Archive - December, 2008
Neil Postman, Technology & The Church
I have really been enjoying reading John Dyer’s blog, Don’t Eat the Fruit. John is currently in the middle of a 5 post series “exploring Neil Postman’s lecture ‘Five Things You Need to Know about Technological Change’ as it relates to church life and spirituality.” Here are 3 of the 5 posts he has written so far.
I love The Church…and I love certain types/aspects of technology. So I’m glad there are people out there like John who challenge us to ask the hard questions regarding not only technology, but how we use it in The Church. This is one of my new favorite blogs and I hope you continue to read his blog as he continues his series.
Looking forward to meeting John in person at ChurchTechCamp:.Dallas (#ctcdallas)
Register for ChurchTechCamp:.Dallas—NOW!
ChurchTechCamp:.Dallas Website
ChurchTechCamp:.Dallas Registration
The Twitter and Blog tag for this event is:
#ctcdallas
#churchtechcamp:.Dallas is Here!
#churchtechcamp, which was pretty much hinted at, discussed and organized within about 5 minutes on Twitter a few weeks ago, is finally coming to fruition.
And instead of Los Angeles, this time it’s going to be in Dallas.
When:
Thursday, January 8
Where:
Irving Bible Church
Time:
9am-5pm
Cost:
$0…yes, I said $0.
Lunch:
Will be provided free by our great friends at Unifyer. (thx Matt and Lance)
What’s Happening:
Tony Steward sums it up succinctly this way–
First half of the day will be 4 conversations about ministry, technology and the internet.
Then Lunch.
During the first half of the day people can suggest and sign up for projects that we will work on together during the second half of the day.
Then we will leave.
That’s the gist, but watch as the specifics unfold over the next couple of weeks.
How Can You Be Involved:
We need one of you to design the stripped down, simple webpage for us. If we get multiple versions, we will put them all up on the site.
And we need a logo.
What If You Can’t Be There:
Well, like Los Angeles, it will be offered virtually.
What Do You Need to Bring:
Your computer of course. And we need everyone to bring an extension cord and power strip if you have one. We want to make sure that we are able to meet the power demands for the number of people who show up. We may not end up using yours….but we ask that you bring one.
Oh, and don’t forget to join our #churchtechcamp:.Dallas (Facebook Group)
Also, check out John Saddington’s Church Crunch post, ChurchTechCamp: Dallas – Let’s Start Now.
And also check out Tony Steward’s post, ChurchTechCamp:.Dallas.
If you have any organizational questions, please feel free to contact me by email or Twitter.
If you have any tech/conversation questions, please feel free to contact Tony Steward by email or Twitter and John Saddington by email or Twitter.
Online Community…Does it exist? YES! But I Think You Are Asking the Wrong Question
The Question?
It seems like people have been asking the question:
Can you have community online?
Or at least some form of this question is asked. Usually adjectives are thrown in front of the word community such as “true” or “real” or “authentic” or “quality”….and so you get the point.
I think what people are wondering is whether or not community can exist outside of a person to person, flesh to flesh encounter?
I have asked this question a lot before. But I’m not asking it anymore. I think community does exist online. And that it can exist just as fruitfully and vibrantly as it does in person.
Couple of thoughts:
- Just the fact that someone online is asking that question proves to me the fact that there is online community. Otherwise, why ask? And who are they asking that question to online? Some community somewhere, because they are obviously expecting some response…from someone.
- Just because someone doesn’t have, or hasn’t experienced community online, doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist and isn’t thriving.
- We have to be careful of what our expectations of community are. Community is different things to different people.
- Also, how long does it take community to build? A long time. We can’t just log onto Facebook and comment on blogs and expect instant community.
What is Community?
Depends who you ask…but one place I like to gain wisdom from on this issue is Life Together by Dietrich Bonhoeffer. I think he really wrestled with the topic of community. And I think we can expand his ideas online.
Here are a few of my favorite excerpts:
Christian community is like the Christian’s sanctification. It is a gift of God which we cannot claim. Only God knows the real state of our fellowship, of our sanctification. What may appear weak and trifling to us may be great and glorious to God. Just as the Christian should not be constantly feeling his spiritual pulse, so, too, the Christian community has not been given to us by God for us to be constantly taking its temperature. The more thankfully we daily receive what is given to us, the more surely and steadily will fellowship increase and grow from day to day as God pleases.
