I’m always on the lookout for good Christian music but that was not really on my mind when I stumbled on the website of The Franciscan Sisters of Christian Charity.

They have a really good selection of music, some of which is available for free download.

Is there a catch? Not really. All they want in return is for you to give them some favourite titles and artists of your own. Seems more than a fair exchange to me!

You can visit their website HERE

Music downloads HERE

However, one  year in particular is etched on my memory, 1981. It was in that year that my first computer came on the scene, the good old Sinclair ZX81. That was quickly followed by my first ( legal) CB Radio. In that one year my love of computers and mobile communication technology was born.

In a short time the ZX81 gave way to the BBC computer which in turn was replaced by a succession of  PC’s. The CB was replaced in 1983 by my first mobile phone, a simple device which just made phone calls and needed the battery recharging twice a day!

Next came phones that offered SMS, then WAP followed by a very cut down mobile version of the internet. Now I have a device that seems to do everything but make a cup of tea. Where will it end, what is waiting round the corner? The internet is full ideas and rumours as to what the next great thing will be.

In the technical world there is an assumption that each new device will be better than the one before. Adverts no doubt will try to persuade us that we cannot cope without this or that  latest gadget.

But what about the most technically advanced device on the planet – human beings – have they improved with each successive generation? People would like to think so and our Victorian forebears certainly believed it to be the case. After all, hadn’t Darwin shown this to be true?  Well, not really, it was simply people reading into Darwin what they wanted to believe. It is interesting to note that the Victorian idea of the  evolutionary pinnacle seemed to be white, protestant and male!

Some people know that my other passion in life is history, not just reading about it but as far as possible re-creating it. The more I read and the more I put things into practice, the more I become to realise that the lives of the people I try to recreate were no different to mine. I may have the ‘advantages’ of  technology, but I have discovered that  peoples’ reaction to the hopes and fears of life remain fairly constant whatever the age.

That is why I find the Bible and its message important. However far I go back in its page I see in the life of its people many of my own characteristics. They may have dressed differently to me, spoke a different language, but they knew all the emotions, all the hopes and fears that I feel in this 21st century. Because of this the message of the Bible stays constant and up-to-date. It is as relevant to now as it was millenia ago. My copy may now be found on my iPhone rather than  bound between covers of black leather but the message is the same: one constant in a changing world

Why bother with the internet? Isn’t Christian faith about real people experiencing a real God in real life? So writes Gareth Squire, Director of the Christian Enquiry Agency in this months Church of England Reader Magazine.

Gareth goes on to answer those critics that see the Internet as either irrelevant or a force for evil. The internet is neutral and can be used for god or bad and there are many reasons why Christians should bother with it.

Two of the reasons Gareth gives  are:

• The internet is an increasingly significant aspect of everyday life and that access to it has been described as a human right.

• Television and the internet are rapidly merging. When the BBC renames television as ‘Vision’ you realise something is afoot’ , he says

Gareth’s argument is that for the Church to communicate the good news it needs to be on top of these seismic changes which are taking place in communication. This includes the latest technology in mobile phones.

Much of the article is then taken up with examining some of the best of Christian websites over the last couple of years; (too many to mention here)

But one part that really grabbed my attention was the section entitled Cyber Chaplaincy. There are those who visit our sites who will be undergoing some personal or spiritual crisis; some may have questions of faith which they would like to talk through with someone else. What does our website offer such people?

Gareth gives some good advice. Make sure your website focuses on what an outsider may need. To do this we need to ask those outside of the Church walls. How we do that may vary from parish to parish, but without doing so we miss an opportunity to be really effective. Websites become a one way conversation and not the interactive dialogue they have the potential to be.

The internet has some huge advantages for Christians over other ways of operating… as a means of prayer and spirituality, as a means of building community, as a means of educating people and as a tool for mission

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