Technology Trap

Technology is great. I tweet, blog, email, utube and have face book friends. I believe it is an inexcusable error for leaders and churches not to avail themselves of the latest in technology. In fact one of the reasons church renewal is needed is because of the failure of the church to keep pace with technological changes (overhead projectors anyone?). The reason the failure to use technology is inexcusable is because it is so easy to learn. When blogging started to develop I knew nothing about it - so I got a how to book ( The Blogging Church) and started blogging. There are even church technology blogs (http://digital.leadnet.org/)to keep you current.

Yet there is a very subtle trap associated with using technology. The trap is spelled out nicely in the following quote from Leadership magazine (Winter 2010 page 31). Rob Bell is discussing using video to beam a pastors message to multiple locations. This is what he says,

There is something more powerful than simply beaming yourself into other
locations, and that is raising up disciples. Over time that will go farther and
faster, but right now it will be more work and slower. With technology today it's
easy to spend all of your energies reproducing your own voice, but there is a
longer view that says, what if instead of beaming video to those ten locations, we
train ten people who can go there and lead? That's a very basic question that
should be in the mix somewhere.

Our call at its core is to make disciples. Disciple making is a time consuming task that requires a personal relationship (think Jesus and the 12). The question is how does technology either help or hinder the goal of discipleship?