Below is an article I wrote for the Redemptive Presence, our church newsletter. Though it was interesting and worth sharing…
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Facebook. Twitter. TXT. Google. MySpace. Delivr. Digg. Blog. Del.icio.us. Flickr. StumpleUpon. RSS. YouTube. Snapfish. Pandora. Picasa. Podcasting. And on and on the list goes. The internet has redefined just about every aspect of our lives and filled it with services and websites from companies with either misspelled words or just made up words entirely. I remember my freshman year of college when I got my first email address.

Now? My son, Jeremiah, was born on September 23rd of this year and had an email address within two hours of being born. And as for me, I start to shake if I haven’t checked my email in the last five minutes. From my phone I can check stock prices (you know, if I’m masochistic enough to do that!), send text messages, make restaurant reservations, record audio, watch tv shows, shop at Amazon and play games. And I can do all of these things while I listen to music. Someone even told me recently that my phone can make calls as well!

Psalm 46:10 tells us to “Be still and know that I am God.” Seems harder and harder to do when the noise keeps getting louder and louder. Should we push away from all the noise and the constant connection? Besides that, doesn’t it seem sometimes that all this communication actually distances people rather than drawing them together?

So how should we respond to all these services? Should we embrace them or run away from them? Ed Stetzer, a leading missiologist, wrote an interesting blog article that got me thinking about this topic. You can check out his blog – http://tinyurl.com/6cyjy8 – if you are interested.

On the one hand, these services allow me to communicate with friends that I haven’t since high school. When Jeremiah was born, we uploaded pictures that night for all the world to see. On the other hand, have you ever tried to go on vacation and turn off your phone? It’s really a lot harder to unplug than it sounds!

As a church, we can’t use all of these services, but we are moving toward using some of them. The great thing about these services is that they can be two-way streets. We’re not just putting out information and hoping someone stumbles upon us. These services allow us to create a conversation and foster community as we people to interact. In the coming weeks, you will be hearing more about how we as a church plan to use these services. For now, we already have a Facebook page and we just started writing tweets on Twitter this past week (http://twitter.com/glasgowchurch – come follow us!).

But as we move in this direction, we want this to be more than us sharing information. We want us a conversation – a chance to hear from you. So, won’t you come join the conversation?

Last week I wrote, concerning community, “People are always looking, always searching, in the hopes of finding a place where they are welcomed, accepted and liked. People long to belong.” I wrote that as I was on a plane flying from Orlando to Philly. On the way back, I flipped through this the US Aiways Magazine when I came across an article entitled, Welcome to the Social.

Now, I’ve already written that people are living more and more of their lives online and that, in particular, the internet is becoming the place where they search for community. But, in that article, the stakes got raised raised again. Consider this quote…

If you don’t belong to some kind of social network, you soon may not belong anywhere.

Now, that is a pretty serious claim, but to the extent that it is true, is already a serious challenge to the church on two fronts. First, it means that we that the church, the community of God, whose very call and purpose is to invite those around us (and around the world), into fellowship with Christ and his people, is failing. Once upon a time, the church was the center of community in the church. It was the gathering place for the town social life. Not anymore. The challenge for the church is to recapture our God-given responsibility and status as a place of true community. The second challenge for the church, in light of online social networks replacing “traditional” real life socials, means that the church needs to find a way to foster community online.
I know I’ve mentioned it before, but this article raised the stakes again for me. It is our mandate as the church to engage people, meaningfully, in relationships. How can we use the internet to do so?

Last night, Kim and I went out to dinner. As we stood up to leave, I saw a copy of the Wall Street Journal technology section. There, on the front page of the technology section, was an article labeled “How to Be a Star in a YouTube World.” Instantly, I was intrigued. In it, they evaluate the success of sites such as LonelyGirl15 and Ask A Ninja as well as Grammar Girl, a former teacher who does a weekly podcast on proper grammar.

In the article, Michael Totty evaluates what caused these people to “become bona fide online stars.” He lays out six keys for others who would seek to do the same…

1. Be Consistent – Regularly scheduled programming allows people to expect when there will be new content.
2. Get in Early – YouTube is so big, this will be hard now. But what twist can you offer that no one else is?
3. Find a Niche – Is there a niche that is empty and you could fill?
4. Work Your Network – Best way to create interest in your content is to get interested in others – post comments on other blogs/videos, interest with their content. Totty notes that by doing this, LonelyGirl15 had 200 subscribers on YouTube BEFORE releasing their first episode.
5. Act Like a Pro – Good writing and editing/camera work that match the story are important.
6. Beauty Sells – Do I really need to elaborate?

