What the church can learn from an iPod
By | Oct 10, 2007
Apparently, a MacRumors forum user David Jearly emailed Steve Jobs, and asked about some features lacking in the new iPod Touch. What? Features lacking? (and yes, I know the image isn’t of an iPod touch…but I thought it was a good comment of the church in relation to the times…potentially).
Anyhow, these concerns included issues with full image syncing, notes, disk mode, lack of calendar input and lack of games.
Steve Jobs reportedly replied and addressed the last two issues:
David,
Nothing can be done about the games. The new iPod touch is a completely different animal inside than the old iPods and the games just don’t translate. The inability to edit and add calendar events is a bug that will be fixed in a future software update.
Best,
Steve
Now, if you’ve bothered to read this far, I found that interesting simply Jobs’ assistants responded by saying “the new iPod touch is a completely different animal inside than the old iPods and the games just don’t translate.” And I thought, instantly (which may say more about where my mind is at than I would like) – hey, I wonder how that would look as an ecclesiology…
We call the new iPod an iPod, but it’s a totally different thing inside. But outside, it’s in a box that says iPod, so it is one. And they don’t port old games over because they just don’t translate. Well well…in the church we seem to spend all our time trying to make translation work, and get terribly concerned if the new thing is different on the inside than the old thing. Isaiah 43:19 has something to say about that, it seems to me: “Behold, I am doing a new thing. It springs up. Do you not percieve it?” I guess in many cases, if we are honest, the answer is, erm, well no, we don’t – because we are really rather attached to the old thing, and only just getting used to that.
Of course, we’re not really meant to get ‘used’ to ‘it’, are we. Emerging church, starting with the likes of
How does all this relate to justice? Well, why don’t you tell me. I think it has a lot to do with mission identity, pneumatology (theology of the holy spirit), and our future being just where we are.
And if you haven’t got an iPod, clearly you are in the wrong church - go here!
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Comments
Peter Carrell
November 1st, 2007 at 6:18 am
iThink there is more to reflect on from the appearance of the iPod Touch. It is asserted that the iPod Touch is a cut-down version of the iPhone (i.e. has some but not all of the features of the iPhone). One question about church today is whether we are losing the plot as we seek to be relevant in a changing society (as Steven Jobs seeks to make sales in a changing marketplace by offering different versions at different prices of his [wonderful] products). Are we cutting out features of the church as we adapt to the twenty-first century? Is this good and necessary or short-sighted and self-defeating? Can the church offer itself in both iPod Touch (less features, lower price) and iPhone (full features, higher price) forms? (One might argue that ever since the church has been split into different denominations the answer to this question has been ‘yes’). One further thought: in NZ the iPhone is not supported by Apple but some have imported iPhones and by cunning means overcome its inability to work with an NZ phone network. What might the church in AotNZ look like which draws people as desparate to belong to it as some phone users are desparate to obtain and to use an iPhone?
Ant
November 1st, 2007 at 9:54 pm
Perhaps we all need to upgrade to Leopard and use TimeMachine!
But seriously, “the church offer itself in both…forms” – offer itself to whom, Peter? Perhaps I was down the pub duiring that particular lesson on ecclesiology, but it’s my understanding that the church offers itself to God. While it is always a cultural expression of authentic response to God’s call upon our lives, that’s a fundamentally grass roots thing. One of the problems with the whole cult of ‘emerging church’ and ‘new ways of doing church’ is that the institutional church has adopted it as something like an A la carte menu system, to ‘offer itself’ in many forms.
That’s just more consumerism/consumption. And it certainly isn’t church. I think our episcopal and priestly authorities need to be more aware of this than they seem to be.
Perhaps I’m being harsh on you a bit here – but language is important. It sounds like the church you’re wondering about might look like a Mac showroom: and that would be a big mistake.
Peter Carrell
November 2nd, 2007 at 11:29 am
I am always quite excited to be in a Mac showroom!
Yes, the church offers itself to God, but it offers itself to the world at least in the sense that its doors are open to people to walk in and to join in its worship services. My point was the simple, though I hope not trivial one that these days many churches – whether or not consumed by consumerism, or genuinely striving for cultural expressions of authentic response to God – offer worship services which, when compared with each other, are reminiscent of the comparison between the iPhone and the iPod Touch. One might find, for example, Confession and Absolution at one, and neither at the other.
I agree with you (naturally) that it is important for the church – episcopal and priestly authorities and all – to work out whether the differences between worship services within the same local church are authentic responses etc or gifts to the god of consumerism.
One intriguing thing about the iPod Touch / iPhone difference is that my reading of internet discussion is that if Steve Jobs were enthralled to consumerism he would not have allowed so many points of difference between the two machines. The differences between the two machines appears to reflect a thoughtful commitment by Steve Jobs to philosophical differences between the iPod Touch and the iPhone.
PS I thought you were at the pub for the whole of ecclesiology, not just for the occasional missed lecture:):):)