This came across in my Google Reader and got my attention. Shane Hipps, pastor of a church in Arizona, recently spoke at a conference about how technology pulls us from being in the present “now” moment. According to the article “Shane argued last night that this is not healthy, nor is it Biblical.”

I don’t know Shane, but that takeaway summary of his message got me to thinking. It’s fair to say that he is struggling to address a very real issue shared by many pastors. It’s an issue that has been unraveling before our eyes for many years. Technology has become so ubiquitous that no more is the internet just in our homes and at our works, but the internet is sitting in nearly every seat and every pew of every service.

Pastors, who are driven to care for and protect their congregation from negative influences, are seeing the effects of this and reaching to find appropriate responses. For years they have been left to perform damage control for families devastated by the darker influences of the web. I also think it’s fair to say that many are arriving at the same conclusions that Shane expressed that “its not healthy, nor is it Biblical.”

When I hear this perspective I completely understand it. And left at that point I believe it couldn’t be more wrong.