Does your church have a vision for technology?
What would that look like if it did?
Does it matter if your church doesn’t have a vision for technology?
Proverbs 29:18 says:
Where there is no vision, the people perish: but he that keepeth the law, happy is he. (KJV)
Don’t miss this verse. Where there is no vision, the people perish. The second part of the verse about keeping the law literally means guarding the direction of the vision, then the word happy literally means blessed.
So, people perish when there is no vision, but those that guard the direction of the vision are blessed.
The church needs vision for many areas, technology included. Where there is no vision, the technology will perish.
I like The Message version of this verse too:
If people can’t see what God is doing, they stumble all over themselves; But when they attend to what he reveals, they are most blessed.
Technology enables the church to reach people and quite honestly, the lost are not flocking to church. We, as the church, reflecting Christ in our actions and attitudes, need to reach out to our community and one way to do that is by using technology, via websites, podcasts and other ways. The technology ministry in your church needs to become a priority if it’s not already and the vision needs to become focused and defined.
If your church does not have a vision for integrating technology into ministry, don’t expect technology to enhance the ministry of your church.
Does your church have a vision for technology?
What would that look like if it did?
Does it matter if your church doesn’t have a vision for technology?
How do you cast a vision for technology in your church? That’s a tough question and one that has no easy answer. I’ve seen churches that are not interested in using technology to enhance their ministry and anything done in that regard was not effective. (I’ve been part of a church like that recently, I couldn’t even begin to cast a vision and I didn’t last long!)
I am blessed to be in a church now that is open to doing more with technology and needs a vision in that way. I have seen steps taken in the right direction in the last couple of months and that is exciting.
If you have cast this vision for technology in your church, please share, I think we can all learn from your experience.
I need you help and opinion.
Ever since I arrived to our church, I haven’t been happy with our Database software and management system.
It is called PowerChurch and it is cumbersome, it has a difficult interface, it is only on our network (so there is no web access to the information), it tries to do everything (membership, database, financial) and it does nothing well.
We are finally ready to jetison this software and I need your opinion of what you have used, what you like, why you are using it. I would rather have real life recommendations rather than just go to software companies who are going to give me the sales spin.
We are looking for a powerful, yet flexible database, membership management application. Web based would be nice and preferred, but willing to flex on that if I need to. User-friendly interface and does it play well with other software programs, MS office, Quicken etc…
If you have any opinions or thoughts on this, I would greatly appreciate it!
–
Bill Reichart
Pastor of “Doing Life Together”
http://www.BigCreekChurch.com
Visit my Blog at:
http://www.provocativechurch.blogspot.com
Jim, I started to answer here and then it turned into a post of my own.
http://appianway.blogspot.com/2007/06/1-missionvision-alignment-is-more.html
I believe that we as ministers of media and technology must have a vision for that ministry. I also believe that vision must be in accordance with the vision of the senior pastor. In my case I certainly had a vision for using media and technology but I first had to cast that vision to the pastoral staff before proceeding onto building a team and casting the vision to them. Many times it is not that pastors are not interested in using technology but they fear it because they don’t understand. It is not easy to learn how to explain technology in non-technical terms but we must in order to unified in our vision for the church as a whole.
Good post! Thank you!
Jim,
I agree completely – effective ministry is others-centered, not self-centered. This means that service-based ministries, such as an IT ministry, must divorce themselves from the technology sometimes to determine how they are best going to impact their church and their community.
My eBook, Handle With Care, discusses this need for vision within a ministry in Chapter 3: http://www.agileministry.com/ebooks/handle-with-care/
For churches that aren’t interested in technology (I’ve been there in the past), it may be best to do only what is needed and find other ways to rally fellow technologies to impact the community. Possible ideas include: training computer newbies, teaching youth or adults how to start their first website using a hosted blog, or assisting other churches in the region that need your expertise. Through these types of outreach, you will begin to build relationships that can be used to make a positive impact in their lives, while they learn a valuable skill.
Great post, Jim!