My parents are techy for their age. My mom is on Facebook. They can e-mail, and they have an iPod touch for checking weather, sports scores and newspaper stories. My in-laws just got their first computer. Even thought they are from the same generation, there was a big gap between them. When I would leave for classes at seminary, I would have to type up the schedule for my kids and print it out for my father-in-law since he's my backup kid-runner. Now that he has a computer, I just e-mail him the schedule and he has it. I posted a video of my son at his last guitar jam, and I was able to share it with all the grandparents. We all now have that common media language and can talk on common ground.
This summer I am taking three classes -- Christology, Aging in Ministry and this Media in Christian Education class. This cartoon made them all come together. As I was reading for my Aging final paper, the article was talking about how quickly the world is changing now. Only 100 years ago, each generation could generally understand the previous generation and what they had lived through. Today, however, life changes so fast that the gap from generation to generation is larger than ever. Seeing the gap between my fairly-techy parents and my newly-techy in-laws makes me think that with technology the gap between the old and the young could be even wider than ever.
Given these fast-growing gaps, where do we find the common ground to allow us to be a Christian community? How can we understand each other when the gaps are so large? In Mary Hess's book Engaging Technology in Theological Education, she reminds us that when working with technology, we need to ask "How is God revealing Godself within this medium, and how are we opening ourselves up to that revelation or blinding ourselves to its possibility?" (p. 31)
I also think these same questions can be asked to help us bridge the gaps in our Christian communities. We can ask these questions about anyone who is on the other side of the gap from us. How is God revealing Godself within that person? How are we opening ourselves up to that revelation or are we blinding ourselves to its possibility? By finding how God is working on the other side of the gap, we can find that common ground and strengthen our Christian community.
These are great questions! But it's often so hard to reach out across the gap that your cartoon paints... I wonder how we might re-frame the gap, so that it looks like a path to share, rather than an abyss to cross?
ReplyDeleteI'm intrigued by your questions. The two lines of thinking (generation gap and Christian communities) could easily be combined, as you indicated. How are we communicating the gospel (in worship, education, and other settings) for everyone from pre-schoolers to the elderly? And how does technology help or hinder those efforts? Is there a way that our use of technology can effectively reach several generations at once, or are we stuck alienating one generation by "catering" to another?
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