One Man’s Tech Journey with Jesus

By Mark Blair

I work for a church writing software.

Wow, didn’t see that one coming.

At least, that is what I would have said five years ago, alright, two years ago even. In fact, sometimes it is still hard to believe, but I’m here. It certainly took a while (in my puny human perspective that is), and I can’t always say I’ve been the most willing participant in God’s plan for my life, but God has a way of overriding what I think and I end up doing what he wants anyway.

My story begins in the year 2000. I was a year or so into my technology career when I moved to Seattle. I was young, eager, had an engineering background, and ready to tackle the exciting world of cutting edge technology that Seattle was so known for at the time. I also arrived just in time for the dot crash. Oops, now what.

Well, by the grace of God, I didn’t actually lose my job at that time, although many of my co-workers did, but it certainly limited my opportunity to do the cool things I had hoped to do with technology when I moved here. I really wanted to do something worthwhile with my skills, I now it sounds cheesy but it’s true. Although the company that sustained me through those lean dot crash years was doing some interesting things, it all seemed kind of hollow when I thought about how everything I did just made some investors a little richer, hardly world changing.

Then came the opportunity that was unexpected. I had started going to this little church that met in the evenings at First Presbyterian Church downtown, you guessed it, Mars Hill. I started in the summer of 2000, and around the end of that year or the beginning of the next (can’t remember exactly), I was talking to one of the staff who suggested that I get involved with the tech ministry at Mars Hill.

What? Tech Ministry? Write code for Jesus?

Sounds interesting, sure, i can help out, why not.

The journey starts…..and the story continues next time.