Does anybody out there have a good recipe for cobbler?  Maybe even a pie?  At this stage in the game, I might even go for some nice preserves.

Let me explain:  My father is also a Presbyterian minister and I guess I watched him go through every stage of communications equipment available throughout my life.  There was a time, not that many years ago, that you had to seek out the minister.  You could call him (at that time they were all male) on your rotary dial telephone but if he wasn’t sitting in the office, you tried again later.  Maybe he was at home?  Well, you could try that number too and maybe leave a message with his wife or one of the kids.  One of the worst scoldings I ever received was when I answered the manse telephone with a childish prank, “Miles morgue service.  You plug ‘em, we plant ‘em.”  Dad explained in no uncertain terms that sometimes folks call to let him know that family members have died and that they are in need of a minister and that I was being incredibly insensitive.  Well...we live and learn. Luckily it was him on the phone and the only damage was that I had to sit with a limp for a day or two!

Then came the old two tone pager, very much like the ones we still carry in the fire service.  Everyone had their very own tones and some answering service somewhere would receive the call and then tone Dad out.  You could audibly hear exactly who he was supposed to call and what their number was.  If he missed the information, he could then pick up the nearest phone and call the answering service back.  They would give him the information over the (by now) tone dial telephone device.  This system was limited geographically.  You had to be within range of a radio tower in order to receive your messages.

At some point, I don’t remember at which stage, the telephone answering machine was born. It was now possible to leave a message at the office when a person called and there was no one in.  It was a wonderful invention until there was a hiccup in the electrical service... then all was lost.  Answering machines have improved considerably over the years and now store your messages (incoming AND outgoing) digitally so that you don’t lose nearly as much as you used to.  We have one now that will allow us to retrieve messages remotely.

Remember the digital pager?  Those came into play sometime when I was in high school, I think.  I can’t tell you how many times, how many hours we spent sitting in the car waiting for Dad to return calls received on his digital pager.  The thing would beep, he would take a look at it, and a phone number would appear on a little screen.  Then we would find the nearest pay phone (come to think of it, we don’t see many of those around anymore either), and call that number back.  If we were out of town,  he always used a calling card to make that call.  This was the first shot at nationwide wireless coverage!  Although it was always spotty, we were no longer limited to receiving messages only when we were in town.  Family vacations could now be interrupted at any time!

The digital pager finally gave way to the cellular phone.  At first, this was a big clunky thing that was mounted into one’s car.  Then it became a purse sized bag that could be moved from car to car and plugged into a cigarette lighter.  Then we all got these pocket sized things to carry around.  By the time I graduated seminary and became an ordained minister myself, nearly every adult was carrying a cell phone. Teenagers didn’t have them yet but at least they were around to help us learn how to use them!  This allows us to be on the phone constantly.  No matter where we are or what we are doing, there is always a way to get in touch with us.  If we are out of range of a tower, you can leave a message on our voice mail and we will get right back with you... BEEP!  Those formerly interrupted family vacations are not truly vacations any more at all.  Between the laptop computer and the cell phone, we carry our offices with us!

If I learned nothing else from my father, I do know that the first priority for a minister is to be accessible to anyone who needs me at any time.

And today... today we have the smartphone!  Two weeks ago I bought my first Blackberry.  Being an incurable user of Mac computers, I was holding out for an iphone that would work with our local carrier (which is not AT&T).  After several conversations with a number of people, I decided this was probably going to be a long time coming so I decided to take the plunge and get one of these things to hold me over until Steve Jobs actually gets around to developing a CDMA iphone.

This thing is amazing.  It receives my email, converts voicemail to text (apparently... I have not yet  figured out how to make that work), it will browse the internet, it will receive SMS and MMS messages as well as allow me to do instant messaging (I still don’t know why I would want to do that on a phone even though there are those who are sending me such requests).  I can keep email on the server selectively so I can come back to the office and deal only with those things that require a response.

The problem with a smartphone is that I am not smart enough to use it.  It vibrates constantly on my hip with one type of message or another.  I have learned to use it as a phone and learned to respond to simple messages but I can never figure out which kind of message I am trying to return.  Sometimes it makes noise even though I have tried to turn all of that off except for actual telephone calls.  We had a really neat couple of people visit the church on Sunday and I received an email from them which I accidentally deleted from the server (mis)using my Blackberry before I got a chance to answer [Jack and Janee try again... I know you are reading here!].  In an attempt to become more accessible, I actually became less accessible.  

Conceptually, I know what want this thing to do.  I just have not figured out how to make it happen yet.  I am actually on my second Blackberry now.  The first one lasted less than two weeks before it died.  Apparently there was a glitch in the hardware that rendered it useless all in one fell swoop!  My cell phone number was forwarded to my wife’s cell phone for about 24 hours until I could get things worked out.  How’s THAT for accessible?  It is now a pastoral emergency for one’s cell phone to break.  Somebody might need to call me and they can’t.  Oh the joys of modern technology!

Dr. W.B. Bloys was the founding pastor of our little church here in the Davis Mountains.  He started several churches as he rode around this part of the country either on horseback in his wagon.  As early as 1888 he would gather people from all over town in that wagon by riding around and hollering, “come to church!”  At the camp meeting that now bears his name, children continue to honor his memory by ringing a bell 20 minutes and 5 minutes before each worship service.  “Come to Church” was the way to communicate.  The children scream those words at the top of their lungs as they ring the bell.

As I think of Dr. Bloys and the lives he touched all over this country, I wonder about his accessibility factor.  The telephone was first used by Bell and Watson in 1876, 12 years before Bloy’s arrival here.  Did he have one in his home at that time?  Did he ever have one installed before his death in 1917?  I don’t know.  What seems obvious, though, is that when he left town on his horse to attend to the ranchers in the area, he would have been gone for days at a time.  When he was gone, he was gone.  There was no getting in touch with him.  There was no knowing if he was safe or in danger.  There was no way for his wife and children even to get in touch with him.  There was no leaving a message after the beep.  He was gone.

There was a time when email was not a word and a blackberry was something you put in a dutch oven with the right kind of batter to make a tasty dessert.  Ministry happened then but it happened in very different ways.  Every morning I pray for a long list of folks.  At times I feel called to check in on them.  This is done in a variety of ways.  I can pick up the phone and call, drive over and visit, check to see if they have posted anything new on Facebook or CaringBridge, shoot them a text message... you name it, I have it.  I can communicate with those on my prayer list in numerous ways.  I can know what I need to be praying for at a particular time and I can let those folks know that I am doing that praying.  What’s more, I can do all of that from anywhere in the world.

I was just about to walk out the office door and throw my new Blackberry as far up the mountain as I could send it this morning when this vision of Dr. Bloys saying his morning prayers by a campfire over coffee with only his God, his horse, and himself came to mind.  I can imagine a hand written list of prayer concerns kept folded between the well worn pages of a Bible or kept close to his heart in a breast pocket with no way to contact those people and no way for them to contact him.  

I wonder if technology has changed the face of prayer in the same way that it has changed the face of ministry?  I wonder if all this new technology is as much a distraction to me as it is a help to my ministry?  I wonder... 

...gotta run... the phone is ringing!