2. CONVERGENCE
It’s all coming together!
• Past and present
• Implicit and explicit learning
• Local and international
• Virtual and physical
• Sender and receiver
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3. Church & “Textual” Community
• The called out ones (Ecclesia) who gather
around the “Living Text”
• Have a charismatic Interpreter or
interpreters
• Have an educative process
• Rituals of community
• Legitimization through historicization
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4. Ong
CHANGE DRIVEN BY ONTOLOGICAL NECESSITY AND TECHNOLOGY !
SPEECH WRITING PRINTING ELECTRONIC
PRIMARY ORALITY SPEECH SECONDARY
ORALITY TO TO ORALITY
LITERACY PRINT
Homer Plato Printing Electronic
800 BC 400 Press Media
Impermanent Writing supplements Self-conscious, Reintroduction of
spoken and (alphabet) interiority, immediacy of oral
word needs denatures printing loosens communication,
supplementing communication hierarchical control sound makes comeback,
awareness of the self that of knowledge, and changes text from
constitutes a new fact in providing books for something that is fixed and
the lifeworld masses unchangeable to
something malleable,
volatile and interactive.
FIGURE 1
ONG’S FOUR STAGES OF ORALITY
(Adapted from O’Leary and Braasher 1996)
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5. What may happen if we don’t…
– Technology becomes an idol and our theology
no longer shapes, but is shaped by it.
• Becomes mythic and we lose objectivity and miss
its invisible influences
– Ties up precious resources: people (their time
and money)
– We miss out on the wonder that comes with
refreshed vision and practice.
– Advantages can turn to disadvantage
• Example: Social Networking can birth either
communication or gossip
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6. Stewardship & Technology
• Stewardship is wisely and responsibly caring for
or utilizing what has been placed in your trust to
sustain, facilitate, enhance, expand and serve the
worship of God in the “Textual” community.”
• Technology is the usage and knowledge of
tools, techniques, and crafts (arts), or systems or
methods of organization (language,
programming, recording, printing), or a resulting
material product (such as book, CD, smartphone,
iPad).
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7. TAKEAWAY
• There is a critical need to steward
technology in the service of worship
• It is the center of action of the service of
worship in the living church
• We can only steward responsibly as we
share with each other and build community
around the Text.
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