Saturday, August 23, 2014

Next?


For the longest time we listened to our young 'uns and others enthusing about Netflix but we assumed we didn't have the technology to "imbibe." You are probably aware that the Netflix streaming service give subscribers access to TV series', movies, even programming such as House of Cards developed by Netflix. Of course the days of the DVD rental store have come and gone, and even "on-demand" options are archaic, but we were on the outside looking in. Then during a visit our son showed us how we could access Netflix through our laptop and we haven't looked back.

The other day I got a call at the church from a nice young guy with a Texas drawl name Jeffrey. He was representing Rightnowmedia, which he described as a Christian Netflix. I checked out the website and discovered hundreds, likely thousands of online resources such as bible and book studies, video material for Sunday School, and Christian cartoons. Jeffrey told me that churches use this resource, and so do families for devotional time and personal viewing.

Most of this material is out of the evangelical stream of North American Christianity and of limited interest from my standpoint. I give them credit, though, for finding a way of reaching out using current technology. As is so often the case, evangelicals are light-years ahead of the mainline/oldline in this regard.

Now, I still think it's important to bring people of faith together in one place for discussion, discernment, and growth. But I wish there was more material available from the left-of-centre expression of Christianity. There are a lot of busy people out there who might join a group where participants watched when they could and then joined a discussion, either real or virtual.

Would this appeal to you, if the subject matter was a fit? Do you benefit from being in a group where other participants are physically present?

2 comments:

Susan said...

For me there is something unique being in a group and sharing ideas, although I have been part of online/Facebook discussion groups through the UCC - Rock the Bible, Turn Around/Take Back and 40 Acts. For online discussions, it is harder to maintain a particular conversation thread but the discussions bring in more voices and often differing viewpoints.

Unknown said...

Like Susan, I have done both - on line discussions and group, face to face studies . I like the face to face experience better, with a qualified leader.