“Turn in your Bibles to Luke 17,” the pastor said as he began his sermon. I was visiting my son’s church, near a college campus. “Read along with me, beginning at….” From my vantage point in the balcony something below caught my attention. Little lights dotted the auditorium. Dozens of people in the congregation held their cell phones while swiping their thumbs across illuminated displays as the preacher read the Word of God.
I not only saw phones but also e-readers, tablets, and fingers pecking away at thin-line laptop keyboards. These tech-savvy churchgoers were taking notes—all serious about learning God’s truth.
I had a nostalgic moment, thinking about how I often heard pastors comment on the sweet sound of onionskin paper rustling through a church auditorium when they took the pulpit. I envisioned spiral-bound journals and scrawled notes in Bible margins. But today, I saw little lights and was reminded that this generation of church attendees comes from a different era.
And while this crowd was serious about the Word of God, they were comfortable reading it in a nontraditional format. Same Word. Same message. A different generation. A different approach. This generation expects information at their fingertips—even the very Word of God.
As we’ve shared many times over the past few years, ICR is committed to reaching this generation. We understand that they probably won’t go back to onionskin paper, so we’re looking for creative ways to reach them where they are. Over the next year, we’ll attempt new things, explore new options, offer new resources, and share our latest research. But you can be sure that we’ll hold fast to the unchanging message of God’s Word.
In this issue, we balance the message of Scripture with scientific research, and we once again see that science affirms Scripture. Dr. Henry Morris III encourages us to remember God’s lovingkindness and truth (pages 5-7), and Dr. Nathaniel Jeanson highlights results of new DNA research so significant that “the burden of proof has swung away from creationists and now falls on the evolutionary community” (page 9).
Because this contemporary generation has been raised in a culture that embraces evolution, ICR recognizes the importance of exposing false assumptions and providing authoritative answers from both science and Scripture. Brian Thomas says, “When Christians believe in a recent creation, they show complete confidence in the accuracy and authority of all of God’s Word, including its history” (page 17).
And Henry Morris IV recalls our founder’s great reverence for the Word: “ICR still follows the distinctive tenets established by my grandfather and built on the perfect Word of God. God has guarded our mission in the years that followed him and has guided our leadership as we remain true to His Word” (page 19).
Many of us grew up with the sound of onionskin paper turning at the beginning of a sermon. Now, we can anticipate the flashing of little lights throughout the auditorium. But whether you sit in a congregation full of those who read it on paper or on digital devices, you can have the confidence that God’s Word is “a light to [our] path” and can always be trusted (Psalm 119:105).
* Jayme Durant is Executive Editor at the Institute for Creation Research.
