Another Sign that Technology is taking over

codfanglers

codfanglers

Dedicated Member
There has been a few threads lately about technology taking over, such as the increasing dependence on cell phones.

Here is another issue that I wanted to get your opinions on. Now it involves church, but it is a technology based thread and not a faith based thread.

There are approx 300-400 attendees at my church. The pastors and leadership team has started to use an electronic system to keep up with church attendance. First, people has to go to a computer monitor when arriving and locate their names alphsabetically and click to sign in for attendance. One of the reasons for this is to keep track of people that would stop attending so they could reach out to them. I thought it was a little silly but I took part in this.

Approx. nine months ago they came up with a new system. Church members would acquire a card with a magnetic strip, like a bar code, and now there is a system where people scan themselves in when they enter. They are not the only ones to do this as it appears to be a bit of a trend with medium and large churches doing this to keep track of attendance.

I absolutlety hate this. The scanning oneself in with a magnetic strip seems teribly impersonal, like one is entering a place of business and about to do a bank transaction. Most people, just fall along with this, including the older members, which surprises me.

Since this site has half its members in the UK and half in the states, I thought it would be a good place to get opinions on this. Is this something you are familiar with? Is it just me or is this crazy?

Thoughts are encouraged. Thanks.
 
This sounds similar to the system at my local hospital. Although you are there to be treated ,in one department you have to take a ticket and wait till your number is called. All terribly impersonal . I always thought that anyone was welcome in church but if you have to "sign in " it could be off putting not welcoming. :rolleyes:
 
dick said:
This sounds similar to the system at my local hospital. Although you are there to be treated ,in one department you have to take a ticket and wait till your number is called. All terribly impersonal . I always thought that anyone was welcome in church but if you have to "sign in " it could be off putting not welcoming. :rolleyes:
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Just for the record, it is not mandatory. It is highly encouraged, but I DO NOT do this. I think they get my attendance when I check my kids in. For safety and security reasons, kids have to be signed in, which is perfectly fine.
 
My church that has the latest and greatest audio and visual system, song lyrics thrown up on screens, etc. still relies on pew cards, thankfully. Yes, the kids have to be checked in to Sunday school. The ushers could take attendance by simply taking the total known number of seats and counting the ones that are empty. And of course that begs the question. Do you run the church like a large family or a corporation?
 
From the outset I would like to state I'm an Atheist, having said that I do go to church to help celebrate various ceremonies, which I enjoy, but I do not pray or pretend to pray, I refuse to me a hypocrite but I know many people get a lot help and enjoyment out of their religion and I'm happy for them and totally support them.

Now to the nitty gritty, signing in? Really? Wow! I can understand your leaders wanting to keep an eye on the older or more vulnerable members but surely that could be done visually, we all have a duty to keep ours eyes on the elderly and vulnerable in any kind of community but to have people sign in is a bit too far I think. I thought church was supposed to be a place of peace and worship not bean counting. When I was going through a very difficult time in my life, twice to be honest I went into a local church and sat at the back just for the atmosphere and the peace and I found I had time to think and sort my head out for a while and it did help but I'd have had to "Sign in" and be counted I don't think it would have had the same effect. I know I'll be told if I'm wrong but I don't think there is a system like that here.

Once I was in church for a family celebration and there was a new priest there ( Not as nice as the old one and not many liked him) he decided that he needed to wear a microphone and I don't think a lot of people liked the idea but it was quite funny when he'd finished and back stage, so to speak, and forgot to turn it off, I wont tell you what he said but the rears of laughter were more audible than his mic was. There are places technology have no place being and I think church is one of them, said the Atheist :D
 
Pearl said:
From the outset I would like to state I'm an Atheist, having said that I do go to church to help celebrate various ceremonies, which I enjoy, but I do not pray or pretend to pray, I refuse to me a hypocrite but I know many people get a lot help and enjoyment out of their religion and I'm happy for them and totally support them.

Now to the nitty gritty, signing in? Really? Wow! I can understand your leaders wanting to keep an eye on the older or more vulnerable members but surely that could be done visually, we all have a duty to keep ours eyes on the elderly and vulnerable in any kind of community but to have people sign in is a bit too far I think. I thought church was supposed to be a place of peace and worship not bean counting. When I was going through a very difficult time in my life, twice to be honest I went into a local church and sat at the back just for the atmosphere and the peace and I found I had time to think and sort my head out for a while and it did help but I'd have had to "Sign in" and be counted I don't think it would have had the same effect. I know I'll be told if I'm wrong but I don't think there is a system like that here.
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I, too, am an atheist, but attend family occasions that take place in church. Unfortunately, those are mostly funerals these days. They usually take place in a tiny church way out in the country, so no technology and no sign-in even though the attendance for Sunday service is very high for a main-stream Protestant church. Probably no sign-in for Sunday School, either, as the community is so isolated that the residents still seldom lock their doors.