So again the question is, how can we do this? How can we as Christians leverage this medium to create new means of sharing the great story that Christ is King over all and that in His love, He has made atonement for sin?

I’ve written and thought a lot recently about the Church and Web 2.0.  But I thought one specific story might highlight the opportunity that the internet affords to us as we seek to proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ to the nations.

<context>This is several years ago while I was in college.  Long before Web 2.0.  But this was the first time I ever seriously considered internet evangelism. </context>

Tom, a friend of mine, was on staff with Young Life.  One night, after club, he jumped online to check his email when he received an instant message from one of the girls at the high school.  She had been at club that night and had some questions about what it would mean to follow Christ.  After some discussion, she asked Tom how she could become a Christian and then, right then through instant messenger, Tom led her to Christ.

That is so cool!  What I particularly like about that story is that there was a real relational connection so that follow up was possible.  But like this girl, there are many people every day on the internet desperately in need of the love of Christ.  Will you be the person to tell them?

Tim Challies, by way of his interview by Adrian Warnock, makes a few observations on things that Christian bloggers are doing well, and a few areas where he thinks that Christian bloggers could improve.  Of those, one in particular stuck out at me as a astute observation.

Under “Areas Where Christian Bloggers Need To Improve” he states…

Replacement — don’t find your sense of community online rather than in a local setting — don’t neglect the church and family.

This is a great warning.  But it also recognizes something that is becoming more and more true.  While we certainly, as believers, need to be actively living in relationship with people, there are many non-believers that it is their first, not their second, lives that they live online.  It is their primary place for meeting people and developing relationships.

Biblical mandate requires Christians to be part of a local worshiping community.  But if non-Christians are living online, how can we meet them online and move them into the pews?  In many areas of life, that is the big question.  You meet someone at a restaurant, how do you get them to visit your church? You have a non-Christian friend at work, how do you connect them with your Christian friends?  As more and more people move their lives online, how can we reach them with the love of Christ?  But it won’t be enough to just share Jesus with them.  No, even more, we need to connect them to the Church, the Body of Christ on earth.  How can we do that?

Following up on my previous article on the Church and Web 2.0, I would like to begin to look at some of the implications this discussion has/will have on the future of the way we do church.

One of the key dynamics of Web 2.0 services is that they interactive and participative. That is, the users create the content. Wikipedia and YouTube are just two examples of sites where the content is generated by users of the site, not by the site itself.

So what does this mean for the church? Most churches operate in a very top-down hierarchical manner. Like a pyramid, the church builds from the pews to the leadership (staff, board) and reaches its pinnacle with the senior pastor. I’m sure that one of the primary reasons for the development of this model was to protect orthodoxy. The pastor, the theologically trained leader, had to maintain absolute authority to make sure that the church didn’t veer into apostasy or heresy.

Consider these words from Mark 10:42-45…

Jesus called them together and said, “You know that those who are regarded as rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be slave of all. For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”

Maybe, just maybe, this whole “Web 2.0″ and “Church 2.0″ could hold the key for living out this servant leadership style that Jesus advocates to his followers. Instead of leading from the top, the leaders become the servants. Instead of doing all the ministry, the leaders takes seriously the call of Ephesians 4 to be equip the people for ministry.

In most churches, lay people come, sit in their pews (with some standing and maybe some kneeling thrown in there) where they are spoken to, preached at and, in general, are passive observers. Sure, they join in the singing, but that is as participative as gets. The teaching and preaching of the Word of God is a primary hallmark of Christian worship (as it should be). But too many preachers approach the task thinking they speak from Sinai and the people better listen.

Mike Yaconelli tells a story in his book, Dangerous Wonder, about a girl who visited the church he was pastoring. She was too green and naive to know any better, so, in the middle of his sermon, she raised her hand to ask a question about something she didn’t understand. It took him (and all those conditioned to the way we do church) by surprise. But it changed the way things worked in his church. From that time on, if he said something that was unclear or confusing, the people in his congregation interacted with him.

That is a small step, but with each question asked, that church became more interactive and participative rather than passive for the congregants. Pastors are scared that if they allow “user created content,” heresy will prevail. And that is a real danger which pastors must combat. In fact, in his letters to Timothy, Paul is quick to put limits on who can speak at certain parts of their worship services. But if it teaches us anything, it should be that it was the normal practice that several people were involved with speaking, teaching and praying in their services. The early Christian services were interactive and participative. Maybe we need to learn from Web 2.0 and transition our churches to more participation and interaction as well.