Community is about doing something together

Reading Mark Batterson’s recent interview with Neue Ministry on community rung so many bells it felt like a carnival in my head this morning.

Some choice snippets: (emphasis mine)

“To me, the greatest adventure is God inviting us into this thing called the Great Commission—how He didn’t call us to do something on our own. God loves the adventure of doing things together … We have a range of about 90 different groups, and they range from Bible studies to running a marathon together. They are so diverse; they’re as diverse as our leaders are. What it is, is just finding touch points. … I think one reason why God wants to be in commission with us is because nothing brings people together like common mission.

…. Ultimately, we want people to have a face-to-face, physical community, but we’re discovering that often starts with a virtual community …

To me, my late-blooming fascination with technology, which resulted in pastoring the NewSpring Web Campus, is all about exploring how our social web tools can help us become visiable, powerful, contagious, “communities of grace.”

Slowly but surely, i believe we are building a community on the web campus. But i can’t shake the feeling that the more opportunities we give to our attenders to do something together, the more likely we are to building deep, lasting relationships — and far quicker, with far more of them.

For instance, the kind of lifestyle groups Mark talks about absolutely flourish online. Crafts, photos, music, you name it. It takes my breath away just thinking about the impact that one surrendered Christ follower can make in that kind of environment.

Do you have thoughts to share in crafting an online active community strategy?

Filed under: community, social media, web campus , social action, social media, social networking

Church, online or off, is about the middle

I’m a fan of Seth Godin’s pithy wisdom along with thousands of other people.

I like him most when he pops bubbles, as he did with this comment over the weekend on The Paradox of the Middle of the Market.

The middle of the market is a paradox because of the inherent contradiction between the ease of reaching the nerds and the geeks and the need to reach the middle.

The solution, if there is one, is to enter a market to the enthusiastic cheers of those in search of the new, but to build a product/service that appeals to those in the middle. After the initial wave of enthusiasm, you hunker down and ignore those that first embraced you, obsessing instead on the needs and networks of the middle. It’s a difficult balancing act, but it’s the only one that works.

Ultimately, you end up disappointing the hard core that first found you, but because of their initial enthusiasm (and more important, because you designed your work for the masses in the first place), your product crosses the chasm and reaches a larger group. The formula starts with a service or product that’s purple enough to spread, but not so hyper-fashionable that it merely entertains the insiders.

Over the first several months of the NewSpring Web Church experiment, there’s one common denominator I’ve observed:

Almost all the people who are committed attenders, volunteers and those who depend on the Web Campus as their only form of church aren’t techno geeks.

Most are ordinary people who “need a job done.”

Most are, in a lot of ways, old school.

They’re not into pioneering a new form of church. Or rebelling from traditional church.

They’re just craving the word of God preached passionately, and they’re wanting to live out their faith in whatever environment helps them do that best, and according to the personal situation they are in.

That’s why our team works hard to resist adding layers of bells and whistles to the NewSpring Web Campus.

And why I personally think about my mother-in-law before I even make any suggestions about changes. (She is a new believer in south Louisiana who never thought about using twitter or Facebook or chatrooms until it became vital to living in Christian community on the Web Campus.)

How simple is too simple? How techie is too techie?

And how do we know when we’ve struck the right balance?

Filed under: web campus , community management, web campus

“Online church is sick”

A little while back, I mused about whether my two reformed heroes, John Piper and Mark Driscoll, considered the Web church blasphemy.

Mark Driscoll responded in the last 8 or 10 minutes of his Advance ‘09 talk on What is the Church? recapping his arguments (direct link) in Vintage Church.

Now it’s John Piper’s turn to weigh in, and he doesn’t mince words. Here’s the full transcript of the question, “what are your thoughts on worshiping and being part of Christ’s body through an online church?” sent in to “Ask Pastor John.”

“If the question means, “as your only experience of worship,” it seems sick. We are created in bodies, not just in minds. And there is something docetic about this. That may not mean anything to a lot of people. Docetism was an early heresy that said that the body is not very important, and that life in the flesh and the created world is not very important, and that Jesus Christ only seemed to have a body. And usually material is evil.

