First there was Bedside Baptist, where my sainted Aunt Betty attends regularly. Now Mike reports that there’s iChurch, brought to you by those wacky folks at the Diocese of Oxford, Church of England. Their mission statement sounds good (“One of the key purposes of i-church is to provide a community for those who do not find participant membership of a local church easy, and it will therefore reflect an inclusive attitude to Christian faith and discipleship.”).
In another church-y development, at least one church now has WiFi in the chapel. James Tallent reports that his church has added WiFi, then he blogged this Sunday’s sermon while it was happening. An earlier post of his has this to say:
Beyond these use cases, SMS addiction is already a reality and IP-related addiction is not far behind. Some would say that churches should shun accommodation of such addictions and require everyone to be somber, disconnected, and reflective in church, but that will frankly be just as silly in the future as it would be now to say that free coffee and coke machines are encouraging caffeine addiction.
Put me squarely in that camp. The whole point behind going to church is to be reflective. If you’re sitting there checking your email, IMing your friends, or (heaven forbid) working, it seems to me that you’re missing out on an opportunity to put things of the world aside and focus– just for a little while– on spiritual things. Don’t get me wrong; I do think it’s incredibly progressive to provide this service– but is it progressive in a positive direction?
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