Sunday, May 23, 2010

religion in a technological world

Technology is a great way (maybe the best way after the Gutenberg press and the publishing the Bible for common people to read and study, circa 1450, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gutenberg_Bible) to propagate the name of God. For example, if a church or congregation leader wants to communicate with others for any reason whatsoever, he/she can send an email, post a quick note on Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/) and/or Twitter (http://www.twitter.com/) aside from posting such information on the church website.

In a real life example, the pastor at FAPC (http://www.fapc.org/) sent an urgent email this past winter during a heavy storm indicating that many children activities and the 9:30 service were canceled for that Sunday. This way the congregation knew that the church would open late and Sunday school was canceled for that Sunday only.

Groups like Geeks and God (http://www.geeksandgod.com/) promote open source technologies to create websites, forums, email systems and other services that a church can use to reach its congregation and others. For example, some churches have a live feed of their service for those who can't go to church for whatever reason (handicapped, elderly, etc) or excuse.

At the same time, some companies offer their services for free for non-profit organizations (churches included, of course not using the words "church" or "religion" to be politically correct). In this latter case, Google (http://www.google.com/) fits perfectly providing some services for free to promote other or the same services in a larger scale for a fee.

I will stop here 'cause I can write for hours about technology. I might continue later.