Hidden away in USA Today on July 5 was a little article announcing that Google was doing a little “spring cleaning in the summer.” The article stated that Google is retiring its iGoogle personalized home page.
I will say that this news does not affect me. iGoogle is not one of the services that I use on a regular basis. Let’s be honest here, I don’t think I have ever used iGoogle! I am starting to like parts of Google+ more and more, so I hope that doesn’t go away! But iGoogle? I wasn’t overly wrought at it’s demise.
But that wasn’t what struck me about the article. It was the next paragraph:
TechCrunch offers up a list of other services Google has killed off recently, including: Google Bookmarks Lists, Google Friend Connect, Google Gears, Google Search Timeline, Google Wave, Knol, Renewable Energy Cheaper than Coal, Aardvark, Desktop, Fast Flip, Google Maps API for Flash, Google Pack, Google Web Security, Image Labeler, Notebook, Sidewiki, Subscribed Links,Google Flu Vaccine Finder, Google Related, Google Sync for BlackBerry, mobile web app for Google Talk, One Pass, Patent Search, Picasa for Linux, Picasa Web Albums Uploader for Mac and Picasa Web Albums Plugin for iPhoto, and all Slide products.
All of these are programs and services that at one time Google offered to the world. Some were used, and others…well, they didn’t work out as well as Chrome or YouTube. But Google keeps trying! They throw something out there and if it works, good. If not, then it goes the way of iGoogle.
I am sure there is something those of us in the church need to learn here! Too often the church is the place where nothing ever dies! How many closets are the repositories of Sunday School curriculum from 1995? How many programs are on life support, and that is being kind? How often do we agree if it was “good or Paul and Silas it is good enough for me?”
Perhaps we should pay more attention to John 12:24. “I assure you that unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it can only be a single seed. But if it dies, it bears much fruit.”
Perhaps the most Christ-like faithful thing we can do is to allow some programs to die…or at the very least clean out that Sunday School closet!