I have returned safely from my week away (more about that on Monday) but first I have one more short guest blog for you. This was sent to me by Tim Turner, the Principal Designer and founder of Subsplash and one of the creators of The Church App. Tim and I have been working together on some interesting and forthcoming projects. As I begin to reflect on my week away from all digital technologies, I appreciated Tim’s words of gratitude for them.
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We’re a spoiled bunch. As 21st century techno-geeks, we have gadgets that give us everything at our fingertips. We break into fits of rage when we have to wait 2 seconds for page-loads, the Twitter Fail Whale, and the occasional commercial on Pandora. We throw a fit when we don’t have perfect 3G coverage on our iPhone 4. It’s so easy to get upset about these things. And it’s even easier to rationalize it. I know this because I do it.
Not only do we suffer from “Chronological-Snobbery,” as C. S. Lewis calls it (thinking that because we’re the latest, we’re also the greatest), but I would also pose that we suffer from Technological-Snobbery (thinking that we deserve the perfected latest and greatest).
We should really take a minute to chill out and remember God’s grace and blessing. We are at an amazing point in history and we should celebrate that with humility. We get to experience some extraordinary advances, especially as Christians. To read the Bible, we don’t need to walk mile upon dusty mile to read a handwritten scroll. We can flip open our phone and access 40 different translations, with cross-references, notes, commentary, devotions, and more. We can access decades of sermons from many incredible Bible teachers and churches both in audio and video forms, all on-demand anywhere in the world. Having all these resources available to us at the tap of a finger is a great and wonderful blessing that we should not take for granted. It’s important that we not put ourselves in the middle of the iUniverse—even though our phones are called iPhone. It’s not about us. It’s about God and His work that he’s doing through Jesus and His church. People are meeting Jesus and we’re experiencing His Truth in amazing ways. If that takes an extra 2 seconds, I’ll try to be ok with that.