I'm spending this week in Kentucky at the Asbury campus in a class about the web in ministry. The primary purpose of the class is to familiarize students with the Internet and the web with each of us in the class completing some sort of a final web project. For my project I'm not building a web site, instead I'm working on the SUMC media player – a Flash RIA using the Flex framework, the YouTube API, and skinned through Catalyst.
While understanding and using the technology is an important aspect of the class I'm really enjoying the conversation that is frames the larger issue. Lots of McLuhan, social constructs, relational issues, how we tell the Story, and how Truth is represented in various media. It's a conversation that a lot of people never have and I'm really happy that the seminary is facilitating the conversation.
As church leaders, really as Christians, it's important that we understand the shift that's happening around us. The migration to digital information is as significant as the shift to mass printed text and from an oral tradition to a written tradition. How do we reflect this shift as individuals and as the church?