Learning New Technology, Again...

After a being a lifelong PC user, I took the Apple plunge this week. Kathy organized our relatives and a few friends and gave me a gift card to our local Apple store for my birthday. After I bought it, a friend who works at the store, Vince, helped me set up my mail accounts, contacts, and showed me some of the basic features. What little I have done so far, I am really enjoying it. I can understand why Mac and iPhone users are such fans. Since my only exposure to Apple up to now has been a couple of iPods, the iPad is pretty cool. The  digital growth and implementation into our lives has been spectacular.

I think it was in 1988 when I bought the first two computers for the church I was working at. We bought one for our grade school and one for the main church secretary. Among many, one task stands out in my mind as being revolutionary at the time. It was how we addressed our major church mailings. We had a huge table machine called an Addressograph. It used metal plates stamped with a person's name and address on it. The metal plates snapped into metal holders and they would go in a tray which the machine would pick up one at a time. I big arm would come across the envelope or folded newsletter and pass over the paper and an ink ribbon. It made a horrible noise, and I knew that one day someone was going to lose some fingers in the process of addressing. In order to make a change of address, we had to send off to a company to make a new metal plate. With our new computer, our secretary entered the names and addresses once, printed them to a dot matrix printer with a label roll attached and while the labels were printing, she could do something else. A few keystrokes and a change of address was made. We all thought we had died and gone to heaven.

Today that computer wouldn't even be able to load our present day operating system, much less do any work. But in 1988, it was almost miraculous. Today, with a device that comfortably sits on my knee, I can see and talk with my children in England, just as easily as I can with someone across the room. In 1988 we were so taken with the moment that we had no idea what the future might hold. And yet the same principal is true, I'm so taken with this new technology that I'm not even thinking of what may be coming down the road. One thing hasn't changed, however. In 1988 we found ways to use our new computers to affect people's lives for Christ. I have already had those thoughts with my new iPad. How, mixed in with everything else I might do with it, can I affect people for Christ. We'll see...