God @ Work in Technology

I’ve been thinking about how every great move of God throughout history was coupled with an advance in technology.  A few examples:

Lithographs and stone carvings came with the Mt. Sinai encounter and the 10 Commandments, the Bronze Age helped move the Israelites into the Promised Land, Rome’s network of roads helped apostles spread the gospel to distant lands, the Gutenberg Press and subsequent printing presses helped fuel a Reformation in Europe and a Restoration in America.

Blogs and Podcasts have continued the trend of God’s recent move to include more voices in his list of prophets and teachers.  One only need search for “spirituality” or “Church” on Google to find more than they ever wanted to know about what is happening across the globe.

But what about today?  What is the latest technology on the horizon that will revolutionize and renew the Church in our generation?  Who can know for sure – but perhaps the internet’s most amazing ability is its capacity to now join entire social networks together for dialogue, media sharing, and strategy.  Websites like Facebook, and Ning are social networking sites that push for more than just web publishing, but increasing the rate of online interaction and community engagement!  Now many Christians find their “church” and some of their “teaching” online.

Facebook and Ning have discussion groups, photos, events, and more to help bridge the proximity gap of Christians around the world.  I know of websites like Shapevine that allow users to hold video conferences with authors and world-renown church planters, missiologists, and more.  Sites like LK10 have brought geo-local mapping and virtual communities of practice that serve as tools to discover and team with the harvest force in a specific locale.  Sites like Pray4Chicago and others that use wiki-media technology are catalyzing a collaborative knowledge base of God’s work in the world.  Joel News pushes global stories of God moving in amazing ways all over the world right into my email inbox. Never before has the Body of Christ’s blood circulated so freely!

We are entering an amazing time in history – a time when the whole world is listening and for the first time, in a global age we can speak to them.  The Lord is passionate about inviting people into his kingdom.  If we are listening to his voice, we can use the latest means of communication and technology to participate in that Kingdom and to love and serve those on the journey with us.

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