I’ve been thinking about this post for over a week now. I first thought of it when I saw a similar Father’s Day related post on GIGAOM. Even after taking all this time, I still don’t know how tech has made me a better Christian. In fact, I might need to change the title to this post: Has Tech Made Me a Better Christian?
Without making too many Lee Majors/Six Million Dollar Man references, how has technology made us better…faster…strong? (I had to make at least one reference. ;-))
I’m sure that we can find ways that tech has made us “worse” Christians—pornography and other soul pollution, social withdraw for the sake of social media, distraction from our time with God, etc.—but is there a positive flip-side?
Here are a two improvements I’ve found*:
Portable Devotions
Thanks to YouVersion, I can take my Bible everywhere, and that has helped me to connect with God wherever I am. When I’m stuck waiting for an appointment or when my wife has disappeared into the merchandising maze that is TJ Maxx, I’ve been able to load up YouVersion and dive into God’s Word. Granted, devotions-on-the-go can’t be your long-term strategy for reading the Bible, but it can help to reconnect you throughout your day, serving as a supplement to your larger time of prayer and study.
Instant Proclamation
Now, with social media integration, I can instantly proclaim the Gospel and/or share a passage of Scripture from my devotion that I find meaningful or important. I love being able to share with my friends and family from the Bible, and it warms my heart to see others do so. I can’t stand those psuedo-Christian “Click ‘Like’ if you love Jesus” status updates, but I love it when I see people from my community and especially form my church getting into God’s Word and sharing it with others.
Technology is a tool: it’s supposed to make things easier or better or whatever.
Does technology actually help us become better disciples of Christ? Or are we just fitting into the tech-obsessed culture around us?
In what way has technology made you a better Christian?
*And yes, I know that each of these positives have their own negative flip-side. Nothing’s perfect.
Chris says
Some good points here! As a technology company, we’ve been pondering this topic a lot at the Church Community Builder headquarters. The conversation lead to us publishing an ebook talking about 7 ways technology helps churches win at making disciples. Might be some more thoughts for you to ponder and add to your resource arsenal:
http://www.churchcommunitybuilder.com/ebook/
I’d also challenge the better “Christian” part. I think some can define themselves as “Christian” but have a very shallow relationship with God. I think technology plays a big role in deepening their relationship with God AND with others. Especially in our industry, we see time and time again how technology plays a huge role in bringing people to know Jesus on a very deep and personal level.
It’s truly the heartbeat of why we do what we do.
Thanks for the post!
Phil Schneider says
Chris, that’s awesome! I’ve downloaded you’re e-book—can’t wait to read it! Thanks for sharing!
isaac says
For me it is first about audio and second about finding good stuff. What I mean is, audio bible and books. I listen to WAY more bible than I read, and I read a lot. Listened to gospel of john 8 times in two weeks recently and really get into the text. Meant to read Knowing God by JI Packer for 10 years, never got around to it til I got the audio book, and man is it a good book. Finding good stuff I mean mostly podcast and some blogs that energize me.
Phil Schneider says
What are some of the podcasts & blogs that help you? I love Ravi Zacharias’ podcasts. (And Knowing God is a very good book. I’ve read it about three times!)
NET Bible says
The ability to get Bible study resources into people’s hands around the world quickly and at no cost to them and low cost to the provider is one of the greatest things we’ve seen at Bible.org. We provide the NET Bible for free download (http://bible.org/downloads) and in an online web app (http://net.bible.org) that is really useful for Bible studies. Its has been especially effective in helping Christian leaders in parts of the world where Biblical reference works are hard to come by.