Regular bloggites may have gathered that I like gadgets. I love to see and experience changes in technology, marvel at innovation and see how these change the way I carry out tasks.

One of my favourite gadgets is very simple in concept, clever in the way it carries out the task and effective in achieving the desired outcome. It’s a coin sorter. Yes, you did read that right. It’s a coin sorter.

There is something wonderfully satisfying about the mechanics involved. Let me try to describe the process to you. Coins are dropped into the hopper at the top. Inside an inclined platform with ridges to catch the coins rotates (driven by a battery-powered motor). As the platform rotates coins slide into the ridges and as it rotates they slide outwards and down onto a slope that travels all the way around the outside of the sorter. At even points around the outside are slots of differing sizes, through which the different coins will drop into tubes that receive the different denominations of coin.

Now that is clear you will understand why it is such an enjoyable gadget to use. The simple mechanism is elegant and effective. The ‘trundle… thunk’ as coins travel along the slope and drop into the tubes is immensely satisfying. So far I have not had a single coin drop into the wrong tube and I have had it since February.

Of course my description of the coin sorter does not do it justice. It would have been better to have shown you a video of it in action, but my WordPress package does not include the ability to upload video. You can see a similar one in action here on YouTube.

But even that does not do justice to actually experiencing it in action and having the machine sort your own coins for you.

When I was at the vicar-factory I can remember studying the Sociology of Religion. I was sceptical about it because it seemed to be an analysis of faith at a superficial level. Indeed that is one of the criticisms I have of many of the humanist / atheistic critiques of the Christian faith – they seem to exist at a superficial, theoretical level that does not do justice to my experience. I understood why when I read a book that contained this analogy.

If you look at a stained glass window from outside you can see some of the shapes and images. You get an idea of the colours, and if the lights are on inside the church you may even get an idea of the beauty. But you can only fully appreciate a stained-glass window from inside. Until you enter the church and see from inside what it is like you will never fully appreciate it.

And I think the coin sorter is of a similar order (if less spectacular). You only fully appreciate it when you use it.

And it is the same with the Christian Faith. Unless you experience it for yourself you will never fully appreciate it, understand it or even simply ‘get it’. You can only do that when you surrender to God and allow him to be the most important in your life. You can analyse all you want, work out all the arguments for and against, even attend church your whole life, but until you say ‘yes’ to God you won’t be able to experience it. That’s why we call it ‘faith’ – it takes a step of faith to take all that you know, all that you have seen in others, all that you have understood about God and say ‘yes’.

If that’s true, how does it affect the way you (and your church) relate to those around you?

Be blessed, be a blessing.

Portsmouth, Rhode Island, USA: Police charged Gregory Rosa, 25, with a string of vending machine robberies in January when he: 1. fled from police inexplicably when they spotted him loitering around a vending machine and 2. later tried to post his $400 bail in coins.