Monday, June 29

I just got back from vacation on Saturday night, and so when I showed up for church on Sunday, I was somewhat out of the loop. We were trying a new concept in our first, contemporary service--a Twitter service. The idea is that it will become inter-active--that people can tweet in their thoughts as the service goes along, and  thus join in as we worship and praise God.  It worked. sort of. Kind of. Well, somewhat.  We had technical difficulties. It had become a complex task to get wireless into the Sanctuary . . .and I'm glad, from the description , that I wasn't here for most of that work. Then, because my husband, The Gadget Guy, was the designated techie to use his presentation computer for the live feed, and The Gadget Guy and I had been on vacation, creating a lack of, shall we say, practice, with the equipment, the live feed stopped about half way through. Some people--including some of the staff--are challenged by new methods of communications, and so there was some fumbling with PDAs throughout.  So perhaps I should say that it didn't work at all.  But it seems to me that though some of the congregation were dismissive of the Twitter aspect, and some were frustrated by our very basic multi-media attempts, many were looking at this experience with open minds. We were trying something new; we were communicating; we were focused on bringing God's word into our lives and into the technological equipment that demands so much attention from so many of us these days.  I don't know how often we'll have a Twitter service; I just hope that our first is not our last.