Position Statement: Women in the Ministry
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Disembodied Connections
2008-10
From the Pastor
I heard a message by a pastor named Shane Hipps. He used to be an advertising agent for Porsche and he was talking about the effect of our technological age upon faith.
He pointed out how the existence of email, text messaging, instant messaging and cell phones have allowed us to be enormously more connect to loved ones who are far away. Via webcam we can talk to our sons and daughters live and face to face while they are deployed to other countries for military service. Through email Grandma can keep up with all the grandkids scattered around the country. Friends on opposite coasts can text each other the details of their everyday lives as they are happening.
While these advantages are huge, he also noted that communication technology is changing the way we interact with those who are near. He referenced an advertisement for a telecommunications company that said we are no longer restricted by something "as trivial as location". To which he asked a valid question: "location is trivial"?
The essence of the Gospel is Immanuel - "God with us". God didn't just text his love to us. He came. We are very quickly losing the value of location, the immense power of being with. The digital age can help propel the Gospel message, but it can do little to propel the Gospel ethos-which is incarnational ministry (Incarnate: "in the flesh").
Hipps said it well: "If you and your relationships are composed of a disproportionate amount of mediated communication, your emotional growth will be stunted; you will be relationally, emotionally and spiritually flabby and malnourished. Your impact on this world for the Kingdom of God will be flabby at best. I don't know how to incarnate Jesus via email. The ultimate expression of God's love in the world is to be with - to be present - in the flesh."
As you look up Hebrews 10:24-25, may you embody Jesus to a disembodied world.
Pastor Scott