This week I spent an infuriating hour attempting to download an app onto an ipad. The purchase of said ‘app’ entangled with me itunes. The whole wasted experience brought me near to tears of utter frustration and to the point of wanting to throw the computer and ipad out of the window.
itunes do not offer any instruction on how to use their site. You’re just supposed to know. But I don’t know and as far as I can see it’s not intuitive and the only thing that’s obvious is that itunes don’t care that you don’t know. You might think this wouldn’t be good for business but obviously it’s not because the apple ‘ibrand’ seems to go from strength to strength. So what’s going on?
Mystery. Elitism. Exclusivity.
I feel shut out by itunes just because of my age. And itunes don’t basically care that I don’t get it because there are plenty of younger people who do get it/buy it/download it/rip it and so on and so on. It’s a case of either shape up or ship out.
Once I’d walked away from the screens and spent some time with real human beings, I got to thinking about it again. How does how I feel trying to navigate my way through cyberspace trying to access services or facilities that everyone seems to find ‘life-changing’ compare with how a younger person feels coming into a church service where everyone seems to know what they are doing, where people say that experiencing God is life-changing but no one actually tells you how to do that.
Mystery. Elitism. Exclusivity.
Many people who have not had any experience of church or God simply don’t ‘get it’ when they come into an ordinary church service. And I cannot be as indifferent about that as itunes are about me. My role as a Christian and a church leader is to find ways of walking alongside people and saying ‘it is possible for you to understand and even follow a life of faith’ or ‘it is possible for you to hear from God for yourself or to become aware of the Divine presence even in your everyday’ and here’s how…
During my failed effort to down load an app, I wailed ‘I just need someone to show me how….’ I hope I can be that person for someone this week to help them hear, see, experience the reality of the God whose longing is that no one should feel excluded.
Live Life Loved 
As someone who, up until Windows XP, was technically competent you have my sympathy; I now have an Android phone and have to ask my children what to do 😦
I am convinced we have to open up our view of church that, to those outside, looks like something that happens only on a Sunday. We need to be able to look at everything we do/use and ask “how is this furthering God’s Kingdom?” and to be prepared to accept the answers the Holy Spirit, in all Her wisdom, gives us. I think we could get a lot of surprises about what matters and what doesn’t.
I absolutely love this post. Would you have any objections to me reposting it on my blog? I’m sure others would love it too.