scripture.  I wonder, however, if they might not add to the fragmentation that seems to exemplify our culture. I know when I read my daily devotional, I often neglect to read more than a small passage.  I rarely put it in context with the overall flow of the entire scripture. It is also possible that when reading scripture takes the same form as Googling good Italian restaurants, the reverance of the Bible is lost. On the other hand, because the Bible travels with us, perhaps it will ultimately become more part of us. We don't have to stop and have a preplanned daily devotional time, we can have devotional time whenever we have a few minutes. Perhaps, as referenced in the Youtube video, the technology will just get in the way of the message. When it comes down to it, the Bible is an inherently text-based medium.  As our culture moves more toward images, I wonder how that will effect the discipline of daily reading and memorizing of words. Perhaps the ideas rather than the actual words will become more important.  Perhaps the stories will be more emphasized than the doctrine.

According to Marshall McLuhan, the medium is the message.  If that is the case, the form the Bible takes really does make a difference. 

So where do you think we are headed?

For me it happened one evening in the middle of last winter. My husband and daughter were out doing their respective things. I was at home by myself, enjoying American Idol, checking e-mails and Facebook, watching my little plastic Christmas tree with the fiber optic lights turn bright shades of green, purple and red. Right at the time Simon Cowell was going to say something nasty, it happened. The power went out. I sat and looked at the dog, wondering what to do. I lit a few candles and waited. Nothing. A small seed of panic began to sprout. I called the electric company and they informed me the power might be out for an hour or two. The sprout of panic grew. I realized I had no idea what to do. I couldn't watch t.v., listen to music, read a book, or talk to anyone. It was just me and the dog and the dog was intent on sleeping. As minutes passed, I began to calm down and actually became accustomed to the quiet. I was alone with my thoughts for the first time in a long, long time. God had given me a gift. He had given me a true quiet time. I spent the next hour in prayer and thought. I began to feel more peaceful, more refreshed. Eventually, the lights, the t.v., the computer and the tree flashed backed on and quickly re-filled my life with noise--noise that suddenly felt invasive and artifical.

We need our quiet times--times that are unplugged from the technology that tends to clutter our lives. Silence helps us re-engage with our thoughts. It also gives us space to listen for God's small, still voice to touch our hearts and our minds. These times of complete worship or complete pleading with God remind us how utterly dependent we are on him for every part of our lives--and there is something surprisingly refreshing about that. I challenge you to turn down the noise in your life. Find a space where you are enveloped in silence and don't be afraid of what you might find. For me, it only took an area-wide power outage to understand how much I needed a little unplugged quiet time in my life.

As much as many college faculty colleagues of mine would like to hold out Facebook as a symbol of all that is wrong with today's culture, I would have to disagree. At the same time, I do have concerns with how I see Facebook slowly eroding my willingness to shut off my lap top, pick up the phone, and be a good friend. Facebook, as with any other technology, is only as good or as bad as the choices I make with it. Those choices, unfortunately, are often difficult to isolate as I automatically pop open my Facebook page and thoughtlessly scroll through the daily events of my friends' lives. Without being intentional about my Facebook use, I may slowly lose the deeper sense of connection I get when I am fully engaged in the life of a friend. Especially when I get busy, I find myself settling. The thing is, God wants more for us--he expects more from us. Friendships--true frienships--take time. They are messy and require us to sacrifice the time and energy we work so hard to keep for ourselves. They require us to break out of our cozy telecocoons, padded with wall posts and mini-feeds. The primary commandment is to love the lord our God with our entire heart, mind and soul. The second commandment is to love others as ourself. That requires commitment to quit settling for the Facebook version of friendship.

So what might that look like? I'm not saying we should unplug our Facebook connection. What I am saying is that we should truly plug in to our Facebook connection. That means really paying attention to the status posts left by our friends. I have found to do this well, I need to focus in on just a handful of friends. I can't commit to becoming truly involved in the lives of all 169 of my friends. I can, however, respond to a few true blue friends. My husband is especially good at this. As soon as he reads something interesting on a post, he picks up the phone and calls the person. He finds out so much more about what is going on and he communicates to his friend that he or she is someone of value. When I see on Facebook that someone is having a hard day with the kids, I pray for them or offer to babysit. When I see a student is studying hard, I'll send a private note of encouragement. With a little bit of intentionality and commitment,Facebook doesn't have to turn us into lazy friends. Facebook can be the manner in which we search for new ways to truly connect.

As I was studying the way technology is transforming our kids, I couldn't help but be struck by the realization that my technology was transforming me.  What was even more significant was that these transformations have had a direct impact on my faith.  It is quite possible that as I become better connected and more efficient with my technology, I am actually moving further and further away from a fulfilling, exciting and focused Christian life.  I would like to use this blog to contemplate different ways our technology impacts our faith--in both good ways and bad.  It is my hope that as we move into a wireless world, we take the time to take control of our technology and take control of the choices we have to use that technology in ways that are God-honoring and purpose-driven. 

So welcome to my new blog. Thanks for making the connection. TTFN