Justice

What the church can learn from an iPod

By Ant / 10 October 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 Joy in the early 90s, engages this head on. But an awful lot of stuff in the established church seems to pass itself off for emerging church these days…or “new ways of doing church”.

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!