@stickyJesus. Toni Birdsong

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СКАЧАТЬ a career, parenting, traveling, buying real estate, maintaining relationships, voting, eating, doing business, and if you're on such a quest...finding God.

      Google has wooed the world. But who woos the hearts of men and women? The Bible says the Holy Spirit. But these days it's easier to get more personal with Google than with God and other people. Increasingly, people search Google for information about personal issues such as marriage, depression, parenting, addiction, finances, disease, sexuality, loneliness, and eating disorders. And people do it often without a thought of reaching out to one another or to God.

      Has Google replaced the belief that God is omnipresent and all-knowing, and can even answer prayers? As absurd as it may sound, a generation that has grown up as digital natives communicating in real time via instant messages might shock you with a resounding "yes."

       Christians are just as immersed in digital technologies and social networks as anyone else.

      Relax. There's no need to renounce your residency in the Land of Shiny Things or mask the evidence of your connected life. There's no shame. This is the hour to which you've been born—so by all means, power up! Just power up the way God wants you to. That means with a God-breathed strategy, Holy Spirit power, and divine discernment.

      A 2008 study by George Barna indicates that matters of faith play a small role in differentiating people's technological habits. The study found that Christians are just as immersed in (and dependent on) digital technologies and social networks as anyone else. Christians emerged as statistically "on par" with national norms.

      David Kinnaman, the lead researcher on the project, gives the research context and warns church leaders to strike a balance between the spiritual and the cultural potential of today's technology. While technology allows us to reach the masses, it's no substitute for the human impact of life-on-life discipleship, says Kinnaman. He adds, "whether or not you welcome it, technology creates an entirely new calculus of influence and independence. The stewardship of technology as a force for good in culture is an important role for technologists, entrepreneurs, educators, and Christian leaders."²

      For you, a Christ follower, the discussion around technology and its impact for good cannot be left to chance. It's a conversation that must be an ongoing priority. It must become part of the writings, readings, and teachings that communicate faith to this and future generations. And if businesses, motivated by profitability and survival, continue to generate effective content marketing solutions and new ways to engage the public, the body of Christ should be alert—and teachable—to use those same strategies.

      How much more critical is the message of salvation than communicating the benefits of the latest fat-free soup or the faster running shoe? Exactly.

      We live and communicate in awesome times. And we live in one of the most exciting windows for sharing the gospel since the Gutenberg press was invented in 1440, making Bibles accessible to the masses.

      Until that time books, including the Bible, were painstakingly copied by hand and available only to the wealthiest and most educated people. German-born Johannes Gutenberg died without knowing that his invention would spark the Renaissance, the Industrial Revolution, and the Reformation and catapult the spread of Christianity.

      Multiple media, including literature, art, television, film, and radio, have collectively transmitted the gospel message over time. Although their impact has been great, nothing can compare to the mind-blowing—and ev-er-evolving—impact of the Internet, namely, the content-sharing side called Web 2.0 and the spin-off industry of (and obsession with) social networking. No doubt, a monumental shift is taking place around the world politically, socially, and economically. Social networking is consuming the collective psyche and redefining the understanding of words as traditional as community and friends.

      a snapshot of influence

      The speed of change and the numbers are staggering when you consider what is happening around you. Perhaps you are familiar with some of these statistics.³ If not, be prepared to have your thinking rocked.

       It took radio thirty-eight years to reach fifty million users; television, thirteen years; the Internet, four years; and the iPod, three years. In just a nine-month period, Facebook added one hundred million users, and downloads of iPhone applications reached one billion. (That's billion with a b.)

       Print newspaper circulation is down seven million over the last twenty-five years. But in the last five years, unique readers of online newspapers have increased thirty million.

       Collectively, the television networks ABC, NBC, and CBS get ten million unique visitors every month, and these businesses have been around for a combined two hundred years. YouTube, Facebook, and MySpace got 250 million unique visitors each month after being launched for only six years.

        In 2008, Barack Obama leveraged online social networks to raise $500 million and mobilized young voters via social networking at unprecedented numbers. He outpaced opponent John McCain in fundraising online by five times.⁴

       Ninety-six percent of people born between 1980 and 1994 have joined a social network.

        Nielsen research reveals that Americans spend a quarter of their time online; a third of that time is spent communicating across social networks, blogs, personal e-mail, and instant messaging. The world now spends over 110 billion minutes on social networks and blog sites.

        One out of every five couples married in the U.S. met via social networking.

      Still think using social media is a fad or a waste of time? You may soon join the ranks of these leading, albeit well-meaning, thinkers:⁵

       "Everyone acquainted with the subject will recognize it as a conspicuous failure ."

       —Henry Morton, president of the Stevens Institute of Technology , on Thomas Edison's light bulb, 1880

       "We have reached the limits of what is possible with computers."

      —John von Neumann, infamous mathematician and pioneer of quantum mechanics, 1949

       "The horse is here to stay but the automobile is only a novelty— a fad."

       —The president of the Michigan Savings Bank advising Henry Ford's lawyer not to invest in the Ford Motor Co., 1903

       "Remote shopping, while entirely feasible, willflop—because women like to get out of the house, like to handle merchandise, like to be able to change their minds."

       —Time, 1966

       "While theoretically and technically television may be feasible, commercially and financially it is an impossibility, a development of which we need waste little time dreaming."

      —Lee DeForest, American radio pioneer and inventor of the vacuum tube, 1926

       "Transmission of documents via telephone wires is possible in principle, but the apparatus required is so expensive that it will never become a practical proposition."

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