The date is March 11, 2011.  As I sit around the dining room table with my family who is visiting their ailing father, I’m hurriedly writing my daily blog.  My granddaughter is playing an on-line video game.  My daughter, Carol Howard Merritt,  is quickly editing the forward she wrote for a friend’s book to email it to his publisher.  My son-in-law is reading a theology book on-line.  While my husband sleeps, we are all commenting with each other about the Tsunami that may be invading Hawaii.  All of us are fiercely following the real-time action on Twitter because my son lives on Oahu’s north shore about two blocks from the ocean.

My daughter asked me to proofread the forward she was writing for Landon Whitsitt’s new book, Open Source Church.

After reading the forward, I was reminded how much our lives have changed because of recent changes in technology.  Aren’t we all a bit skeptical of this brave new world when it comes to our places of worship?

Sure we power point our illustrations on screens attached to the walls of our ministry.  Computers have become irreplaceable for most tasks for which we once used our IBM typewriters. Email has replaced the more expensive, slower and less convenient  US Postal Service.  We only recently became comfortable with our computers when the Internet burst into our work area.  But like the phone of older generations, we don’t trust or want to depend on this in most aspect of our Christian life.  (The word “phony” came from an innate mistrust of the telephone.)

Whitsitt’s soon-to-be-released book will help all of us to overcome our concerns about this new techno world.  Yep, you may have to wade through some complicated verbiage because Whitsitt actually understands what is happening in cyber-space.  He might think that he’s making all this simplistic for us while he is only confusing our minds.  However, I’ve learned that if we wade through the technical detritus,  we will learn new and exciting things about how to effectively use this new way of  ministry.  Whitsitt’s book promises to be able to help each of us learn new things to be able to make our ministries even more effective.

Is there a book you have read that has made you more comfortable using technology in your life as a Christian?