I’ve never been much into games. In fact, the sheer number of pieces in a Monopoly game stresses me out. Likewise, I’ve never really gotten into online gaming. Sure I’ll play a word game on my phone but just to pass the time if I have a few minutes free. But I am an outlier. On the iOS app store alone there are over 984,000 games available for download and is the single most popular category of app in the store. Apple brought in 52.3 billion (with a “b”) dollars in revenue from these games. Long before Apple’s app store opened on July 10, 2008, board games, sports, game shows on tv and all ot ..read more

Beyond allowing us to stay connected despite having to be physically separated throughout the pandemic, Zoom, I think, has given us three important gifts. The first is the ability to see and speak with people from all over the world. I have made friends, real friends, on at least three different continents. Never, in my wildest dreams, did I imagine having the ability to get to know people in deep and meaningful ways when I couldn’t even leave my house. The second gift, which is the greatest gift of the three for me, is each person in Zoom having their name right below their picture. I have a ..read more

Anyone who has been at a big concert has felt the energy that comes with a group of people all being at one place together sharing in an experience. Beyond the music and dancing, there is a palpable energy that you can feel just from sharing that space and experience. That energy also exists whenever we teach, preach or bring people together to learn from and with us. But what happens when we are teaching or creating community online? Can we replicate that natural physical energy in digital space?The answer, I believe, is a resounding "yes". But how that energy is created is not quite as natu ..read more

Ok, maybe it isn't over, but it has waned enough that businesses, schools, and offices are opening up. So it seems like a fair question to ask - why should we bother trying to reach out and teach people in digital space when we can just invite them to gather physically? Most of us turned to streaming and using digital tools in response to the Pandemic. We saw it as a necessary evil. If we take a step back, though, and think about all that we have been able to do with these technologies, it is really quite amazing: Students have continued learning, congregations have continued connecting, and ..read more