Technology Manifesto, Part 2

In Part 1 of the Technology Manifesto, we talked about how Technology Exists to Solve Problems, which seems pretty stunningly obvious right? Well let’s turn our attention to some of the corollaries of this principle and how it directly relates to Mars Hill.

First corollary: You have to solve the right problems, which in turn implies that you know what the right problems are and then work on those first. This is commentary on both discernment and prioritization.

In many ways, Technology is plagued by an over-abundance of possibilities. Every time I sit down to write a line of code or to examine the structure of the organization, there are a multitude of possible outcomes. Do we outsource, or support in-house? Do we buy a vendor’s solution, or let God’s people at Mars Hill worship with their technical skills? What are the problems we have to solve, and what are the problems that would just be cool to solve? I can’t tell you how many emails I get that ask me whether it’s possible to build this neat gadget for ministry X, or a tracking tool for ministry Y. In all cases the answer is that it is possible, but that we can’t pursue that opportunity at this time. It’s obvious then that we have to define the problem, before we can talk about the solution, otherwise the possibilities will dilute the necessary.

At Mars Hill I see that our primary problem, and therefore the first place we have to focus our efforts, is to leverage Technology to extend the reach of the Gospel (that’s the Air War), and secondly to encourage community and the visible demonstration of our Christian love for one another (that’s the Ground War).

Do our websites fit in with these priorities? No, I don’t think they do. That doesn’t mean that our sites aren’t good (in fact, they are very good), but to go the next stage of where God is calling us, we need to take each of them in very different directions. Much more on this topic soon.

Does our infrastructure enable mass dissemination of the Gospel? Again, I don’t think so. What are the primary channels of content distribution online today? Social network shared video content and internet TV, like YouTube, Joost, and so on. Thankfully, there are many folks before me that have been thinking about these things and we’ve got some pretty good ideas on how to move forward, but as you can see, there are many fronts to the Technology war.

Two more corollaries to this first principle and then we’ll be on to the next tenet of the Technology ministry. Mixed in with these posts on the DNA of Technology, we will also begin to pull back the curtain and show you what we are doing at Mars Hill to reinforce these two guiding priorities (Air War and Ground War). In the coming weeks, you will also see screen shots of projects in their early stages and some of our thoughts on how these projects will become integral parts of Mars Hill.

We are very excited to show you what we’ve been working on.