The church needs to be thinking outside the sanctuary, not only in the near term during COVID, but long after. Many church leaders are more than ready to welcome people back into sanctuaries, to see faces, shake hands, offer hugs. But that focus may risk distracting some leaders from considering what their hybrid churches will need over the coming year. So what should we spend our time doing?
Does it make sense to give up devices and social media like this? C.S. Lewis actually had something to say about this. Lewis, of course, never dreamed of anything like Facebook or even the internet. But we aren’t the first generation to notice technology changing our habits and lifestyles. Lewis once received a letter from a gentleman asking his advice about “motoring.” Here’s what Lewis had to say in a letter from 1956…
Of the 150 or so acres making up Willow Creek Community Church’s main campus, a full 8 acres are devoted to buildings. Parking lots cover more than 28. That ratio demonstrates just how important cars are to most churches today.
Are computers simply higher life forms? Are we all headed that way? Is it program or perish? Some people today truly think so. They see downloading the mind into a computer as humanity’s hope for immortality.
Every technological innovation has benefits and consequences. The benefits convince us to adopt it. But the consequences often come to light only later. For technologists, Deuteronomy 22:8 commends itself. It offers a principle that can guide ethical innovation.
Amazon PrimeAir showed us that drones can carry “death from above” or, as one writer put it, “showers of blessings.” Now that Bezos has turned drones on their head, we have a chance to ask “Is technology really neutral?”
Video venues are perhaps the clearest example of how technology is changing church. As these video campuses have spread churches out, another shift is going on—one that is no longer spatial, but psychological.