In followup to my article a few days ago, here are a few websites that are really wrestling through the way the Church uses the internet…

• Church Communications Pro – A church’s “Communications Director,” he is always looking at how to improve the way the Church communicates with the world.
• Church Marketing Sucks – their goal is to “Frustrate. Educate. Motivate” the Church to not suck in the way we market ourselves/the Church/Christ.
• BlogMinistry – had never been to this site until he commented here on my post, but he seems to be asking a lot of the same questions on how the Church can use the internet to reach people for Christ. I even just subscribed to his RSS Feed to keep up with him.

In his book, The Tipping Point, Malcolm Gladwell describes the tipping point of a fad or trend as that moment when it takes on a life of its own and spreads like wildfire. His intended reader audience are corporate leaders looking how to take their product/message to the next level. For example, he describes an artsy group in Manhattan that took to wearing pennyloafers. What started as just a small group quickly spread all over the country till the shoe manufacturer had trouble keeping up with demand. At some point, the trend took on a life of its own and spread. Or consider the way that the flu spreads. If a kid catches the flu, it’s only a matter of time till the whole family is laid up in bed. We all remember days in high school when there were 200 students absent on the same day. The flu became an epidemic and spread in a hurry.

The internet has a term to describe when something hits that tipping point on the internet – Viral. It’s the point where a site/video takes on a life of its own and grows exponentially. I remember telling a friend several years ago about this new search engine I found – Google! Now, obviously, Google penetrates every aspect of the internet. The word Google can be used either as a proper noun or a verb. It tipped and, seemingly overnight, became one of the most powerful companies in the world. It went viral.

I had already been mulling over these things, but a recent post over at Church Marketing Sucks entitled, “Where’s the Church’s Ask a Ninja?” really forced me to think through the issue. In the last 2-3 years, the internet has experienced a tremendous change. There has been a move from static to dynamic content, from information giving to shared-content creation (that is, letting viewers, readers add to the content) and from reading to participating. What are the “big things” on the internet right now? YouTube, HomeStarRunner, Ask-A-Ninja, craigslist, Flickr, Wikipedia, Facebook, MySpace, MeetUp, SecondLife, EHarmony.com, blogging and podcasting. And what do they all have in common? They are entertaining, interactive and have created communities around them. A blog, in its truest form, is designed to be a dialogue between the blogger and his readers. YouTube allows anyone in the world to be a movie star. Is there anyone alive who hasn’t seen the video about the “Star Wars Kid”? Wikipedia allows users to add/edit content in the world’s largest encyclopedia. Most of remember the first time a friend told us they fell in love with someone over the internet. But now it doesn’t phase us. Each of these sites have gone viral. The internet has a name for this new participative, interactive, entertaining, user-driven, community-centered internet – Web 2.0.

So here is my question. Where is Church 2.0 in the midst of Web 2.0? Why hasn’t the Church come up with anything like HomeStarRunner or AskANinja to reach people? Nearly every day I look at churches that are going live with new websites. Yet nearly every single one of those websites are really good Web 1.0 websites. They give service times, directions and tell people what to wear. But interaction is limited to, at most, a pastor with a blog and a maybe an iTunes-aware archiving of past sermons. These Web 1.0 websites about 5 years to late to really be effective ministry tools.

We hold in our hands and in our hearts the good news that Jesus is king and that in his love, he has atoned for our sin that we might know God. How cool is that!?! Yet, I look around, and it seems like Christians are just sitting on the side watching all this unfold.  We’ve never figured out how to leverage the power of the internet, especially Web 2.0, to fulfill the Great Commission.

Now, before I go any further, I should mention a couple of sites/videos on the internet that are close…

• The Brick Testament – tells Bible stories using legos.
• Christian vs Christ-Follower videos – see one in the previous post or check out YouTube
• Desiring God – John Piper’s ministry are doing a radio ministry without the radio. They completely eliminated radio broadcasts and are doing everything over the internet because they can reach more people for a fraction of the cost.
• LifeChurch.tv – Huge multi-site church has planted a campus within SecondLife

Yet even those have never really tipped. Each has some strengths and something to teach the rest of us, but they have never gone viral. I don’t know the answer, but I ask you to join me in asking the question, “How can the Church use the new internet to reach people for Christ?” Any idea that would tip would have to be genuinely funny, interactive, give viewers chances to create content, able to have a community form around it and share the love of Christ without being abrasive. I’m not yet sure what the answer is. Do you?

Ok, this is pretty funny. This is part of a series of videos on being a “Christian” vs a “Christ-follower.”

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=etHujh8Ao7Y 425 350]