Are you familiar with Moore's Law? I read about it a few years back in Fortune Magaizine, but was reminded of it this week in a conversation I heard on the Radio. In light of the MacWorld convention this week I thought it would be a good time to discuss it.
I know that many of you may be wondering who Moore is, why I (a pastor) read Fortune Magazine and what these have to do with McDonalds (MacWorld is actually a conference of Apple computers). Here's why I bring these up. Because our world is increasingly filled with stuff. Many of us get more stuff, and Moore's law helps us in that regard.
Moore's Law was discovered in 1956 by an engineer who worked for Intel corp. He realized that essentially ever 24 months the number of transistors in a chip could be doubled. And that gave way to the retail side which states that the cost of current technology will drop by half every 18 months. That's a simplified version of Moore's law, but let me show you the money.
Yesterday Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple Computers makers of the iPod, announced the iPhone. The iPhone is a fully functional Mp3 player, Cell Phone, Internet Browser, and hand held computer. It is navigated by next generation touch screen technology, and runs full-blown operating system and web browser which means that this hand held phone about the size of a video iPod is as capable of surfing the web as your wifi enabled computer.
I recently had a conversation where I said, "I'm not really a tech junkie." and the other person laughed and said he thought I was. This is my manifesto about technology. I enjoy technology stuff based on Moore's law. I don't get it until the next generation. I'm about 18 months to 2 years behind. I will never pay $500.00 for the iPhone, but in about 3 years I might be considering an iPhone for $200.00 especially when Cingular is offering me a deal to re-sign my contract and drops the price even more.
But what does this have to do with SRC? I think that if I'm about 2 years behind technology, the general public is probably 4 years behind. BUT!!! That is on an escalated rate. For the reason that Cassette tapes are obsolete and CDs are just about there. CD sales declined again this year, but itunes downloads grew from the first billion over three years to one billion in this last year alone. Technology is as much the growing language of the USA as Spanish in some ways. Therefore I believe that if we're going to speak the language of our world in order to share the gospel we must speak the language of technology. This is why we offer our sermons on the website in Mp3 and we don't offer CDs. It's why we invest in dual projection, improving our audio and video capability. Why is it such a big deal? Because while I'm about 2 years behind and the average person is 4 years behind I believe the average church is about 6-8 years behind. And even though many churches would agree that the language of the King James Version of the bible needed to be updated, I believe that the language of technology is leaning on the accelerator and we need to Habla Technology. (a little Spanish lingo for you)
--Ben
3 comments:
To quote an old showtune*, "If you'd [Jesus] come today you would have reached a whole nation: Israel in 4 BC had no mass communication."
I definitely agree that you need to embrace technology in this society; but at the same time you need to recognize the limitations of the same technology - especially in terms of intimate relationship.
B.
*Jesus Christ Superstar
"This is why we offer our sermons on the website..." About time to catch up the calendar. Last week is still missing. %)
unfortunately the sermons from the last 3 weeks are not available for MP3 download. That should be corrected next week.
--ed.
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