On innumerable occasions a whole Christian community has been shattered because it has lived on the basis of a wishful image. Certainly serious Christians who are put in a community for the first time will often bring with them a very definite image of what Christian communal life [Zusammenleben] should be, and they will be anxious to realize it. But God’s grace quickly frustrates all such dreams. A great disillusionment with others, with Christians in general, and, if we are fortunate, with ourselves, is bond to overwhelm us as surely as God desires to lead us to an understanding of genuine Christian community. By sheer grace God will not permit us to live in a dream world even for a few weeks and to abandon ourselves to those blissful experiences and exalted moods that sweep over us like a wave of rapture. For God is not a God of emotionalism, but the God of truth. Only that community which enters into the experience of this great disillusionment with all its unpleasant and evil appearances begins to be in God’s sight, begins to grasp in faith the promise that is given to it. The sooner this moment of disillusionment comes over the individual and the community, the better for both. However, a community that cannot bear and cannot survive such disillusionment, clinging instead to its idealized image, when that should be done away with, loses at the same time the promise of a durable Christian community. Sooner or later it is bound to collapse.
Every human idealized image that is brought into the Christian community is a hindrance to genuine community and must be broken up so that genuine community can survive. Those who love their dream of a Christian community more than the Christian community itself become destroyers of that Christian community even though their personal intentions may be ever so honest, earnest, and sacrificial.
I’m about to tackle Bonhoeffer’s doctoral dissertation (which he wrote at age 21…geesh), Sanctorum Communio: A Theological Study of the Sociology of the Church….I think that there are some gems to be mined in the area of church and community, and practical, theological, ministerial implications for community online.
And What Are You Doing to Foster Community?
I think we are all quick to criticize community–The lack thereof…The clicks…The difficulty to connect. Judgmental…Non-existant. Etc.
But what are we doing about it.
The right question I think: Is what are you doing about the community you are a part of, and to participate and give to a community…not just take?
I love community, but sometimes I’m not very good at it. I love person to person, in the flesh encounters. I also love online community and think it’s a huge blessing and gift that previous generations did not have.
If I have my choice, most often I would rather meet in person, talking over a cup of coffee…sharing life. I love that. But sometimes that’s just not possible. I may, and most likely will never have the chance to meet everyone I’m friends with on Facebook, or who I follow on Twitter, or who I read their blogs. But that doesn’t mean community doesn’t exist, or that our online friendships can’t thrive into an amazing community.
But here’s what I’m going to do about it.
- I’m going to continue to connect with people online, communicate, collaborate when possible.
- I’m going to make attempts to also call, video chat, FB chat, email, etc. with those online…take it another level. I talk with several Tweets on the phone that I’ve never meant in person.
- I mentioned this on Nov. 17 in the post, Taking Community Offline: What I’m Doing About It And My 2009 Goal. That goal is to “meet & have coffee with every person in the DFW metroplex that I’m connected to on Twitter, Facebook or my blog. Cool?” In fact, I’ve already got a head start and met with several others (about 10) and will meet more at churchtechcamp:.Dallas, and many other places. Sometimes in large groups, sometimes in small, sometimes one on one.
What are you doing to create, improve, strengthen, connect, community online and in person? Please share. We can learn from each other.
Innovation3=Connect-Network-Collaborate
Connect, Network and Collaborate are just three of the things that I hope to do at the Innovation3 Gathering in Dallas, TX on January 27-28.
The event is put on by Leadership Network and is host to a plethora of speakers in just two days. Leadership Network says this about the conference:
Innovation3 IS NOT YOUR AVERAGE CONFERENCE…
Innovation3 is an opportunity for you and your team to have up-close, face-to-face conversations that will transform your mind and ministry. Over 100 presenters from some of the most innovative churches in America will be on hand.
Innovation3 is a chance for you to do some real networking. You won’t just be adding “Facebook friends”, but you’ll be interacting one-on-one with peers that will help you sharpen your views and collaborate to help change the world.
I will be one of the live bloggers along with Carlos Whitaker and Cynthia Ware at the event so I hope that we all can have an opportunity to meet and connect with one another.
In the meantime, peruse the website to get a look at all the speakers that are presenting.
Also, check out the Innovation3 blog.
And check out what Tony Morgan has to say about the event.
Text Messaging & the Church’s Need to Re-Evaluate Effective Means of Communication
Text Messaging: Best Way to Communicate?
I came across the article Gmail Preferred By Students, But Nothing Beats Texting, this morning via Twitter (HT: Terry Storch & Matt Knisely).
Lots of interesting things in this article but a couple stood out to me in particular.
The article begins:
Today’s high-school and college students got their first email account at an average age of 13. Most students have had one of their email addresses for 8 years and have an average of about 2.4 addresses each. But if you really want to reach these students, you should forget email. Send a text message instead.
