The Downside of Technology

I am very grateful for technology. I really am. I am thankful that we did not go through Covid-19 fifteen years ago, before Zoom and other tools were readily available. I love the fact that our LIFEGroups can connect, discuss scripture, share requests, and pray for each other using the tools we have at our disposal. How cool is that! In fact, technology has recently allowed me to join my wife’s LIFEGroup, on the Sundays we prerecorded the service, or rebroadcast the 9:30 live service at 11. (We do that some Sundays 😀)

​I am delighted that we have the ability to broadcast our services into homes literally around the world. I love it when my daughter watches our services from Germany. I look forward to our weekly FaceTime visit with my son, Walker, and our sweet daughter-in-law, Christi, in Athens, Georgia. We even watched one of the services from their church in Athens last week… (I had to check out their broadcast as Walker works a camera for their AV ministry 😀). I love the many ways that technology provides a bridge for connection. I really do.

Technology is a blessing, but it can also be an excuse. While it allows for connection, it can also feed a sense of complacency and consumerism. At the same time that it takes away some of the barriers for not participating, it also reduces the effort and investment involved in participating. Easier is not always better. It is easy to turn on the laptop or the smart TV and check out of LIFEGroup or worship. It also makes it easy settle for a digital back row and hide behind convenience rather than risk vulnerability and the hard work of discipleship. One of my greatest fears during these days is that growing numbers of Christians will simply tune out, stop reading their Bibles, stop sharing their struggles, stop actively engaging in worship, and simply drift away. Jesus did not say that following him would be easy or convenient.

Mark 8:34 | The Way of the Cross

Then he called the crowd to him along with his disciples and said: “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.

The last time I checked, there is not a lot of self-denial involved in passive viewership. Sometimes the inconvenient things are the things that lead to growth.

Yours in Christ,

Chuck