Reflections on Online Communities
As it doubtless plain, I'm very interested in how we can use online communities strategically to promote Christian mission. The following reflections were prompted by the Online Community Map -
1. We can't ignore MySpace. MySpace gets a pretty bad rap around the place, perhaps deservedly so. I've heard some leaders suggest that Christians should have nothing to do with it. But MySpace is too big, too pervasive for us to ignore. We need to have a presence there, and we need to understand what makes the community tick. Jasper, how is our church MySpace page coming along???
2. Blogs are important. Someone suggested that blogs are just a place where Lisa Simpson types can chat without being beaten up by Nelson Muntz types. But one of the lessons Tim Keller has been teaching the church is that "upstream" communities (academics, media) influence the wider community as a whole. The blogosphere is part of the net's intellectual "upstream", and it is a source of great influence in the broader Christian community. I wish more of our local teachers and pastors were on board with this.
3. Wikipedia is important. Like, really, really important. It has quickly become the defacto source of all knowledge about everything. If I want to know something, I used to go to Google first. Now I go to wikipedia. Yes, there has been much criticism about the quality of information in wiki. But it is here to stay, and it is influential. A radio producer said to me recently "How on earth did journalists get by before Wikipedia?" So we need to make sure the facts are straight regarding our people and organisations. Long term, we need to make sure our "angle" is adequately covered in the theological articles. We need to get our academics behind this. If I had my way, all Moore College lecturers would be required to contribute at least 1 wikipedia article per year in their area of expertise. I know a couple of you are reading this - do it guys!
4. We need a strategy for World of Warcraft. There has been a fair bit of talk about Christian mission into Second Life. But World of Warcraft is 30% bigger again than Second Life. It is a significant community that is only going to grow bigger, especially amongst 20-something males (conspicuous in their absence from church). It sounds weird talking about mission into a game, I know, but it's something we need to think about.
Comments welcome.
13 comments:
Long term, we need to make sure our "angle" is adequately covered in the theological articles. We need to get our academics behind this. If I had my way, all Moore College lecturers would be required to contribute at least 1 wikipedia article per year in their area of expertise. I know a couple of you are reading this - do it guys!
I tried to get Christians interested and enthused about Wikipedia's importance back in 2003. It was like talking to a brick wall... Gordon Cheng and Christians in the Media included.
"We don't see 'Broadcasting' as important as 'narrowcasting', that's the problem. Wikipedia is all about broadcasting." was the reply DS gave me.
Sheesh, give the MTC lads more work to do, huh!? But then again, maybe you have something there.
I can't understand why more pastors don't blog. Why not put your ideas and thinking before your congregation? Why not promote the discussion of your ideas? etc etc etc
It's my theory that the Christian articles on Wikipedia are not as well constructed or researched or put together as scientific or historical ones. Christians on Wikipedia tend to focus on edit wars on Evolution and Young Earth Creationism and removing dodgy but true comments their favourite Christian leader has made.
I created the original Sydney Anglicans article, and the original Ted Haggard article. Both are light years better than my first attempt but the worst thing that happened to me was when a lunatic from The Potters House started stalking me on Wikipedia for inserting negative information about the The Potter's House.
I can't understand why more pastors don't blog.
When I was talking to one pastor about Blogs and Wikipedia, he told me off for spending "too much time on the computer" and basically questioned my level of maturity.
Churches can use blogs as free websites - they don't have to come up with their own major design (although I failed to convince my own church of this during Session).
Message boards can also be set up for people to discuss important issues within the church, including theological discussions.
There are still churches out there that that believe that JK Rowling created the Harry Potter series to get people into Satanism. The amount of ignorance in Christian circles is embarrassing.
I even had a MTC trained Anglican minister say during a sermon at my old church that "the Solar system is one light year wide". It was very hard for me to respect that guy's teaching from that point on.
Knowledge is important. I realise I'm getting anal about this but any Christian who gets things wrong at a BASIC level should not be allowed around unbelievers.
Sheesh, give the MTC lads more work to do, huh!?
Yeah, I know. But if they're not writing the stuff, someone else will be.
I can't understand why more pastors don't blog. Why not put your ideas and thinking before your congregation?
Yeah, amen and amen. I've spoken to a few pastors about this. I think it comes down to one of the following reasons -
1. They don't see the value. A depressing number of pastors still don't realise how much this web thing is influencing their congregation.
2. They'd like to do it, but they don't have time.
3. They fear putting written opinions into circulation. I can understand this - something you write today will be thrown back in your face in 10 years time. Written words are more permanent than sermons for some reason. I think you've just gotta be brave...
Neil, I recall you pushing the wiki barrow a couple of years ago. You can certainly claim the "Cassandra" title for that one, as it has become massively important.
I think you've just gotta be brave...
It also means having to be judicious about what you write.
it has become massively important.
When I started jumping up and down about it, Wikipedia was the 170th most visited Website in the world (traffic rank). I went around saying "this site will be in the top 10 one day. We as Christians have to be aware of it!"
Guess what the traffic rank for Wikipedia is these days...
A Cassandra is a person who knows the future but is cursed to never be believed by anyone. Yep. That's me.
The blogosphere is part of the net's intellectual "upstream", and it is a source of great influence in the broader Christian community.
I'm not sure the blogosphere is all that intellectual the majority of the time. I find it a rather frustrating medium in many senses, because people believe this to be true. Also I question the influence factor for other Christians.
Here's a few thoughts I had:
a) there are a huge chunk of people that have nothing to do with the blogosphere, nor are near computers on a regular basis. That's not to negate those whom are there, but it's not the be all end all of Christian mission. How many people would you guess are involved with online communities??
b) written words are much more open to being misunderstood, and misinterpreted. How many times have discussions on this very blogsite been railroaded because someone has misread or mistaken 'tone', for example. That's ok here, because you, Craig, often correct these mistakes, or seek clarification - but on lots of blogsites, that is not the case.
c) time factor - being a regular part of the blogosphere takes up a huge amount of time. I think face to face relationships are more important, and should take preference over blog ones (just my opinion, although I have a vague feeling there's some kind of vibe from the Bible about it....happy to be corrected)
d) Agree about the myspace idea
e) ministers are busy, as are MTC staff - I don't know, for e.g how AB could actually fit blogging into his schedule - and the people right in front of him, are more important...oh, that's means me!!! But, I really mean all the people at church. Perhaps, someone should consider paying for a group of ministers to actually go part time and enter the online community the rest of the time?? I haven't thought much about that - what do you think? I would really need to think through the implications of that, and I would think that doing it full time would be not so healthy....
f) Question - I take your point about 'World of Warcraft' - but isn't that kind of imaginery world dangerous? I mean, isn't it addictive for those 20 something men (and all the others who play there)? Is joining it perpetuating something that is incredibly unhealthy? Is that something that as Christians we want to be even be seen to endorse? Is money involved with WoW, like there is in Second Life? I consider these type of unreality games as similar to gambling...
g) completely agree about Wiki.
Sorry for previous incredibly long comment...and just read the post underneath that answers to some degree some of my questions...
Ruth, your comments (long or short) are always welcome here.
I certainly don't think online mission is a substitute for "in person" mission. I just think it is another place where people "are" (in a virtual sense).
I fully appreciate ministry time constraints. It seems to me that a blog could work in your favour in that regard - it is an easy to way to reach all your congregation, every week.
That's the positive side. The negative side is that if your congregation aren't reading your theology, there is every chance they are reading someone elses. This will become more and more true as GenY and following begin to fill out the ranks of the church.
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