And ends:
In the end, the survey finds that students do use email – perhaps even more than we realized – but if you really want to reach them, you should do it via text or IM. For marketers, this means that the easy method of sending out newsletters and coupons to mass email lists may become a thing of the past – only 16% of students read marketing email. Companies will have to come up with new ways to to advertise to this demographic. May we suggest social media?
Why is this interesting to me? Because I have long wondered, especially as it relates to ministry if we are communicating, or trying to communicate to an audience in a non-effective mean, or in a way that is less effective in not only communicating the gospel, but just basic information such as times, dates, events, details, etc.?
Looking Back
In June I posted this short blog, Classic: Email and the Phone are Slow and Backward. The article, Big Blue Embraces Social Media was about how IBM was adapting to social networking and new avenues of communication, especially among its younger and newer employees. They said,
Adapting these tools, according to IBM, is also important for recruiting. Hotshots coming out of universities are accustomed to working across these new networks—and are likely to look at a company that still relies on the standard ’90s fare of e-mail and the phone as slow and backward.
My entire post was:
I still use email and the phone, but I understand what they are saying. 9 out of 10 communications with my college students was via text messaging and Facebook.
And at least 5 out of 10 of my communications with staff was via text, Twitter and Facebook as well.
I know some churches have done away with work email and are now communicating and collaborating on inter-office wikis.
What is your pervasive form of communication with friends, family and co-workers?
Looking Forward
As I think about that post from June, it’s become more increasingly clear the need to re-evaluate how I communicate, and the tools that I use.
I have the 1,500 a month text plan…and I pretty much use all of them. In fact, my wife and I are looking to get an unlimited text messaging family plan. That being said, that should be an indicator of the importance of text messaging in my context (former college pastor, social media/ministry author, social circle of many 22-35 year olds). You may be in a different context, and text messaging is not that primary.
That means on average I sent out 50 texts, or Twitters a day. That’s low compared to some of my friends, and high compared to others. But it has become the primary means of much communication.
Why? Because I think it’s short, concise, and to the point. That’s why Twitter is gaining popularity and more businesses, churches and organizations are getting on Yammer. In a busy world people are looking for more effective and efficient means of communication. When text does not suffice, then email or phone is better. Obviously, being in the presence of the person and talking in person is the best.
But in a busy world, we can’t always meet face to face, and we always can’t get on a long phone conversation….and we don’t have time to look through hundreds of emails a day.
I think that’s one reason text messaging is so popular. I also think it’s fun.
All that being said, it’s important for us as people to think more critically about what is not only the most effective and efficient means of communication, but in what ways can we maintain our humanity in a tech driven world that aims for shorter and shorter discourse and sound bites? How does this effect/alter our opportunities to communicate the Gospel in this context?
Have you evaluated your context? What forms of communication is the most effective? Why?
Donald Miller, J.J. Abrams and the Bible on Story and Mystery
Will Smith was on Good Morning Texas talking about his new movie Seven Pounds yesterday and he began to talk about his value on the idea of “story” as in relation to his movie choices. I then sent out this Tweet:
Following that Tweet a lot of great discussion ensued about “story.”
Depending on the context of how one uses the word “story”, that word can come to represent various things. In the context that I often use it, and am most familiar with its use…is around the idea of story, or narrative in the Bible. Or story, as that which is the sum of someone’s life. How they are living it out. I tend to be around a lot of people in ministry, the helping professions (counseling, medicine) and the arts (movies, writing, photography)…so that is how I am most familiar with it.
When I talk about “story” I am suggesting the importance of it…sometimes over and against simple fact giving and non-narrative. As a Christian I think we have sometimes lost the importance of “story” in the Bible, the Gospel, the Christian message. We grow up on “story”, hearing all the wonderful and frightening Bible stories as children or the other stories that parents read to us as well. But as we get older, something happens, and we drift away from “story”…we drift away from mystery…instead choosing to live more in facts and truths and apologetics that is detached and not driven by narrative.
I think we have lost something valuable when this happens.
There are two messages that come to my head when I think about this idea of story and mystery.
First, Donald Miller’s sermon at Mars Hill Church, “Story.” Awesome! My wife and I listened to it sometime this last year, and it really challenged us about whether or not we are living the “story” God wants for us. What kind of “story” are we telling with our lives? In fact, it was the final impetus for getting us over the hump of moving from Los Angeles to Dallas this year. (Joshua, thanks for finding this podcast link for us yesterday).
Second, J.J. Abrams: The mystery box which he gave at TED. (HT: Thanks John Dyer for the reminder about this video.) I love this talk. In fact, he makes an interesting statement:
J.J. Abrams:“What a bigger mystery box than a movie theater?”
