As fun and cool as new technology, there can be a down side.
What once was a job, becomes an automated process done by a machine. So, as technology rises, some jobs go by the wayside.
At the same time, new types of employment merge onto the scene!
“Sparks & Honey, a New York trend-spotting firm, has a wall in its office where staff can post imaginative next-generation jobs.”
Cool idea, right?
Here are some of what they’ve come up with (narration from CEO Terry Young, via FastCoExist):
Digital Death Manager
“Life-logging” will be a way of life, affecting how we record and remember what we do. Young sees a role for someone who can take the mass of life-logged material, and make stories out of it. That could be useful during our lives (for personal-brand purposes) but also in death. “Today, it happens only with important people. Andy Warhol has a foundation, and so on. We’re imagining this is going to ladder down to other people who want to shape what their legacy means,” Young says.
3-D Printing Handyman
Today when your handyman fixes something, he usually has to order a spare part from China. One day, he might print it right in your yard. Say you need to replace the pipe under your sink. Why wait for the whole thing to come in from out of the country, when it can be done there and then? We already have 3-D printed shower heads, after all.
Digital Detox Specialist
The digital “overload” will become even more overwhelming. That will open the way for people who can help lead less data-centric lives, or at least find a better balance. In some cases, they will even organize digital rehabs. It’s going to get that bad (actually, it already is).
The Urban Shepherd
With cities getting greener, we’ll need “urban shepherds” to look after the new infrastructure. “You need someone who is going to take care of the urban beehives, who’s going to make sure your composting is set up correctly, and who is going to know how to curate all the vertical gardens,” Young says.
(There are four more via FastCoExist)
Future Ministries in the Church
These are all really cool ideas. I particularly like The Urban Shepherd and I could certainly see something like the Digital Detox Specialist finding a nitché in church ministry for sure.
What do you think?
What kind of ministry jobs/roles/positions do you see arising, on the rise, or becoming far more valuable than ever before, come 2025?
[via FastCoExist | Image via x-ray delta one via Compfight cc]
Adam Shields says
It is an interesting question that depends a lot of what you think the church will look like in 2025.
Ed Stetzer had a post yesterday about the fact that ‘giga-churches’ (never heard the term before, it is churches over 10,000) are not building 10,000 seat or even 5,000 seat sanctuaries any more. Instead most are building 1000-1500 seat sanctuaries in a variety of locations, going multi-site and limiting their central locations.
So today we have not only web departments, but the multi-site requirements for maintaining both staff and programming over both large and small distances.
I don’t think we would predict that a church (Lifechurch.tv) would have one of the most popular bibles in the world. Or that app development is a real thing for churches.
I think whatever happens in the world of computing, Evangelicals in particular and the greater church in general will figure out how to adapt it to the church world.
What would I like to see? A bigger focus on spiritual direction (and in-house spiritual directors).
More used of technology for equipping parents to do their own teaching of children about spiritual matters (my church has started putting together take home boxes for parents to teach lessons to their kids and has web and phone apps to support that.)
Also the more technologically focused we as a society get, the more important it will be for the church to have real live people for mentoring, teaching, counseling and organization. There are many things that can be automated, but many roles of the church cannot be.
Eric Dye says
Great thoughts, Adam, thanks!
Dan Stephens says
I’m a small church guy, and even though I’m on staff whatever techie stuff I do, I do as a volunteer. I doubt a church my size (over 50 people / week is a good week) will ever hire a full time communications specialist, but I imagine that Church Communications Consultants of some type or other will become pretty common. Someone who helps churches to write effective communication plans, then trains their staff and volunteers to execute it, and may even to some of the web dev for them.
Eric Dye says
That’s a cool idea. One person helping many churches for a reasonable fee.
Adam Shields says
A friend of mine works as a virtual church administrative assistant. And a lot of what she does is writing communications for the churches she works with. I agree, outsourcing particular tasks that require expertise should become much more common. And the ability to make a living from doing those tasks should become easier.
Dan Stephens says
There’s already a pretty good freelance market on places like odesk.com or elance.com, but I don’t know of a church centric freelance board. But if someone were to set themselves up to do this in their area, on a face to face basis, rather than through an online job board, what jobs would you compare it to in order to figure out the base fee?