God made us with bodies. He made us to give holy kisses to one another—embraces, handshakes, eyeball-to-eyeball conversation. He made husband and wife not to have imaginary video sex through Skype. He made them to go to bed together in the same bed. He made them to raise children in the same house, with hands-on hugs and spanks on the bottom and love. And he made churches to get together to hear each other sing, and to look at each other and talk to teach other, and minister to each other and help each other die well.

So to dispense with the entire bodily dimension of togetherness in order to substitute a video dimension of togetherness—like this right now—would, I think, be spiritually defective, would be contrary to Christ’s understanding of the church, and would be hurtful to the soul.

There are mysteries here in human relationships that we can’t quantify. And I don’t think that they can be replaced by electronic symbols.”

I think this critique, like Pastor Mark’s, takes the Web church too literally. The NewSpring Web Campus and other churches are actively encouraging relationships in the real world to complete the web campus experience.

But he also is clear that communal worship must be physical and is not sufficient if it is only a sense of communal gathering, as would happen in a chatroom.

What’s your take?

Filed under: community, web campus , community, theology

Why hold web church to a higher standard than other churches?

By now, you probably know that I’m pretty serious about exploring whether the church can be the church online.

I feel like I’m called to that purpose, and I feel like we need to be brave enough to try things that we aren’t entirely comfortable with in order to “by testing discern what is the will of God.” I have plans to take Mark Driscoll’s critique of the Web Church and offer my view of whether his theological points are sufficient to disqualify the web church at this point in its maturity.

I don’t want to be an uncritical apologist for the Web Church. There are many aspects of the Web Church that I’ve got personal reservations about, and many others that I think need to be tested before we can claim that it can fit within Biblical orthodoxy.

But what does bother me is that so often the critiques are coming from the point of view that the web church is a church expression that is incomplete, artificial (p.14 of link) or limited.

To which my response is: When has any church at any time not struggled with those things in one form or another?

Overall, it just seems like the church — even the early church! — was and is always and gloriously in the process of reaching toward the full expression of God’s grace and glory in the world — and failing backwards and forwards.

Why should the web church be held to a higher standard?

Filed under: web campus , theology, web campus

Can churches deny human choice?

A lot of the critical and necessary debate on this blog comes around one way or the other to: How does the church handle the rising tide of consumerism in its expression?

It’s not an accident: The web has empowered the individual like no other time in history, and the act of accomplishing ministry in this context is bound to flirt, sometimes dangerously, with abetting the self-seeking, vain, prideful human heart without God, rather than calling it to repentence in light of the manifest glories of God.

It seems to me that man has always seen himself at the center of all things. This is not new. What is new is the extent to which man can now do it in almost all phases of life. And the remedy for this heart sickness is and always will be the cross of Jesus.

So here’s my question: When God calls you to salvation, do you really have a choice to “opt out” of the body of Christ? Is it not one of the most magnificent promises of scripture that it’s not possible?

Only “Christians” with unregenerate hearts go shopping for God “experiences,” rather than surrender to him.

Only “Christians” with no understanding of Lordship believe that God is a vending machine of blessings.

Only “Christians” who have never heard the truth will allow themselves to be swayed by every wind of doctrine.

Is it not the gospel, the good news, the freedom from captivity, that human agency, human choice, for the regenerated heart, is always for good?

Our hyper-consumerist society is still relatively young, probably 100 years old at best. And for the church, for thousands of years a local phenomenon, our history with it is even shorter. Perhaps 50, if that. And i think that, if anything, there is a reckoning coming for the church as it wrestles with this, which probably explains some of my passion for the Web Church: It accelerates the urgency of figuring this out.

I submit that the battle is not between consumerism and whatever some Christians think can control it — authority structures, whatever. The battle is to get anointed, gospel-saturated teaching that places the supremacy of Christ above all things into earshot of as many dead hearts as possible so they can be convicted and awakened to life in Christ.