I sometimes wonder if in our attempt to explain everything in the Bible, we have removed mystery, and therefore, have removed a very valuable component to the narrative. I guess it’s not a surprise that many call movie theaters the cathedrals of the 21st century, and that many churches meet in theaters or design their churches like theaters. Check out his talk…and sorry, he uses a few “choice” words.
Seeking Help Online…Intersection of Counseling & Social Media?
There is a lot I want to blog about this issue, but I am going to roll out a series of posts on this topic in the near future (probably in January 2009)….but I think there are some amazing counseling services/help lines, etc. that are beginning to pop-up online, and I only think they are going to increase.
We live more and more in an online world, and I think there is going to be some significant shifts in how counseling/therapy is delivered.
Here are just two services that I have my eye on, and that I have been in contact with in some form or another…seeing if I can get more involved with them as a volunteer.
I Am Second is one that has just emerged and in fact, hasn’t quite launched yet. I really love their video testimonies…POWERFUL. I love that it is happening in Dallas of which I am a new resident…and because I have been wanting to explore more of the intersection of counseling and social media. Just drove by one of their billboards the other day off the 75 (going north) that caught my eye. Take a look at the videos for yourself.
Heart Support is the other online support community that I first came into contact with about a year ago through a conversation with Rob Bell’s brother Jonathan. They have a very active site with lots of opportunities to share you story, find support and express yourself. They have truly been one of the pioneers I think in exploring online community support/counseling/therapy in a very effective way via social media.
Social Media: If It’s Only Tools, Then to What End?
Social Media as a Tool
If you look up social media on Wikipedia this is the first sentence you read.
Social media are primarily Internet- and mobile-based tools for sharing and discussing information among human beings.
So inherent in the discussion (at least here and I assume many other places) is the idea that when we think of social media (i.e. Twitter, Facebook, blogs, LinkedIn, You Tube, etc.)….we think tools.
So is social media, in and of itself….tools? Is it a tool that helps you do something (i.e. communicate, create, publish, etc.)?
Or is it more than just a tool? A space, destination, community, culture, etc.?
Social Media Beyond a Tool
I have discussed this issue with Tony Steward and I know the issue has arisen over at his blog as well. I won’t speak for Tony, but I think he would say both. Both a “space” and a “tool.”
I’m starting to think of it in these terms. It begins as a tool, but eventually leads one to a space, destination, community. In this process, the tool becomes pretty much second nature, and you no longer think of it in terms of a tool.
For example:
An artist works with paints, oils, brushes, canvas…those are tools. But the end product is the art.
A writer works with paper, pen, computer, typewriter…those are tools. But the end product is the art.
An athlete works with weights, exercise, drills…those are tools. But the end product is the athleticism.
A chef works with measuring cups, bowls, knives…those are the tools. But the end product is the meal.
All these tools ultimately lead each to who they are and what they do. The tools become second nature…something the artist or chef is aware of, but it’s not the tools that concerns them, but the art and the meal.
I think the same can be said of social media. Twitter, Facebook and my blog are just tools that I use…but my end product is relationships, connecting, going deeper, sharing life, etc. I, therefore, no longer think of social media as just my tools, but rather as something that leads me to where I want to go…it’s pretty much second nature. I don’t want to go too deep with this…but in and of themselves…Twitter, Facebook and my blog are just that…tools…if I have no end sight in mind…if there is nothing relational and community oriented connected to it.
The Christian Life
I started thinking about this also in terms of the Christian life. Dare I say, the Bible is just a tool, IF it doesn’t lead us to a living out of the reality it talks about and enables us to do. If we don’t exemplify the Fruit of the Spirit in our lives, or if we do not participate in the Body of Christ, using the spiritual gifts that we have been given(as well as a number of other passages), then haven’t we just left the Bible to be a tool, with no reality in our daily life? (Disclaimer: Not saying the Word of God is just a tool either…I’m saying we treat it as one if it leads us to no daily living out of its reality in our lives).
So if social media is only tools, then to what end? And if we as Christians only use social media as tools, with no greater purpose, then to what end?
Thoughts
I’m wrestling through this…thinking on this issue a lot. So any comments or dialogue is well appreciated.
I'm a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist (MDiv, MSMFT, LMFT), and co-facilitate marriage intensives. I also love to write, speak, and run.
Author of The Anxious Christian which is tentatively slated to be published by Moody Publishers on March 1, 2012.
To schedule a counseling appointment contact Auxano Counseling at 972-312-8893.
