As I was greeted by another church member yesterday, he was pleased to show off his new Apple watch. He knew that I wear one and he had previously asked me about mine. I’m not exactly sure what I said to him, but I suspect it was something about the durability of the device. My wife and I got ours at the same time, inspired by her electrophysiologist who recommended the device for its abilities to monitor heart rhythms and alert wearers to potentially dangerous heart conditions. When we got them, I was worried that I would break mine. I’ve been pretty hard on watches over the years and only the most durable ones seem to survive my rough and tumble lifestyle. I’ve never been a minister who only works in an office. I like to get out with my chainsaw and cut wood, mow my own lawn, trim my own bushes, and make lots of repairs. I’ve broken watches climbing on rocks, paddling boats, and taking unexpected dips in the water. I routinely forget to remove my watch for everyday activities like washing the dishes or taking a shower.

I have been pleased that the device has performed flawlessly and survived my everyday activities. I know that it gets shaken from time to time because the watch has a feature that detects if the wearer has fallen. When that occurs, it flashes a screen asking if I need help. If I say I don’t need help, it asks if I have fallen. If the wearer does not respond, the watch calls an emergency contact programmed into the wearer’s phone. I’ve activated the “fall” feature doing several different everyday activities. I doesn’t like it when I use a hammer with my left hand. I’m not very good with my left hand, but sometimes that is the only way to reach whatever it is I want to hit. It has been activated when I switched hands to pull the cord on a reluctant small motor. The watch, however, has remained intact.

One of the features of the watch that I use is its contactless payment system. It is connected to the feature in my phone and I can use my debt card by holding my watch near a contactless payment terminal in a restaurant or store. The feature isn’t yet quite reliable enough for me to leave my wallet behind. I have run into terminals that do not respond to the watch and there are still several shops, including a nearby hardware store that do not have contactless terminals. I’m sure that they are coming, but they aren’t yet in every place where I want to spend money. I still carry cash in my wallet because I don't fully trust that cards will work in every setting.

I was thinking about the convenience of that feature when I read an article on the BBC website about people who have had contactless payment microchips implanted in their hands. The chips are no bigger than a grain of rice and the procedure to inject one under the skin is nearly painless, just a small pinch. A similar chip has been very useful for people with certain mobility disorders. There are lock systems that respond to the chips and the person with the right chip implant can unlock doors by simply waving their hand in front of an electronic lock. We have a similar system at the church where we work. We have small fobs that can be carried on a key chain, when the fob is held near the lock, the door is unlocked for a few seconds. Like the payments chip in my watch, it works most of the time, but not all of the time. Our electronic locking system was down one day last week and none of the fobs worked. In fact none of us could get in that particular door and we had to enter the building by a different door and use a regular key. That wasn’t much of an inconvenience, but if I had been a person with a disability that made the use of a key difficult or impossible, I might have been locked out of the building until the system was repaired.

The fact that I can wear a device with the chip on my wrist and carry a fob in my pocket means that I have no reason to have a chip implanted. I would still wear my watch for other reasons, so why not have the device in the watch instead of under my skin.

I’m not afraid of implanted chips because of all of the dystopian threats some have suggested. They cannot be used to track you. If that technology existed, we’d already be using it with pets. When a pet has a chip implanted, it cannot be used to find a lost pet. the pet has to be found and scanned by someone who can get the reader close enough to the animal to touch it. In fact, my wife has a chip implanted that downloads heart monitor information to a device on our headboard each nigh as she sleeps. This allows her electrophysiologist to monitor her heart for any irregular rhythms. The device has performed flawlessly and has been no problem for to years now. Eventually the battery in the device will be depleted and the device will stop reporting. By then we believe that it will no longer be needed and can be removed. Since it is just under the skin, removal will be a very simple out patient procedure.

I’ve joked about having all of the members of the church get implants so that we could monitor attendance and receive payment pledges by people just passing near a scanner. It is meant only as a joke. I don’t really believe that such would be a good idea. There are far too many divisions between people to have to deal with those who have implants and those who do not. And attendance records and donations are not the heart of the church anyway. We’ve far more important connections that are our calling.

So for now, no chip implants for me. I plan to keep using the watch and that is good enough for the foreseeable future.