Church leader‟s column for Medway Messenger Friday 10 th September 2004 by Peter Marchand of Beulah Christian Fellowship, Gillingham
I have recently changed the contract for my mobile phone. With the deal came the free all-singing, all-dancing handset which was the network‟s „special offer‟ for the month. Recently I also read that even the boreholes at Kingsnorth and Grain power stations are controlled by mobile phone technology, replacing “unreliable radio control.” The first mobile telephone call was made on 3rd April, 1973. It took a decade before mobiles became commercially available. Text messaging was introduced in 1992 and has now superseded phone calls as the most common means of mobile phone use. The last five years have witnessed text messaging grow from a popular craze to an essential communication tool. On average 2.3 million texts are sent in Britain per hour, 56 million on a typical day. We have a new verb: to text. 94% of 18-24 year olds conduct their social lives via text messages. On New Year's Day this year the highest recorded daily total was reached, with 111 million messages sent. On St Valentine‟s Day over 75 million messages were sent by text across the UK, compared to only 12.5 million Valentines cards sent by post. Services that can send you text updates include movie reviews, bank balances, sports, and weather. At Bluewater shopping centre shoppers can be sent instant offers in various stores by text. You can vote in TV shows and even in local and mayoral elections by text. Thumbs of the under-25s are getting bigger thanks to mobile phones and hand-held computers, and Warwick University research has found that young people in nine cities around the world have thumbs which are more dextrous and muscled than fingers. In Japan, young people have even started using
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Church leader‟s column for Medway Messenger Friday 10 th September 2004 by Peter Marchand of Beulah Christian Fellowship, Gillingham
their thumb instead of their finger to point or ring door bells. (Sources: www.text.it, Mobile Data Association, The Teacher) It‟s all about communicating. Why do we read newspapers, or listen to the radio or watch television? It is because we want to receive information and opinion, as well as simply be entertained. It is the reason people write letters to the newspaper. They want to communicate. The Hutton Report was about who communicated what and to whom, when and how accurately. One of the great moments in any parent‟s life is when their baby clearly responds to them for the first time. It is how we understand each other, and learn to live with one another.
God is no different. He wants to communicate with us. He does it through nature all around us, through our conscience, through His Son Jesus Christ, through the Bible and through other people. Before we write off the Bible as being too old, out-dated, and therefore no longer relevant, let‟s remember that the sun in the sky is older than the Bible, yet is still essential to our well-being. One word of Bible advice is, “Do not forget to do good and to communicate: for with such sacrifices God is well pleased.”
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Church leader‟s column for Medway Messenger Friday 10 th September 2004 by Peter Marchand of Beulah Christian Fellowship, Gillingham
God‟s simple text message to us all is “i <3 u.” But to receive the message, as with the water flow, or the Valentine card, or the Bluewater offers, you need to be connected.
Ends
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