Let’s clear the air – it’s 9:30 AM on a Sunday morning and I’m sitting at home. This is very weird for me. Of course, usually I’m at church. But I have this Sunday off, and my newborn daughter is at my feet. Unreal.
Now, last night I was going through my Facebook News Feed, and I saw some clergy friends in the Dallas area making announcements to cancel church services. I get it. The ice was epic.
What I didn’t get, though, was why none of these priests were setting up online worship. It’s super easy. Get everybody with a Google account to plug into a Hangout on Air and boom! Morning Prayer online. In fact, I saw one priest mocking this idea and saying that, “technology gets in the way as it is.”
Kids these days, right? I suppose I’m one of them because I think the internet can be a tool to proclaim the gospel. I just want to shake these priests with their heads in the sand!
I want to ask them what they think would have happened if the church in the fifteenth century had said, “no thanks, we’re fine without the printing press.” Or in the eighteenth century if they had said, “we’re fine where we are, we don’t need ships to go around the world proclaiming the gospel.” Or in the nineteenth century if they had said, “why use the telegraph system? It gets in the way, and besides, the Pony Express is just fine.”
The message has been, is now, and will always be the same. Jesus is Lord. The method has to change with every passing generation. Not because we follow the fads, but because the church is to reach out to folks where they are, wherever they are.
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the rev. jimmy abbott 