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I wanted to say thank you first off to the Creation Museum. They have made this event very easy and it's been a real blessing to be here. So thank you. It's been a real help to us. One announcement that we wanted to make, and I forgot to mention this to Ryan as he was coming up, we have DVDs on the back table, the sermon audio table there. Stephen Lee sat down with Pastor Cairns, I think shortly before he retired from the ministry there in Greenville, and did a question and answer session with him. That DVD is available on the back table. It's free if you want one. They're there as long as the supply lasts. service is over, feel free to avail yourself of that. Many of you are probably already familiar with Sermon Audio. Some of you may not be. And that's why we wanted to come up and just share a little bit with you about why we're here, why we wanted to be a part of a conference like this, and then also just give you a little bit of an introduction to Sermon Audio. Our generation is the PC generation. When I was a boy, I witnessed the completion of the transformation from room-sized computers to desktop PCs. The information superhighway. I read about it as a kid, and I can remember thinking it was some kind of fantastical science fiction. Now, the iPhone that's in my pocket has more computing power than those early PCs. The trend for some time now has been to put everything online. In the last 30 years, we have watched the world, literally, transfer into the cloud. Everything is online. Everything is available right at your fingertips, at least it would seem. For 14 years, Sermon Audio has been at the front, helping churches to navigate this new world. And even though we are a tech company and our focus is on helping the local Bible-believing church with their technology needs, we recognize that technology cannot do everything. The internet provides us with a platform a distribution point, a tool for communicating information like nothing the world has ever seen. With over 825,000 sermons available at the touch of a finger, good preaching has never been accessible to so many. With that many sermons already on the site, you may wonder why we are here. It is not just to add a handful of sermons to an ever-growing treasury of great preaching. It is not just to stream another conference to people who couldn't be here because of expense, because of schedule, because of sickness. Those are good things. They're helpful things, but that's not primarily why we are here. We recognize the tremendous potential that technology can play in the furtherance of the gospel today, and that's why we devote so much of our time and energy to the development of the mobile apps and the tools that help us get those sermons out to people all over the world, any place, at any time. But we also recognize something else. something that you've probably thought of yourself. An app cannot replace a person. We love our apps, and we would encourage you to download them, and to use them if you are not already doing so. The download is free, and the preaching will challenge and encourage you. But a recorded sermon, as good as it is, and helpful as it is, cannot replace the local church. We need the personal interaction of the saints, and that is why we are here. That is why we wanted to be a part of this conference. Our goal is not to fill your computer with sermons or to replace your local church, but to get you plugged into an assembly where you can be fed and encouraged and challenged by like-minded brothers and sisters. Somewhere along the way, our culture lost the idea that technology is a tool. And for many, it has become the master. Have you noticed how noisy the world has become? In an effort to free ourselves to communicate better, to be more efficient, we've actually lost something. The trend for some time now, as I said, has been to put every aspect of human existence online, where it can be accessed at any time, right at your fingertips. The pace is relentless. I have been told recently that email is for old people. It's too slow. We now Facebook our spouses. We text with our children. We live in a constant barrage of Instagram photos, of tweets, of blogs, of bits, of bytes. We send more information back and forth than at any time in the history of the world. We are chatting constantly with our friends, with our families, even perfect strangers. Our faces are always glued to our little glowing screens. We have a 24-hour worldwide news cycle. We know about events happening all around the world, but we know little or anything about the people who live right next door. We are in contact with more people and more information than ever before, but that contact is shallower and more superficial than ever. This is obvious, I'm sure, to most of you. And we lament this often. But what is the answer? Do we shun the technology? No. It is valuable. But we must work harder to pull ourselves out of our screens. We must deliberately work to interact in a personal way. Sermon audio is a great tool, but it cannot replace the fellowship of a local body. It cannot replace the care of a local pastor. It cannot replace these things. It can be a supplement and a great encouragement, but as soon as the pastor you are listening to online becomes your pastor, you lose something. As soon as you trade the intimate of the face-to-face interaction for Facebook and text messages, you lose something. The depth of the face-to-face interaction that we all need is critical for our spiritual development. The noise of the technological world must be blocked out, at least sometimes, if we are to really experience the growth that we need as Christians. This was recently brought home to me by my youngest daughter. I have a large family, and with a large family comes a certain level of noise. Thankfully, that noise is not dropped on you all at once, but it grows as the family grows. as does the ability to block it out. My youngest daughter came to me one day, about a year or so ago, and she wanted to get my attention to tell me something. I was engrossed in what I was doing, and I wasn't hearing her among the many voices that were chattering away in the living room that day. She walked up to me, and she said, Daddy? Nothing. So she tried again. Daddy? No response. So she tried a third time. Daddy, daddy, daddy, daddy, daddy, daddy. And I still didn't respond. After a minute or so of trying to get my attention, she resorted to something fairly unique, and it worked. She just leaned forward, and she said, Daddy. Immediately, she had my attention. She had broken through the cloud of noise that was surrounding me. We laughed about it then, and we laugh about it still, but it illustrates an important point. We need to be able to unplug. We need to be able to hear the important voices, the voices that are crying out for our attention all around us. We need to unplug and we need to engage. This conference has as its theme, the Great Commission. How will we accomplish that if we never look up from our screens? Sermon audio can be a tool to help you. It does not have to be. The technology does not have to be your master. Are you going on vacation or moving to a new area? The local church finder will help you cut through some of the guesswork and find a local congregation that is preaching the word faithfully. Are you not physically able to attend church? Missionaries in the field, soldiers far from home, and shut-ins find the webcasts and the archived sermons on Sermon Audio to be a great blessing. But don't forget them. They need you, too. Do you want to share a sermon that your pastor just preached with a co-worker or a friend? The app that I mentioned earlier? It's a great tool for that, very easily can share sermons that way. Is your church unable to muster the resources that are necessary to develop an Android app, an iPhone app, a Roku channel, Apple TV support, Chromecast support, or a website to deliver your sermons? Most can't, but we have. And our focus has been from the beginning to help the churches to focus on the ministry and not have to focus on keeping that voice out there on all the different platforms that are available and necessary to reach the world today. Sermon Audio can help you and your local church in so many ways, but we cannot and we do not wish to be a replacement in any way. That is one of the reasons why, in the past few years, we've been at several small conferences like this one, and that is why we're here today. Our mission is the preservation and the propagation of solid biblical preaching for this generation and the next, but never at the expense of the local assembly, and never at the expense of face-to-face interaction. We have become a people that communicate information on a scale like never before. But it has become more superficial, and it has become less personal. We need to realize once again that communication is more than just the passing of information. At its heart, real communication is communion. In this technological age, we need to work at this. So, we want you to enjoy the site. We want you to download the app. We want you to grow by what you hear. But we also want you to turn off the screen once in a while and really engage with the world around you. It is so much easier to text someone, call them instead. It is so much easier to withdraw into our Facebook world. But our nation needs us. Our churches need us. Our families need us, and we need them. As you look around the room today, you probably see faces that you know. I would encourage you to focus on those you do not. Yes, renew the old friendships, but don't leave here without making new ones. We will think, and I should say, we will feel that this conference has been a success. If when you leave here, you can honestly say, we have met with God. and his people in a real and a living way. Thank you.
A Special Word from SermonAudio Regarding Technology
Sermon ID | 811418373610 |
Duration | 12:18 |
Date | |
Category | Conference |
Bible Text | Hebrews 10:25 |
Language | English |
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