Jesus + Rick Warren + Technology = Transformation
For some reason in my twitter feed a link to a Church IT RoundTable (CITRT) or as the uber Geeks call themselves 'CITRT' popped up. A minute later (thanks to the organisation of CITRT) I was watching Rick Warren talk to this room of 'Super Church IT Knights Of The Round Table.
Just as an aside, the acronym CITRT does remind me an organisation that someone like James Bond or the Man From Uncle would be fighting against. I would imagine all of the CITRT operatives to be wearing black polo necks and tight 70's style pants with an evil, knowing looking in there eyes. Hopefully CITRT don't have plans for world domination. Just yet.
But I digress.
Rick made some great points that I expand on:
1) The Reformation would never have happened without the printing press. (Yes, yes Rick, church history is fun.) The printing press allowed the Bible to be printed into the native German language and ignite the protestant movement. Brilliant. Rick's point was well made. At different times in history, technology allowed the gospel to spread like it has never done before. The internet, socia media such as Facebook, Twitter etc are all playing their part in the spread of the gospel. The sleeping giant is mobile internet. I unpacked that a little further in a previous post.
2) The number one goal in church technology is to make the big church small. Crossway is a very large church and we are in the process of implementing a church management system (ChMS) which will help us pastorally care for all age groups, help people to connect into life groups, register for events, check in their kids at the weekend (and track their attendence and pastorally care for them), and enable people to volunteer online.
3) The message never changes, but the methods have to. In ten years time we will be talking about some new amazing tool that will help us care for people, or spread the gospel over whatever the internet looks like. The exciting part of me? IThis tool hasn't even been invented yet. Our methods to spread the gospel will always change, but the heart of the gospel message is the same. Web 2.0? So yesterday.
4) It's more important to change lives than be cool. Twitter. Facebook. Blogging. Online Streaming. Internet Church. Mac computers. All. Cool. But being cool isn't our goal. Changed lives are. As good as these methods are, they are just methods. Changed lives are the goal.
5) My goal and your goal is the global glory of God. It's not about making our mark. It's about making His mark.
As a communicator I rely on IT peeps to implement alot of what I start. Without them. I'm mostly redundant. Thanks to all of you. Geek on.
Related posts
Church Marketing Myth No. 1
Church Marketing Myth No. 2
Church Marketing Myth No. 3
Church Marketing Everything
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