Gutenberger or Googler?

Are you a Gutenberger, or a Googler?

In case you haven't heard those terms before, don't worry.  Neither had I, until I read them in a review of a new book by Len Sweet, who's on the faculty of Drew University Divinity School here in New Jersey. The book is called  Viral: How Social Networking is Poised to Ignite Revival.

I'm a Gutenberger, because I was born prior to 1973.  Quite a bit before 1973, if the truth be told.

That means I tend to think in terms of printed words on the page.  It's how the church - and society at large - has been communicating, ever since Johannes Gutenberg invented movable type for printing presses sometime around 1439.

My kids, though, are Googlers.  They've grown up with personal computers, and more recently with smartphones, which are really handheld computers.  Today's smartphones pack more computing capacity than the computer on board the lunar module Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed on the moon.

Back when I was in high school, a transistor radio with a single earbud was the cool tech item.  If you were lucky, it might even pull in the FM stations, but no stereo sound.

Today - for those who can afford it - it's the new Apple iPad.  We used to watch Mr. Spock on the original Star Trek using something like those, but never dreamed we'd see it in our time.

To us Gutenbergers, "text" means something solid, tangible, relatively unchangeable.  Like the Bible open on the pulpit.

To Googlers, "text" is a verb.

When I see teenagers staring into smartphones, with those little wires coming out of their ears, I realize they're doing more than simply processing data.  They're connected, wirelessly, to a web of similarly-connected individuals all around the world.  That's a change every bit as big as that brought in by Gutenberg's movable type, and it's happened in the blink of an eye.

If Len Sweet is right, the question of what technology we've grown up with is more than significant for the church, because it affects our entire way of looking at the world.  Those born after 1973 are digital natives.  They've never known anything different.  The rest of us are at best digital immigrants. Like the first-generation immigrants who came to this land from overseas, we're forever playing catch-up with our progeny.

Here are some of the distinctions he identifies between Gutenbergers and Googlers:

Gutenbergers: It's necessary to be right.

Googlers: It's necessary to be in relationship.

Gutenbergers: God is in charge.

Googlers: God chose to be among us.

Gutenbergers: Capital campaign.

Googlers: Homeless campaign

Gutenbergers: Statement of faith.

Googlers: Life of faith.

Gutenbergers: Build something.

Googlers: Meet someone.

Gutenbergers: A culture of words and individualism that has lost its ability to propagate.

Googlers: A culture of images and relationships that breed virality, the petri dish of revival.

Centuries ago, the Apostle Paul rode merchant ships crisscrossing the Mediterranean and Aegean Seas, made newly safe by the order imposed by the Caesars.  Christianity rode that new technology to an explosion of growth.  A millennium and a half later, Luther and Calvin made use of Gutenberg's press to get God's word - newly translated out of the original languages and Latin - into the hands of ordinary people.

Are we on the verge of a change just as epoch-making?  I think we are, and it's already begun.  It's also coming at us with breakneck speed.

If the church is to continue to be the church, we need to figure out how to be a church of both Gutenbergers and Googlers. All other issues we’re now struggling with – including the interminable debates about sexual ethics – are as nothing compared to this mega-issue.

We’d best get over those comparatively minor debates, and get on with it.

Reaching Out Online

When the Apostle Paul set out to grow the church, he relied on the best technology available to him: papyrus and pen for letter-writing; his stentorian voice, strong enough to be heard by large crowds; and ships equipped with the most up-to-date nautical gear to transport him (and his voice) to distant cities.

We’re not so limited today, of course – which is becoming even more true as the full impact of the computer revolution becomes evident throughout the church. By some estimates, as many as 75% of church members are now online (a figure that’s likely even larger in our part of the country, with our excellent broadband and wireless connections).

The possibilities for outreach are multiplying rapidly – especially if the goal is to reach the younger generations.

Even though none of us were tapping on personal-computer keys before the late 1980s, we can now speak of successive waves of digital technology. (Ask today’s high-schoolers which is their preferred mode of communication, email or texting, and you’ll get the idea.)

Lots of books are out there, advising churches on how to communicate in this brave new world, so it’s always nice to find a good article that’s free. You can read the article, “Moving Online: Faith Formation in a Digital Age,” by Julie Ann Lytle of the Episcopal Divinity School in Cambridge, Massachusetts online, or click on this link to see the page on which it was originally posted (scroll down to “Latest News”).

What’s your church doing in this area that’s been working for your people? Click on the “Comments” link just below, and let us know. Let’s get a discussion going!

Dump the Book and Use a Database?

One of the questions I get most often from clerks of session has to do with databases: “Why, in this computer age, do we still have to keep our minutes, rolls and registers in paper form?”

It’s a reasonable question. Databases are wonderfully convenient, and offer powerful search capabilities. Compared to what a program like Microsoft Access can do, the old system of handwritten cross-references in our membership roll books seems positively archaic.

It’s still necessary, though. Remember: minutes, rolls and registers are permanent records, meant to last not just for decades, but for centuries. Generations from now, some historian may be grateful we took the extra time to maintain a hard copy.

Do you doubt what I say? If so, I have a phrase for you to ponder: “Five-and-a-quarter-inch floppy disks.”

Remember those? Think back to the good old days, when men were men and floppy disks really were floppy. It wasn’t that long ago that floppy disks were the storage medium of choice.

Now, here’s a follow-up question: “Do you have access to a computer that can read one of those things?”

I used to have one of those – about five computers back. I don’t, anymore. In fact, my present computer can’t even deal with those hard-shelled, three-and-a-half-inch diskettes that replaced the old-time floppies. Diskettes of any size – once ubiquitous – are becoming scarce as hens’ teeth. It’s CD-ROMs we’re all using.

Or is it? Ask a bunch of youth under the age of 18 how many music CDs they own, and you’re likely to get “none” for an answer. Today’s kids are the MP3 Generation. They deal in solid-state data storage. Have iPod, will travel.

Up-and-coming on the horizon (and, in many cases, already here) is the technology known as The Cloud. It’s a limitless place somewhere out there on the Internet, carved up into secure, electronic pigeonholes where we can squirrel away computer files to our hearts’ content. Could it be that The Cloud is where our old church records are meant to live, in retirement?

Can you see where I’m going with this? The world of data processing is expanding so rapidly, no one knows where it’s headed. Generations of data-storage come, and generations of data-storage go, but the hard copy remains forever (or nearly so, if we deposit it in a dry, fireproof place).

For storage of records, the Presbyterian Historical Society in Philadelphia is the church’s best source of expert records-preservation advice. The PHS strongly recommends we use only “formats that are considered archivally permanent – hard copy (acid-free paper) or microfilm. At present there is no electronic medium that is considered permanent by archival standards.”

If you like the convenience of a searchable electronic record, though, all is not lost. There’s a way to enjoy the best of both worlds. Go ahead and write your minutes using your favorite word-processing program, then use the word processor to print those words onto acid-free paper for inclusion in your record book. (Be sure you use the right kind of ink in your printer, though – I’m told that laser printers and photocopiers produce permanent, archival-quality results, but inkjet printers do not.) Armed with your back-up, electronic copy, you can then use the search function of your word-processing program to find things in the minutes, without having to go back through the books page by page.