Sunday, July 11, 2010

Signs of the New Generation

by Rev. James Wong
There are many Christians who don’t bring their Bibles to Church. Not because they do not have the habit to do so, they have their bibles in their mobile phones or PDA (Personal digital assistant).

The electronic Bible is so convenient that you can easily download them from the internet free of charge and store them in your hand phone for ease of carrying and reading. In my PDA phone I carry 9 bibles of various versions, two study Bibles, two Bible dictionaries, a theological dictionary, a topical Bible, commentaries and many others. In their physical form, it will be impossible to bring all these books with me wherever I go but in their electronic format they cause no physical weight except to take up some space in my SD Card (Secure Digital memory card).

Few months ago I met this lady pastor from Korea and she was using an iPhone and our conversation touched on that remarkable devise. She said the iPhone changed her life literally. She could connect with her office in Korea wherever she wants and she could receive mails while on the move. Her pictures, video clips, church music, reading and reference materials were in her phone. She went on to show me the other numerous functions of that phone that could help her to be efficient. She is tech-savvy and she has caught up with the Generation Z & A. what is this Generation Z & A?

Probably you have heard about the baby Boomers Generation, Generation X or Generation Y and now the Generation Z & A. There are different characteristics about each of these generations. Their needs are diverse and their mindset and outlook of life are quite different too. Understanding these different generations will enable us to relate well with them.

Often parents complain that their children are addicted to the computer. In fact the computer or the laptop computer has become a centre piece of equipment in their lives. It is their music centre, their connection center to all their friends, learning centre, game centre, enjoyment centre and also their study centre. A lot of parents have found out that the effective way for them to communicate with their children is learning the modern way of communication, speaking to them through free skype video calls, sms, emails or most importantly, facebook.

Jesus taught about the importance of reading and understanding the signs of the times in Matthew 16:3. We must learn to read the signs of the new generation to communicate with them effectively. Let us learn to read the signs. (Please see page 9 for more detail)

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