By Rev. Richenda Fairhurst
May 14, 2016 | Portland, Oregon
A word on Rule 6.
I am not sure whether I find it refreshing or horrifying that we argue about the same things at General Conference that my church argues about during Church Council. Such as, technology. From the floor of General Conference yesterday I listened again as we debated whether or not to use iPads—one having been provided to every delegate—to create queues for speaking and to record votes.
Our church council at home meets once a month and, following snacks and then lunch, we hunker down to do the work of the church. Some of us have been doing this work for a long time. We have developed tools and strategies to assist what we do. And, because we are volunteers with no boss to mandate the latest upgrade, we do not have to install Windows 10 if we don’t want to.
I have had a computer in my house since childhood. I used actual floppy disks and dot matrix printers. And today I push my congregation to learn (and like!) things like ebanking, QR codes, QuickBooks, projection screens, and lap top computers. Unless we are going to turn our church into a hermitage, all this stuff is essential in my context. I myself frequently have three devices going at once—my laptop, my tablet, and my cellphone. I await my implant.
My household and my parish context may be a ‘best case’ test for how helpful it is, and for whom, to use tablets as relationship building communication tools. Our context is decidedly high tech. We are home to world class labs and international high tech firms. The local schools where I serve are heavily invested in robotics starting from elementary school (Go Team Mean Machine!). We are the perfect example of the missional need for a high tech response in a tech saturated discipleship field.
And yet. And yet! And yet there are many members of my own beloved congregation who have no idea how to use this stuff. Even powerpoint, yes powerpoint. Even gmail. Even the smart phones with their blessed scheduling apps full of overexcited electrons that I take for granted. These faithful disciples experience the same thing the delegates here at General Conference have, they experience “confusion” and even “paralysis.” One’s heart cannot get strangely warmed in this way. As Obi-Wan might say, ‘these are not the experiences we are looking for.’
It is so easy for me to sigh at their frustration as I type into my tablet—after rebooting because it froze—wondering ‘When will United Methodists enter the 21st century?’ Or, even ‘when will United Methodists learn to speak my language?’ Yet, I would remind myself, I hate iPads, too. Why is there no file structure?? If I am to be honest, I must admit that when faced with a forced upgrade to Windows 10 I promptly chose to “restore to factory settings” and return my laptop to the only slightly less horrible Windows 8—all the while mumbling to myself that an exorcism would probably be more effective.
We are used to using certain tools and those tools come to feel normal to us. Reboots and all. Yet even as we push to update and upgrade, we must do so with grace and empathy. I could humbly suggest that if, as one delegate shared, the only “dysfunction” we have seen is “when we are debating using” the tablet, then this might be because that is the only time the frustration of those who are not easy with the iPad has become visible to us. If you do not experience something for yourself, what is ‘visible’ is not always the full spectrum of all experiences.
In closing, I want to thank Rukang Chikomb, delegate from the North Katanga Conference, for his words of empathy for the agonists in agony over iPads. “I feel sorry for my brothers and sisters who are not able to use the iPad,” he said. He shared that he did not object to the iPads, but recognized that not everyone knew them well enough to use them effectively. Just like the use of cellphones, tech users need to have “the time to learn them.” And he used one other important word, “family.” Can we remember always that we are family? And now that probably—probably—we are done debating Rule 6 and iPads have won the hour—again—can we humbly reach out to those who will experience the iPad as silencing and clumsy and be really sure that everyone gets a fair chance to speak.
Rev. Richenda Fairhurst has a passion for renewing churches at the local level. She understands that the relevance and vitality of the local church is directly relational to the ability of that church to live its call to discipleship by loving and serving its neighbors locally, intergenerationally, and cross culturally. She serves in southwest Washington state at the Camas United Methodist Church. Follow her at @pastorrichenda
