Well... Not really.
But it did have an impact on the future of personal computing - and still does. I'm a veteran of the computer wars, and have operated Basic, Geos, C/PM, MS-DOS, Win 3.1 and every one following (except Vista), SCO Unix, Ubuntu and Kubuntu Linux, OS2 and OS2Warp, and now OS X.
To my right sits an IBM Thinkpad with XP, and I type this on a Mac. So I've been around and in this revolution since the beginning.
The tasks I do on whatever computer sits in front of me are still pretty much the same as they were at the beginning, though as software has progressed, certain tasks I used to have to do on other platforms are now integrated within the PC. It's all good. I love technology - when it helps.
I've been reading lately about the different ways Christianity has approached culture. As I've studied modern approaches, I had this feeling that I was missing something by not looking back at the way Christianity was able to spread in the earlier centuries despite (or perhaps because of) no support, or even hostility towards it from the people and governments it related to.
In that search I stumbled across a book called "The Celtic Way of Evangelism" by George Hunter.
Wow.
So much of what Hunter shows of Patrick's model for evangelism is exactly the model we could use today.
Funny how at times we need to go back, to move forward. Hunter quotes an ancient Chinese Poem in the book's conclusion.
Go to the people.
Live among them.
Learn from them.
Love them.
Start with what they know.
Build on what they have.
On this day in 2007 - that makes a lot of sense.
The final paragraph in the book is this one:
The supreme key to reaching the West again is the key that Patrick discovered - involuntarily but providentially. The gulf between church people and unchurched people is vast, but if we pay the price to understand them, we will usually know what to say and what to do; if they know and feel we understand them, by the tens of millions they will risk opening their hearts to the God who understands them.
With all my heart I pray that millions of us will wake up in time to reach millions of those who live not far from God.
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