Stewardship & Mac TCO

Some of the folks on the Mac Ministry list have recently been discussing whether using Macs is good stewardship. The conversation began when someone mentioned a friendly debate he was having with a PC user. The PC user’s argument was that Macs are a “misuse of the resources God gave for ministry in the church.” After all, PCs are cheaper, so isn’t it irresponsible to spend more for a Mac?

This has elicited several humorous and informative responses, but one of the most compelling came from CMUG president Jesse Sng:

Our church office desktop Macs are still running and they are the G4 Sawtooth edition PowerMacs that are by now about 10 years old. They had a new lease of life after being retired from graphics design work at a design company and were "called" to the ministry instead.

We had had old PCs that we had a problem even trying to give away. While we are able to get one of these refurbed Macs into the hands of some of the missionaries that we are working with, it would be insulting to give away an old PC because it would be perceived that we're giving away a discarded piece of junk that we no longer want and trying to pass it off as a computer.

Its cool that every Sunday, our video and audio recordings are actually handled by a 15" and 17" "Luxor" iMacs (lamp shade edition) and they not only work after all these years, they really look great sitting there on the desk next to the audio mixer.

Best part of it was that a member bought these are second hand machines (cheap) and then put them into the ministry.

The best story for me was the time I helped my former pastor refurb an old Powerbook (1st generation) that was already 10 yrs old, together with a 5 yr old inkjet printer and they were used in Bible college by his daughter.

I managed to pick up a 2.2Ghz iMac (2008 edition) at half its original retail price and it is every bit as good as any of the Macs that I am using.

Most people I know are penny wise, pound foolish and if I were to apply theology it would be this — I do this because I want to be a good steward of what God's given to us. I am buying machines that are still in use 6 to 9 years later (my Pismo still works after 9 years) instead of buying a machine that I need to replace every 2 to 3 years.

Let's not even get into the time-wasting aspect of having to declare a state of emergency everytime one of these things gets infected and you have to waste time to deal with that instead of getting work done.

Every one of the church members who've moved on to using a Mac in the last few years has been getting more things done, with greater creative quality than ever before and they are NOT going back to using a PC (repentance!).

Jesse’s argument basically boils down to the fact that the Mac has a lower TCO, or total cost of ownership. Can you buy a cheaper PC? Sure you can. But you’re likely to find the few dollars you saved up front don’t go nearly as far as the dollars your Mac-using friend invested in a computer that just works … and just keeps on working.