Essential Tools For Connection

Let’s turn our phones and tablets into powerful tools for building our faith community!
I am old enough to remember phone books, spiral-bound church directories, and even things like kitchen phones that you clutched between shoulder and ear as you cooked, as children (In this case, I was the child) tried not to get tangled up in the chords.
Communication seemed simpler then, when the people we needed were reachable by phone, either through a memorized number or by “letting our fingers do the walking” and finding them in a phone book or directory. Now, we have email, text, social media, and more to communicate.
Ironically, the digital age can sometimes make us feel less connected, not more. I have two theories on that one: One, a cell phone cannot fit between an ear and a shoulder thus isn’t so good for multitasking, but two, it’s a whole different platform for communication. Though things aren’t as simple as they used to be, which can feel overwhelming, these multi-channeled and multifaceted methods of communication are opportunities that can connect us in new and exciting ways, if we opt in.
There is good reason to embrace this new technology. Those church directories of the past were great, but they tended to be out of date pretty much the day after being printed. A healthy church community is dynamic and changing all the time. A cathedral, even more-so. Staying on top of such changes could allow us to communicate more efficiently and effectively.
For this reason, Trinity Cathedral is in the process of moving to a new membership and directory system called Realm, which allows us to connect to one another in ways more aligned with how we communicate today. With Realm, the directory will be at your fingertips with a mobile app. Members will also be able to update their profiles, including contact information, on their own so that they never miss out on any communications.
I hope you’ll join us this Sunday for Building the Realm Community, an informational forum where we’ll introduce Realm and begin to offer some training.
It’s important to engage because each member needs to “opt in” to be a part of the directory, so we hope for 100% participation!
This is a vital tool for our community-building toolbox. But technology is meant to enable community, not replace it. The goal is not a spiffy app, but more conversations over coffee, more phone calls, more gatherings, more of the one-to-one human connection that is essential to Christian life.
So look for the invitation from Trinity to connect to the App, and be with us if you can on Sunday for the forum!
The Very Rev. Bernard J Owens
Dean