Podcast Pastors

From Trevin Wax’s post as reported at CP:

There’s a dangerous trend among Christians today, according to one Christian: Podcast sermons are increasingly replacing real pastorship.

“What is dangerous is not listening to podcasts, but thinking that pastoring and shepherding is taking place through this means. There is more to pastoring than the delivery of sermons,” said Trevin Wax, blogger and managing editor of the Gospel Project at LifewayChristian Resources, to The Christian Post….

Earlier this year, Dr. Russell D. Moore, dean of the School of Theology at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, said in a discussion on “Faith in America” that when he asks young evangelicals in ministry who has been really influential upon them, they mention “a disembodied voice that they have heard on a podcast.”

“Ten years ago, most people would have given me the name of a local pastor who had mentored them and worked with them,” Moore noted, calling the new trend “a very dangerous thing.”…

Shane Hipps, author of Flickering Pixels: How Technology Shapes Your Faith, elaborated on the idea of technology and the church in an interview with Christianity Today. He said Christians can’t escape or resist technology because it’s everywhere, but they should try to understand it before blindly trusting it.

“Christians are quick to critique it (technology) or adapt it or reject it without understanding it,” he said. “My interest is to have deep discernment, to understand the actual power of these things, and then decide whether or not a technology is useful.”