The Daily Mail reports on a Derbyshire church that is sending its prayers, hymn words and readings over the wifi in the church café to worshippers equipped with tablet computers. Apparently it’s a hit with some of the visually impaired worshippers. The Leadership Team at one of my churches has engaged in a lot of research to see what we can do for people who are registered partially sighted, and iPads have been suggested to us. Here is a church actually doing it.
What do you think? Will it meet resistance or fear from some older worshippers who are nervous of the technology? Or is this a genuine way forward?
Big Circumstance 
What interests me is what the Mail didn’t report, but is clear from the pictures: the iPads are simply showing a copy of what is on the large screen. I wonder how many of the congregation, apparently almost all elderly, in fact prefer to read from a close up screen rather than what is on a distant one. Of course they were asked to look at the iPads for the photo. But how many had left their reading glasses at home?
But I can see the use of this technology for the minority who can see better with a screen close up. It would also be useful for people who can’t see the big screen for one reason or another – such as the minister! So I would be interested to know what technology is involved. Is there an app running on the projection computer streaming the screen to the Internet, or just to WiFi? Is there then a special iPad app to view the result, or just a standard browser?
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Was wondering how much this cost ? But technoligy is a good thing.We live in a fast growing communication network.Heard
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Was wondering how much this cost? But we do live in a fast growing technolighy.
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I’m afraid I don’t know how much it cost – it can’t have been cheap, even if they went for modest Android tablets rather than iPads.
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