"A" is for 'app'

Another year, and another start through the alphabet. I begin with an up and coming word: app. It was named the 2010 “Word of the Year”. App stands for ‘application’ or ‘mobile application’ and refers to any number (there are 1,000’s) of programs designed to be used with mobile phones and mobile computer devices to give a person instant access to information – incredible access to information! Ask a young person today – they know what apps are! (In my youth, my friends and I were concerned about abs, as in having a good physique!). 

If you go to the App Store, you will find apps that will help you negotiate through life and will allow you to dazzle your friends.  Many apps will make you wonder how you ever got along without them. There are apps that will help you find the cheapest gas, follow your favorite sports team - live, chart your miles or time – running, biking, (surely canoeing as well!).  You can use the Road Ninja to learn what awaits you off of every exit of every interstate; you can use Star Walk to find and learn about stars in the night sky at your location (I could even find my new star ‘friend’ Aldebaran!).  There is Virtual Wallet – to chart your money flow (too bad, it does not come with real money!) On a work project, forget your level? – there is an app for that.  On the road traveling and need to wake up?   you can turn your tablet into the fanciest alarm clock or find out when the next sunrise will be.  In the dark? your app turns your iphone into a flashlight.  Want to know how well you kiss? that too can be determined … with the right app!  There is also

So, there it is:  life could be easier … if we only apply the right app.  Is there an app for everything?  How about for faith?   Could such an app replace confirmation?

There are apps that will give you the Bible, helps for reading the Bible, daily devotions, prayers.  You can find an app and set it to give you a reminder to pray or read the Bible.  We have joked about our congregation, Advent, having an app.  Not sure what it would do – it could tell you when worship service is, what our weekly schedule is.  Maybe we should look into having a faith app…

Or, maybe there can be no faith app.  Maybe there can be no faith app, because faith is an app.  Yes, faith is the app that we have been given by God – (not the App store!) to apply to life.  Faith may not make our lives easier, but it makes our lives different and navigable – our lives and the lives of our neighbor.  It isn’t as easy as clicking a button or touching a screen, it isn’t as easy as going through a catalogue and choosing just the right features.  We know that faith is applied in a real, not virtual, world; faith is applied in situations that cannot be neatly arranged and categorized.

Okay, we cannot go to the App store for faith, but we do know that there are helps for our faith journeys.

This Lent (begins Feb 13), we will be looking at faith practices.  The ELCA has identified seven such practices under these seven words:  study, pray, worship, invite, encourage, give and serve.  This is something for our faith journey – to help us apply the faith we have been given.

We invite all, stop by during Lent – not to the App Store, but to Advent.  We will be talking about applying our faith, helping one another in real time for real times.

Awesome!