Tag Archive - offline

Exploring Virtual/Online Church


LifeChurch.tv Second Life Campus Tour

Douglas:

Is the virtual church a real/genuine church?

Andrew

Absolutely not. But neither is a physical gathering in a church building on a Sunday morning. The body of Christ is a spiritual aggregation of believers whose names are written in the Lamb’s book of life. That body finds itself aggregated, or called out into assembly with each other, in both physical and virtual gatherings. There are seeking non-believers in both physical and virtual aggregations so neither expression can claim to be fully church. And also, there are believers in physical churches who connect with each other online during the week and there are believers from cyber-churches and online faith communities who intentionally seek out physical meetings when possible. The dividing line between the two is therefore more artificial than actual. (Andrew Jones being interviewed by Doug Estes)

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2009 Goal of “Taking Online Community Offline” in Progress…

17264693If you have been reading my blog lately you know that I posted a couple of entries related to this post, “Taking Online Community Offline:” What I’m Doing About It And My 2009 Goal.

What is my 2009 Goal?

“meet & have coffee with every person in the DFW metroplex that I’m connected to on Twitter, Facebook or my blog. Cool?”

It began with a simple Tweet on November 14th and has now become a movement into becoming more and more real everyday.

So I’m going to give you all a weekly update (if some of the goal is met)…but let’s see how it goes.

January 7: Though Greg Atkinson is one of my buddies and we hang out on a pretty regular basis, my lunch conversation with him that day was a really great way to start off the year. We talked about some deep issues and I was able to walk away with some newly needed focus in some areas of my life. Greg is an awesome guy and knows everyone in Dallas and all the best Mexican food restaurants. Follow Greg on Twitter. And follow his work with Church 2.0 on Facebook.

January 8: Now this day was too huge, that I’m not going to even try to mention names. I know I will leave someone out on accident and I don’t want to do that. But it was an epic day at ChurchTechCamp:.Dallas. About 78 guys and 2 girls from all over the DFW Metroplex, Oklahoma, etc. Too many conversations to mention each one, but great things came out of it, and you will be hearing more about some of the individuals as we spend time together over this next year. But I will give a shout out to Tony Steward who is the brainchild behind ChurchTechCamp. I don’t get to hang out with him too often, so it was a privilege to watch him in action.


#ctcdallas from Tony Steward on Vimeo.

Later that evening I went over to John Dyer’s house for dinner. If you don’t know John Dyer, then you need to know him and his blog, Don’t Eat the Fruit. It is one of my favorite blogs on technology and the church. I’m learning tons from him. He and his wife were gracious hosts and I enjoyed getting to have dinner with Greg Atkinson, John Saddington, Ben Dyer, Ben Jordan, Rick Smith, Camron Ware and Paul. It was awesome, and I will be hanging with all of these guys throughout the year.

johndyer_rhettsmith_johnsaddington1January 9: Well, 5 days of hanging out with John Saddington aka ChurchCrunch guy came to an end. I met John on line a couple of months ago and we were able to hang out for about 2 weeks from the December 28–January 9. I really enjoyed spending time with John and not only did we have fun, but I was really challenged in a lot of ways in many areas of my life. Even though he lives in Atlanta we have struck up a great friendship…I will definitely be crashing his couch in the future.

“Taking Online Community Offline:” What I’m Doing About It And My 2009 Goal

Great guest post by Leo Wurschmidt over at Church Crunch today, Meatspace Monday 4–CLT WordCamp–Taking the Online Community Offline.

I love the phrase, “taking the online community offline.”

For as big a fan as I am of social media, online community, online communication, etc…..

Here is what I think is social media/new media/technology (whatever you call it) greatest asset:


IT’S ABILITY TO FACILITATE THE MEETING OF PEOPLE IN PERSON.

In my tendency to ramble I could say tons more, but won’t for now. That being said, because it is it’s greatest asset, I have made a goal for 2009.


2009 Goal (as stated on Twitter this last Friday): meet & have coffee with every person in the DFW metroplex that I’m connected to on Twitter, Facebook or my blog. Cool?

I don’t know how I will exactly achieve this goal, but I have some ideas that I’m working on from larger group meet-ups to one on one, small group times. So stay tuned as I talk more about this in the coming month and a half.

Oh, and I’ve already been getting requests for coffee since I sent out that Tweet. If I can just say upfront…I can’t afford to pay for coffee for all of you. So how about we just agree that we all pay for ourselves. Haaa