A rotary-dial church in an iPhone world ...

It’s an iPhone world, but the Church is living in a rotary-dial past.

I’ve borrowed this metaphor from Anne Kornblut of The Washington Post. President Barack Obama moved to Pennsylvania Avenue this week, and Kornblut used the iPhone/rotary-dial images to describe the ensuing clash between Obama’s Apple-savvy staff and a White House encumbered with archaic PC’s and six-year-old versions of Microsoft software.

Obama spokesman, Bill Burton, summed it up succinctly: "It is kind of like going from an Xbox to an Atari."

Coincidentally, we still have a rotary-dial phone installed at church. Hardwired and bolted to the wall for decades, the phone has stayed longer than most of its users over the past 40 years. The phone works … sort of. I keep it around mostly for its symbolic irony: it reminds me how easy it is for the Church to stick with the status quo … as long as it works … sort of.

The point hit home this week as I wrestled through the lectionary readings for Third Sunday after Epiphany:

"Follow me,” Jesus said, “and I will make you fish for people" (Mark 1.17).

The Bible’s two main metaphors for reaching people – fishing and farming – have no currency in postmodern culture. Over-fishing destroyed the fisheries and forced Maritime and Atlantic families to find other occupations. The farmers of Western and Central Canada disappeared too: in 1931, about one in three Canadians lived on a farm; by 2006, the number was down to one in 47.

In a fishing and farming world, netting people or binding them up in sheaves were useful outreach images. The images reflected commonplace activities of the time. That time is gone. The medium is the message. Outdated fishing and farming metaphors are the wrong medium and send the wrong message to everyone concerned.

In an iPhone world, we don’t fish for people – we Facebook the world.

Facebook is a flurry of status updates, wall posts, and inbox messages. It’s 150 million interwoven narratives all at once. In Facebook, you make friends. Then, you meet the friends of friends … and the friends of those friends … and so on.

In Facebook, you converse, not convert. You tell your friends where you are, what you’re doing, who you’re doing it with … and when it’s over, you post pictures.

In Facebook, there are no slick presentations, no pre-written scripts, no canned music played on cue. Just authentic living, one status update at a time. Your Facebook status matters more than your syllogism. It’s about you the person, not your pitches, proposals, or propositions. Either your life captures the imagination of others … or it doesn’t. There is no compulsion. No catching people in nets. No binding them in sheaves.

Within a year or two, Facebook may be supplanted or supplemented by a different platform. (For some, that platform is already here: Twitter.) The platform doesn’t matter. What matters is that technology has facilitated a social networking phenomenon, which has brought a postmodern vibe to the way we impact each other’s lives. Truth is no longer a content dump. Truth is conveyed in personal, not propositional, terms.

So pack away the nets and put away the sickles. Pick up a keyboard or switch on your smart phone, and log on. A Facebook world is waiting for your next status update.