BIG IDEA: MORE IS LESS
As I type these words, I’m doing it on a laptop with fourteen different windows opened; one is my blog so I can tell the world what I’m thinking, the other thirteen are to the web – so the world can tell me what it is thinking. My iPod is recharging and hooked up to iTunes searching for updates of my podcasts subscriptions so that I can get the latest music and musings from my favorite artists anywhere. My cell phone is sitting on the table giving me total access to entire planet and the entire planet total access to me. And here is the truth - I love it!
We are being bombarded by more and more information everyday. Download some of this... Everyday I get an e-mail from the New York Times that contains more information than the average person in 17th-century England was likely to come across in a lifetime. More than 7.3 million pages per day are being added to the visible world wide web. Approximately 1,000 books are published every day and the total of all printed knowledge doubles every 5 years. And the oft repeated stat “that more information has been produced in the last 30 years than in the previous 5,000” is so familiar it could be a bumper sticker. I could go on and on…and so could you. You are the one who is being bombarded by more and more information on the radio, TV, online, and print. And the truth is – you love it!
Historically, more information has almost always been a good thing. However, as our ability to collect information has grown, our ability to process that information has not kept up. Decision-makers can no longer assimilate all the information they obtain. This caused people like Neil Postman a decade ago to name our society a “technopoly” where the information glut is not only useless, but potentially dangerous. Why? Because we now spend more time studying the information than in the past, leading to reduced time for action. Oddly enough, the Information Age has been named for something which once conferred only benefits, and which is now increasingly a problem.
And the church of Jesus is now experiencing that problem. We have become a technopoly, more known more for our best-selling books, our blogs (guilty – I said I like it!), our TV ministries and radio broadcasts much more than we are for our action! During the same time that we have seen a dramatic rise in Christian information we have not seen a rise in church attendance in any county in any state in the U.S. during the last decade with the sole exception of Hawaii. What has happened? More is less. Let’s face the facts. Information is not bad. And more information is not bad. But more information that leads to less action is a problem, particularly when that action is the accomplishment of the Jesus mission.
So, what would it take for the church to have the missional impact that Jesus dreamed it would have? Could it require less information and a vision that expects more action?
We are being bombarded by more and more information everyday. Download some of this... Everyday I get an e-mail from the New York Times that contains more information than the average person in 17th-century England was likely to come across in a lifetime. More than 7.3 million pages per day are being added to the visible world wide web. Approximately 1,000 books are published every day and the total of all printed knowledge doubles every 5 years. And the oft repeated stat “that more information has been produced in the last 30 years than in the previous 5,000” is so familiar it could be a bumper sticker. I could go on and on…and so could you. You are the one who is being bombarded by more and more information on the radio, TV, online, and print. And the truth is – you love it!
Historically, more information has almost always been a good thing. However, as our ability to collect information has grown, our ability to process that information has not kept up. Decision-makers can no longer assimilate all the information they obtain. This caused people like Neil Postman a decade ago to name our society a “technopoly” where the information glut is not only useless, but potentially dangerous. Why? Because we now spend more time studying the information than in the past, leading to reduced time for action. Oddly enough, the Information Age has been named for something which once conferred only benefits, and which is now increasingly a problem.
And the church of Jesus is now experiencing that problem. We have become a technopoly, more known more for our best-selling books, our blogs (guilty – I said I like it!), our TV ministries and radio broadcasts much more than we are for our action! During the same time that we have seen a dramatic rise in Christian information we have not seen a rise in church attendance in any county in any state in the U.S. during the last decade with the sole exception of Hawaii. What has happened? More is less. Let’s face the facts. Information is not bad. And more information is not bad. But more information that leads to less action is a problem, particularly when that action is the accomplishment of the Jesus mission.
So, what would it take for the church to have the missional impact that Jesus dreamed it would have? Could it require less information and a vision that expects more action?
posted by Dave Ferguson at 2:06 PM
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