In a recent conversation with Jason Powell, we talked about the various words we use to talk about technology and the church. There are all kinds of terms used, like "church technology," "church and technology," "church tech," "church IT," "church media," and "church technical arts". It sounds to me like people use these terms differently or interchangably sometimes. And if I'm getting confused by it, maybe some others might be too.
This blog post is an attempt to clear up the meaning of some terms we often hear used around church and technology.
Church technology is that big umbrella term that's become overloaded with different meanings over time. In the pre-internet days, church technology referred to audio and video technologies used at a church event. Now as the World Wide Web increasing goes mainstream and touches more areas of our lives and our churches too, church technology also can refer to web tools, social media, web & mobile apps, smartphones, personal computers, and more.
Church IT is more clearly defined -- it's church information technology. Like its secular counterpart, information technology is the hardware and software that an organization uses for its operations. This includes computers, file servers, email servers, office software, databases, tech support, etc.
Church technical arts seems to encompass the hardware used for audio, video, media, lighting, and production-related things used for weekend worship event or conference or whatever.
Church media could be used to more specifically for audio and video, with a little more emphasis on the software part, designing and developing the resulting media production.
Church communication is the discipline & practice for using various technologies to clarify a message and get it out, using church technology, church technical arts, church media, branding, design, social networking, and the like.
Granted, most of these terms do have overlap to some degree, so they're not absolutely mutually exclusive and separate categories.
What do you think? Can you help make all of this clearer? Or is all of this even more complicated?
DJ CHUANG, Director at Leadership Network
[image via Wordle.net]
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