The Telephone and the Internet

The Telephone and the Internet

It's been over two weeks since we went public with our story about The Table Project and our intro video. If you haven't seen the video yet, be sure to check it out and pass it on. We'd appreciate it a lot, and the people you give it to will appreciate it too.

I've spent a lot of time recently talking to people about the Table, answering questions and explaining what the Table does and why. One of the questions I hear when I tell people about the Table goes something like this: "Why do I need a web application to help me communicate with the other people in my church? Isn't it just another thing I have to keep on top of? Yet another thing to do?"

To answer that, I ask them to imagine a person in the early 1900s asking this question: "Why do I need a telephone? If people want to communicate with me, they can come over to my house or write me a letter. You're saying I need to put this thing in my house, and it'll make noise and interrupt me in the middle of dinner?"

The reason this question sounds mostly ridiculous to us today is because we've each had a personal realization about the phone. The telephone isn't about speakers and microphones and copper wire, it's about the people we're talking to. We're occasionally annoyed by our phones, sure. But overall, they bring us joy, they connect us more deeply with our friends and family, they keep us up-to-date on new happenings, and they make our lives easier. We know that to be true, because we've each experienced it on a personal level many, many times.

Even if our hypothetical nay-sayers of the early 1900s didn't agree that the phone could be a benefit to their lives, it would eventually be clear to them that it was being used by all the people they knew, and the phone was becoming the gateway to connect with all those people. If they refused to get a phone, they would be communicating less, be less in touch and less connected. It soon became clear that the phone wasn't "just another thing they had to keep on top of." It was the natural choice that came from a desire to connect and communicate.

The key here is that the particulars of the phone's technology aren't what make it valuable. The value comes from the people that use it.

If you're not sure whether you see the value of the Internet and social networking to your church, think of it as the telephone of the future. It's where your church attendees are, and it's how they like to communicate. That's true now, it'll be increasingly true as time goes on, and it'll happen faster than you might think.

When you start using the Table, you'll soon be on the other side of a new personal realization about the Internet, about social networking, and about the value of connecting in new ways with people in your church. We think you're really going to love it.