- Accept the Virtual World’s significance (MySpace is the most visited site on the Internet)
- View online expressions of Christianity as valuable extensions of real world faith
- Embrace the opportunity for Church without borders (time, geography, etc.)
- Welcome the presentation of God’s Word in the vernacular of current culture
- Respond to the globalization of the planet with hope not cynicism
- Develop and maintain an online presence purposefully populating cyberspace
- Establish virtual outposts for evangelizing, preaching, equipping & training
- Create interactive portals for experiencing Church (streaming media)
- Practice spiritual disciplines in the global online conversation
- Encourage strategic investment in the iGeneration
Why? Because there are “multitudes in the valley of decision” online.
If you’re a regular reader you might recognize this post from May of last year. MySpace has given way to Facebook in terms of popularity but other than that, not much has changed. It’s funny how some observations seem outdated so quickly (when it comes to online technology) and others have a longer shelf life.
Although it’s been well over a year, the point of this post still seems to work. What would you add?
You can also read the original comments for Ten Challenges facing the Church in Cyberspace.
Its always good to reiterate these points; and then expand on them for their various applications. Looks like you’ve set my course for writing for the next 10 days
I better get my mobile web server ready for the fun.
Hi Antoine – Great excuse to say hi and ask you if you are attending the Internet Ministry Conference?
At the end of the day it is hard for too many churches to get into the online ministry game until they figure out a way to put butts in the seats and money in the offering….bummer because real ministry is happening online.
@Vince I agree. If a church is struggling to do ministry in their local context, nothing is going to change by extending that into online communities. They will just bring their dysfunction online – and it will be sent out instantly and globally – ouch!
To both Vince and tonysteward: finances aren’t an issue here, behaviors and motivations are. I’ve got ideas but until a post on my site later this week, I’ll just say that conventional models of thinking don’t work with new tech. Its always been the case, and that’s not stopped.
@Cynthia: I didn’t book it, but your asking means that I better get on it
I think I was misunderstood a little.
what I was trying to say is that churches tend to not get involved in deploying resources if it doesn’t put more people in the actual seats and money in the coffers.
@arjwright I don’t see where I asserted that finances or conventional thinking had anything to do with extending a ministry online. And even if a tool is free, if a church isn’t healthy or growing they shouldn’t also be unhealthy and stagnant online – there are bigger issues afoot. That said, conventional models of what?
New Media has made the web more relational, which makes it suitable for the type of relational approaches of ministry have been effective since Jesus’ day. The tools that are used, and how we jump into them are very different though.
@tony i mostly agree that being healthy is important, but God can work in the midst of our shortcomings too. like Solomon said…”if you wait for perfect conditions, you will never get anything done”
If you don’t have a healthy process to take care of the people that are physically present, then why on earth would you extend that same brokenness online to continue to over promise and under deliver?
It would be foolish to do so.
I guess i am saying that weak spots are found in every church on the planet
Conventional models of accountability, justice, and even content mangement don’t work in a virtual setting. The rules are as different as the people who are plugging together the bits and bytes. Non-Christian enterprises have the same issues when they try and pull a paper system into an Intranet. There are things that do work (accountability, checks and balances) and things that need to be totally redone (expectations, security, workflows, etc.).
Mitigating dysfuntion online is no more easy than doing it offline; its actually harder because the action of being online is built on a principle of escapism and masked accountability. There is NO media that has ever had at its core the engine of its content and audience as having these issues. If you want to make a healthy group offline, you have to work twice as hard and usually break personal privacy laws in order to make good health a reality and not a pipe dream.
The mention of finances was to Vince’s aspect of the comment. Finances are needed to do very little online (until a certain point), momentum is the rest. That’s simple marketing and what anything successful online or offline has used. If the Body would take simple wisdom in sharing things like connectivity, server space, and application services just the same way they share city blocks then its even less of an issue for the institution, and more of a facilitator to the community for the individual.
yes, I’m listening…..