Friday, June 26, 2015

Missed You in Church

Ordinarily, I'm a big believer in individual privacy and I don't like the idea of extensive and intrusive surveillance. But a program called Churchix uses facial recognition software to see who did and didn't show up at service last Sunday, and I must confess I am intrigued.

I expect someone to create another program soon that will offer excuses for skipping. At least half of them will involve kids' softball tournaments, dance classes or whatnot, another quarter will come from "not feeling like it" or a "mental health day" and the last quarter will have some kind of valid reason like illness or travel abroad.

2 comments:

fillyjonk said...

I despair at our regularly low attendance but this is an idea that horrifies me.

At one point there was a move in our women's group to call people who weren't attending, with the stated idea of them "not feeling forgotten" but I know if it were me? I'd feel I was being nagged at and would be even less likely to return.

Friar said...

No, I'd never use it. And we'll check in with someone who's missed service for six weeks, but only the one time for now, to see if things are OK with them.