We need to make sure that people choose the church rather than Oprah, Dr. Phil, Tom Cruise and every other self-help guru who is leading people dancing and singing straight to the gates of hell.

Only then will they know difference between a true and false gospel.

Only then will they know the difference between a life that glorifies self and a life that serves God

Only then will they know that Jesus’ call to total surrender can not be resisted except with tears.

And only then will the Holy Spirit magnificently insist that the appetite for seeing, savoring and treasuring the joy of Christ be fed insatiably.

I ask again: Where does the path lead for Christ-centered churches who work in this “crooked and twisted generation” without an understanding of choice?

Filed under: discipleship, evangelism, ruminations, web campus , culture, discipleship, evangelism, theology, web campus

Web church as “safe space” to explore Christian faith

This is my last post exploring the fascintating conclusions from Hartford Seminary’s groundbreaking study on megachurch attenders and what the web church can learn from it. You can read posts one, two and three and four if you missed them.

One of the more fascinating parts of the study showed that:

some people intentionally don’t want to establish friendships, even if they are highly committed to the church. Certain people come because they can be, and want to remain, anonymous. … almost a third of those at these churches over five years still report having very few close friends there. For some attenders even long-term participation in the megachurch is about something other than having a network of close friendships.

Let’s face it: “community” can be intimidating to some people, especially those who may only be just starting to live the Christian life.

That’s where the Web church’s perceived weakness — its so-called anonymity — might prove to be one of its greatest assets.

To begin with, it might provide a private, anonymous, low-commitment way to experience Christians and Christian teaching. But there’s also a clear path toward Christian community for those who want to explore it in a controlled environment, calibrated along a continuum of casual conversation, friending, commenting, messaging and physical meetups, to name just a few.

From a theological standpoint and a practical standpoint, discipleship occurs best in a community context, and the Web Church could provide that safe, community space in a believers’ formative years.

Thoughts?

Filed under: community, discipleship, web campus , community, evangelism, social media

Web church success may be tied to customization

I’ve been looking at the Hartford Seminaryanalysis of megachurch attenders because I think it could be useful in understanding the Web Church’s potential mission field and how it can extend what we’ve learned from modern church methods. You can read past posts in this series here, here and here.

One of the study’s most dramatic conclusions was that:

involvement at these (and perhaps all) churches may be less about creating an idealized plan to move someone toward commitment and more about providing many ways by which people could craft their unique, customized spiritual experience to meet their needs.

It’s logical that the Web Church respond to this apparent desire for customizing church experience. Web culture, after all, is about empowering individual choice, and letting you set the terms of your engagement with content and people.

Many NewSpring Web Campus attenders are already actively engaged in designing their own path to spiritual growth and assembling the building blocks of an online church life, spurred on by the breathtaking amount and quality of podcasts, books, and blogs that fan the flames of someone’s spiritual fires on demand.

There’s no reason to think that wouldn’t extend to all aspects of church life as they migrate online. Someone could choose one church’s online worship experiences, another’s online small groups, yet another’s online discipleship program etc. and another’s online outreach and missions program.

I think the megachurch lesson here is that offering many paths for spiritual exploration and engagement and involvement could be the Web Church’s supreme value proposition.

That could include providing social guides or personal recommendations toward other trusted, high-quality content. Or it could be offering opportunities for spiritual growth in partnership with regional, national and international ministries. It could even be providing the support systems, resources and “open access” to the Web church’s people to build new ministries and recruit for them across the web.

A believer’s attachment, then, to a Web church might not be traditional “membership,” but in the personal relationships with individual believers as they come across them in different ministry area.

What do you think?

Filed under: community, discipleship, evangelism, web campus , community, discipleship, evangelism, icampus, web campus

Web church can support believers through life’s seasons

The Hartford Seminary megachurch study illuminated, among other things, the fact that their appeal was dramatically greater among the young and the mobile. In fact, the study found that it was precisely that demographic that was missing from more traditional churches.

So what happens when these highly mobile individuals decide to, well, be mobile?

