HOW WOULD JESUS RESPOND TO PROCLAIM IF IT CRASHED ON HIM?
I was just in a great conference today with Paul Tripp today and sitting under his teaching was a humbling and amazing experience. One of his main points, interestingly, was how trials and testing are in fact, evidence that God is working in our lives to make us more like Christ. It's not about "me". It's about God and Him making me more like Christ.
I have to say, I'm amazed at the responses and comments from customers of Proclaim, Christians (ambassadors of Christ) when Proclaim crashes and makes life difficult for us for our Sunday morning presentations.
I'm thankful for Logos and Proclaim for their great product that supports the church. Sure, from a business perspective we would like more stability and less crashes and issues, especially on weekends. But I do wonder, how Jesus would respond if He was a client of Proclaim, and how would He want us to respond as He would, when we face these little trials of something not working as we hoped. Regardless of Proclaim's responsibility - what is my responsibility in the way I respond?
For all the weeks Proclaim works, Thank You, Lord. And when it doesn't work, thank You also Lord for making me rely on You. Thank you for the uncomforatable opportunities to be creative. Thank you for making us consider other things to fill our time in church, things that don't depend on technology - like reading more Scripture, singing more songs people know, and praying prayers that aren't scripted. Thank you for opportunities to have extended time to fellowship and for making our worship teams be real people and not just performers. Thank You, Lord, for opportunities to be just a bunch of followers of Jesus that gather together to worship You.
Thank You, Lord for the trials. Help us learn to know Your joy in them all and bring You glory.
Comments
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He would just fix it instantly!
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Very good reminders, Dave. Thank you.
It also makes a good case for the pastor to have a print Bible in his bag and maybe even a paper copy of his notes. A few hymnbooks at church or at least some photocopies, or even some practice in the old art of "lining out" songs? And for teachers, even "high-tech" whiteboard markers often leave us dry [:D]. Anyone remember chalk? Our worship/teaching shouldn't stop when the electricity does.
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Thanks, Dave for the gentle rebuke and reminder. Our Sovereign God wasn't taken by surprise. Perhaps we have been more reliant on technology than Him and needed the reminder that He is in control. Thanks.
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Absolutely correct but if he was running a software company he would also not have got so exited about running a dating site and branching off into new and more exiting areas than what people are currently paying for that the company would have been so woefully unprepared for technical issues that arise.
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Helpfully I think. Prayerfully.
Jesus might have rebuked it. Where we would see epilepsy He saw an evil spirit driving an illness. We have an enemy and our dependency on human aids leaves us somewhat vulnerable. Gets very frustrating as both a consumer and provider.
The Holy Spirit is NOT off line. Never will be. Preach, teach and give praise all the time.
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I always try to be supportive of the Logos/Proclaim tech staff - they are, in many ways, extensions of our ministry - and we of theirs, I think.
As I get more experienced with Proclaim (since Easter, 2014), I have learned to have a "Plan B," because stuff happens... Every computer, software program, and electronic device can have issues, and the more we try to do, the more potential for drama we encounter. That's on us - to be prepared and expert enough in what we're doing to know how to handle issues. My usual Plan B is to make sure to have my Logitech R800 remote presenter handy in case there are Proclaim Remote issues.
The other issue we have to face is, if the problems are regularly catastrophic, as they were Saturday, then we ask ourselves if this is the software we should be using to minister to God's people. Problems were largely worked out by Sunday morning (PST), but Saturday was drama, and it kept me from working effectively and clearly, and took much more of my time than I would have liked. Along with other minor issues, normally handled with ease, it seemed like absolutely nothing was going right.
Sunday morning, several of my slides came across as blank slides in our presentation for both services - unfortunately, I didn't notice that until I was almost on that slide in the service. I took care of it for the 2nd service (by deleting the blank slides and reloading the slides from the HD on the sanctuary laptop), but it took extra time that I didn't really have, so I missed another minor issue that caused drama for another part of the service (the external battery on the video camera's HDMI transmitter had just shut off and I didn't have/take time to check that - so no live video feed of something I wanted to demonstrate as an illustration).
I've been a pastor for over 30 years, and working with computers and software for longer than that (MSDOS 1.1, Windows 1.0 - eek!), so I can work through glitches - but, of course, I'd just as soon not. If nothing else, it makes us look unprofessional and poorly prepared. I am very aware that the Logos/Proclaim staff is concerned deeply about this.
Thanks to the Logos/Proclaim staff for working so hard in getting things up and running!
Rev Larry Becker
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"He would just fix it instantly!"
Ah like he "fixed" the fig tree maybe
Shalom
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Did you also have catastrophic failures on Christmas Eve? We did and I was trying to go back and remember when we last had them. I knew it was near Thanksgiving. I believe it was the Sat night before Thanksgiving that all of Proclaim would not sync and we could not access any of their forums or websites. I believed at the time that their server was down. Looking at your post here makes me think my timeline is correct. I am wondering if anyone here had Christmas Eve issues as well. Ours were far worse than Thanksgiving, Do cloud-based systems make it prone to failure when more people are using it? Such as on holidays? Can we expect an Easter failure as well? Perhaps the issue is the Proclaim server not being able to handle all customers on at once and individual fixes to each computer will not help anything?
We weren't happy about it, but did what we could to remedy it and remember that those who are helping at Proclaim wish there weren't problems too and if they could, would fix them immediately and permanently for us. We made sure we could still enjoy the holiday despite days of prep going out the window. We definitely laughed a lot, if perhaps through some tears of frustration. In the end, we have to be stewards of the resources we are given and decide how best to use them for our ministry.
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honestly.. Easyworship would never crash nearly as much as Proclaim. That's the reason I did not choose Proclaim. Reliability isn't there. I'll wait 4 years for Proclaim to mature first.
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Dawn Ritzie said:
Did you also have catastrophic failures on Christmas Eve? We did and I was trying to go back and remember when we last had them. I knew it was near Thanksgiving. I believe it was the Sat night before Thanksgiving that all of Proclaim would not sync and we could not access any of their forums or websites. I believed at the time that their server was down. Looking at your post here makes me think my timeline is correct. I am wondering if anyone here had Christmas Eve issues as well. Ours were far worse than Thanksgiving, Do cloud-based systems make it prone to failure when more people are using it? Such as on holidays? Can we expect an Easter failure as well? Perhaps the issue is the Proclaim server not being able to handle all customers on at once and individual fixes to each computer will not help anything?
We weren't happy about it, but did what we could to remedy it and remember that those who are helping at Proclaim wish there weren't problems too and if they could, would fix them immediately and permanently for us. We made sure we could still enjoy the holiday despite days of prep going out the window. We definitely laughed a lot, if perhaps through some tears of frustration. In the end, we have to be stewards of the resources we are given and decide how best to use them for our ministry.
Following up offline.
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I have to say. It has crashed twice on us, but the customer service has been great. Working hard with to fix the issues. Some on our end. Very responsive.
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Dawn, this may not be the Faithlife position, but in giving presentations I always try to move to local-only sourcing just to minimize the number of variables that can "ruin" my otherwise perfect presentation. [8-|]
Orthodox Bishop Alfeyev: "To be a theologian means to have experience of a personal encounter with God through prayer and worship."; Orthodox proverb: "We know where the Church is, we do not know where it is not."
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