Church, It Should Be Interactive

Maybe I am addicted, but maybe I have a point.  Every time I sit in church and listen to the minister talk about whatever daily lesson he has for us that day, I think to myself, “Gosh, I wish this was interactive.”  In reality I would love to raise my hand and just start asking questions during the sermon.

Then I think of the power of Twitter.  Maybe my church should get a Twitter account and put TweetDeck showing Replies on a projector.  That way when the minister is talking someone could tweet in a follow up point.  Like @examplechurch John 3:16 really hit home for me. or @examplechurch Your slide show is showing Genesis instead of Exodus! or @examplechurch I am a bit confused about how you explained why Jesus died for us. Could you offer a few more words on it?

Yes, some from the older generations would find this a bit disruptive.  But others maybe glad for the opportunity to be able to ask questions semi-anonymously.  Plus it tells you where peoples questions lie, points the minister needs improving upon, it offersadditional thoughts on the subject at hand or provides good segways, and not to mention, it keeps people paying attention and builds relationships.

To those who say it would be abused, someone could filter it in real time–the guy running the slideshow.  It would only take a few adaptations to TweetDeck or I am sure a similiar more focused/caitored program could be written to do the same thing.

But why stop at church?  Surely big businesses could be running the same thing in their offices and stores.  They could get instant feedback while customers shopped.  People could agree with each other @jcpenneys The new fall wardrobe looks really good. or @jcpenneys Everyone stay away from X brand towels in here.  They fall apart! Not only would stores get great information about what customers are thinking, they can also market themselves as customer conscious and in return would get marketing feed back.

Restaurants could use it too.  @pizzaplace Ugh, I am at table 6 in PizzaPlace and my food just came to me cold. That could warrent an immediate response by the waitor to resubmit an order or go and attend to the person at table six.

In today’s world, being interactive with your customer is necessary.  Be it church, a department store, or a restaurant, promoting interaction is all good.  I just think it would be cool to sit in church and tweet @examplechurch Yeah, Jesus Rocks! and have it pop up on screen for the entire church body to see.  And with the size of my church 800 - 1000 people per service a lot of perspective could be gained.

So Long to TV

Watching Clay Shirky speak about the pitfalls of TV may not seem like you want to do, but believe me, it will change how you think about your favorite pass time.

During his speech, which can be found on Making Light, he throws around a couple of figures.  The first of which, is that the Wikipedia project took about 100 million hours of man time to create.  Then he compares that with the amount of time we, as Americans, spend watching TV each year: 200 billion.  He preaches what we could do with that time, if we devoted it to something constructive rather than just passively sitting on the couch.  Even games, yes video games, he says, are more productive–the thirty year old man pretending to be an elf in his mothers basement–is better than watching TV.  I would have to agree.

But the point here, isn’t that we should be playing more video games; and not that we should cut TV out of our lives.  The point is that we should remove some of our passive time, and replace it with something worth while.  A blog, taking the kids to the park, writing a book, working on Wikipedia, teaching someone, playing an insturment, et cetera.  If we moved even one percent of the 200 billion hours we spend watching TV, think of the amount that could be accomplished with those 2 billion hours.

Later in the video, he speaks of someone’s four year old daughter running behind the TV and looking for a mouse.  This is because society is now being raised to interact with media.  Kids do not want to sit passively by, they want to be a part of it.  Don’t you?

Watch the video and let me know what you think.