Digital storytellers

The title of the book itself is overwhelming for me indeed! The authors are talking about the use of multi-media in church setting and arguing that misuses of the today technology by north America Churches and stagnant of using technology in church setting. Back in my country, the seminarians are forbidden to use electronic equipments, such as, mp3 player, CD players and are asked not to watch TV during weekdays. (All the students are required to live on campus in order to get proper authentic traditions of Anglican Church.) Clearly, all the electronic equipments are regarded as satanic things for those who are preparing for the works of our Lord Jesus Christ. Until now, there is no use of electronic equipments during the worship services (except for the sound system), no official website or blog for Province. We are not even at the stage of using powerpoint for the presentation and worshipping setting which the author of this book see as misuse of technology and resources of the church. There are two possibilities of why this is happening to the Church of the Province of Myanmar. 1) There is no resourceful person or technician to upgrade the church into the interactive age and not having enough funding. 2) The fact that the poor people of Myanmar (poor as in both naive poverty) are taught that these electronic equipments are evil (here I can see the influence of dualism of the early Church). To keep up with the rest of the communion of Christian, there are a lot of works have to be done, starting from reconstructing the mindset towards technology at the grass-root level, introducing technology to the congregations, fund rising to buy these equipments and nurturing people to manage this kind of project at the end. It is not a very happy statement for me to say, but, the churches in Myanmar, Province as a whole, are left behind in today’s mission, use of technology and in digital culture of the world.

The mentality towards digital ministry is important too. Authors of this book mentioned two types of people when they discuss about the heart of the digital storytellers. The one who involved in digital ministry should be a person who love to change, to be changed and moving forward person. Because of the culture and political situation (that's another story to tell), people of Myanmar are not very willing to do changes and they prefer to stay in their comfort zone. What we really need in Myanmar to do better job in ministry is to convert the mentality toward changes. We need to come out from our comfort zones.

After I have seen the clips from DS DVD, "What do you hope for" struck me most. During the clips, people are asked "what are they hope for". It is amusing to me to see that most people answered "world peace". I don't know if those were their genuine answers or, maybe, the world peace is the most popular theme or topic to talk about. Some said money, good health but world peace is the topic what people want to talk about or hope for. Obviously, America goes war with Iraq and some of America lost their relatives, sons and daughters, siblings and the war has impact on some of them directly or indirectly. What I am trying to make a point here is, some of them have personal feelings on the war (maybe world peace) or some of them hear about world peace in their daily basis. That's why when they were asked "What do you hope for" the topic of "world peace" came out form their mind unconsciously. If the people from Myanmar were asked the same question, "to have democracy" or "to strike down the current government" would be their promptly answer.

I have learned from this clip is that, nowadays, there is a mass influence of media on people. Most likely, people would think what media would like them to think because of its sufficient information and effectiveness. In this case, technology and digital culture take very important role in forming people or manipulating people. The effectiveness of digital media is stunning and amazing as it is a very powerful tool to send the propagative message or genuine message to the people who have the access to this kind of media in one click. As digital media is used effectively in all sort of enterprises, it could be a useful tool for the ministry too.

Another thing which attracts my mind is: although the authors are talking about digital media, they still used the printed book, the old conventional way of informing people. So, it is for me to adjust or decide what kind of media has most effectiveness on my own situation.