I have no idea what the technology situation is in the main-stream churches here in the village or next door in the city, but I've heard that attendance is generally quite low. Possibly there's no more technology than an induction loop for hearing aids.

Protestant church buildings in my area are almost universally locked unless they're occupied, so there's no chance of going inside to sit for a while and quiet one's mind. Don't know whether the local Roman Catholic church is kept locked. I only know that their attendance is way down too — there's only one church still in use to serve the same geographic area that used to have four, and only one parochial school where there used to be three.

I often attend Evensong while visiting England, but it's for the music, not for the service. And I join in with the hymns because I enjoy singing and because they're just different enough from the ones I remember from my Presbyterian childhood to be interesting and to be a bit of a challenge to sight-read.

Marianna
 
Strictly, hatches matches and despatches my self. I did ""dabble"" with various religions but my inborn scepticism prevented me from giving it my whole hearted attention. I would not deny anyone from paying homage to their god so I try and be open minded to all. The vicar in "OF FUNERALS AND FISH"! says it all ," Faith Clegg Faith!"! :42:
 
dick said:
Strictly, hatches matches and despatches my self. I did ""dabble"" with various religions but my inborn scepticism prevented me from giving it my whole hearted attention. :42:
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For me, the stumbling block has always been that I'm too analytical. Apparently it's an in-born trait — I remember frequently thinking in church and Sunday school, 'That conclusion doesn't follow from the evidence as stated', or 'That phrase is taken out of context, which twists its meaning.' Of course, I didn't think in those terms as a very young child, it was more a sense of something very wrong and of frustration because I lacked the vocabulary to articulate it. Once I acquired the vocabulary, I fortunately had enough sense of self-preservation to keep my lips zipped until I was living away from home and supporting myself!

The out of context thing reminds me of the episode in which the young male and female missionaries come to (I think) Clegg's door and say, among other things, 'There are wars and rumors of wars.' It sounded like an attempt to frighten the hearer into accepting their flavor of religion, but the text continues comfortingly, 'See that you are not alarmed, for this must take place, but the end is not yet.' (Matthew 24:6). It's part of the teaching on not accepting false Christs. When I heard the missionaries' quotation I didn't recall the context at all, but it was so short that it set off alarm bells so that I had to pause the playback and look it up.

BTW until now, I had heard the phrase 'hatch, match and dispatch' only in the context of types of records that are essential to good genealogy research. It's pleasant to see it in a non-technical context!

Marianna
 
I am sitting hear and reading my own thread. I enjoy it and once again, I didn't mean to bring a heavy topic such as religion into the forum but was just so curious to hear some thoughts of members here. My own focus was not religion itself, but gathering the thoughts about the electronic sign-in with the magnetic strip, etc. Having said that I do enjoy all the posts. Most importantly, I hope such a topic is never devisive here.

Yes, one concern is what Pearl mentioned and that is keeping an eye on the elderly attendees but another strong concern is keeping an eyes on the younger folk that might wander away (Not that the church would "strong arm" them back in or anything, but just check on them). But yes, I also see this reliance on technology as a weakness. I think it is great to use the technology for sound systems, video projectors, etc., but not keeping track of who is attending. However, one of my points is a lot of medium and large churches are apparently doing this as it might be a trend.

Since I am right outside of the nation's capitol, my environment with quite different from Marianna's isolated village.
 
Cod,

After the horrific events in Charleston do you see the use of ID cards to gain entry to churches spreading as a potential way of preventing people who perhaps should not be there from gaining entry ? I in no way wish to bring this up to offend anyone apologies for mentioning it if I have but I just thought it was relevant to the discussion
 
My own church is not large enough to need technology to track people. But there several large churches in the area. They all have the large, multiple Sunday services but also have weekly (or monthly) home fellowships. These are not mandatory but help people to form closer relationships and notice if someone is troubled or needs help or if their attendance becomes sporadic. Even though the electronic monitoring may have good intentions, I think many people could find it offensive.
 
me2 said:
... Even though the electronic monitoring may have good intentions, I think many people could find it offensive.
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It seems as though it would be very of-putting to visitors and to potential members who are attending a service for the first time.

Marianna
 
Cod,

I think it was a poor way of spending the churches money. Always wanting to know where you are, big brother, spying, martial law. Have not heard of this in a church before. How does the rest of the people feel? Very impersonal. Like you are clocking in to go to work. I know schools are going to cards to keep track of students. Wonder if majority of the church didn't like having to clock in if they would get rid of it?:30:
 
Sadly I don't think this is all about tracking people there is a tiny bit of it about security who ever imagined that atrocity would visit places of worship a sad indictment of society today.
 
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