I think it’s obvious that the Web Church can provide a home to those “young and mobile” individuals, especially if there’s no megachurch-like environment where they live. It’s a demographic primed to adopt technology and most interested in redefining their engagement with church.

But the web church can also help this mobile group avoid the potential for Christians to fall out of fellowship and find themselves outside the church for months or years as they move from place to place — more than enough time for Satan to attack and potentially shipwreck someone’s faith.

What I’m calling the “seasonal audience” could be huge for the church: Those people in every demographic who find themselves unable to attend physical church regularly because of chronic illness, relocation, work schedules or a myriad of other artificial barriers. Some of those barriers may originate from poor Lordship or discipleship, but the church must be open enough to work with people where they are — and encourage them to grow into who God wants them to be.

In being able to “take your church with you,” believers can maintain the healthy connections and the spiritual family that has helped believers grow as lifestage and lifestyles change, or at least until they are in a position to plug in at brick and mortar churches.

Filed under: community, web campus , community, culture, web campus

The Web church could lower barriers of entry to Christian faith

The megachurch study by the folks over at Hartford Seminary has grabbed my attention, largely because I think it proves that “church different” has created a new “market” of believers.

The study’s authors marvel at the megachurch’s role as an “assimilation engine,” taking people from every demographic, religious and cultural background and helping them connect and integrate within the Christian faith.

They found that 25 percent of attenders were new to church. And 28 percent of all attenders had recently relocated — representing 40 percent of all those who had church background.

The lesson here is that traditional churches apparently carried a lot of cultural and even “theological” baggage that turned people off and created barriers to entry.

I think the web church, as the megachurch has done, can remove artificial, and largely cultural barriers to Christianity and allow for sampling of the experience on an attender’s own terms.

There are many hundreds of millions of people worldwide, but especially in the post-Christian west, who don’t have any real understanding whatsoever of the basics of Christianity and would simply not see the point of going to church at all.

The Web church could be ideally positioned to create a new type of experience that intentionally refuses to trade on old and outdated assumptions about faith and its centrality to one’s life, and instead chooses to address spiritual seekers and immature believers head-on. (The megacurch study found that only 6 percent of attenders were new converts, so there’s lots of progress to be made in that area.)

Web church worship environments tap into the spirit of our technological, experiential, explorational age. And the web church can dovetail nicely with personal and relational evangelism that can overcome hostility to institutional church and “organized religion.”

Given that personal invites were, by an overwhelming margin, the No. 1 method that megachurches attracted attenders, I think there’s reason to be optimistic that Web churches, properly positioned, can truly take advantage of the Web’s network effects.

Filed under: evangelism, web campus , evangelism, web campus

Megachurch study filled with positives

Mention the word “megachurch” and the chances are the response won’t be positive.

But a close reading of Hartford Seminary’s analysis of megachurch attenders — the most comprehensive to date — offers plenty of reasons to think that these large, Christ-centered, culturally-relevant congregations might have proved critics wrong.

The study found:

Megachurches widen the funnel for people to come into the Christian fold. More than a third of the congregation was young and/or single — a demographic that is more or less absent from traditional churches — and 25 percent were new to “church” as a whole. So much for megachurches just stealing attenders from other churches!

Megachurch attenders are active and engaged. More than 70 percent of attenders described themselves as “active participants,” and nearly half of attenders who have been at their church longer than 2 years report that their involvement increased.

About 20 percent of surveyed attenders said they weren’t active participants in church life outside services, and yet they exhibited strong signs of personal, spiritual development, with a fourth of this group praying and reading the Bible daily, 40 percent worshiping weekly, and three fourths having invited people to services. So much for unengaged, passive consumers!

Megachurch attenders are growing spiritually. Three-fourths of all attenders say they read the Bible and pray daily or often during the week. After 10 years, half or more of megachurch attenders are tithers, compared to only 34 percent at traditional churches. So much for megachurches being breeding grounds for a weaker, watered down Christian practice.

There’s other great stuff in there, too. You should read the whole thing.

I’m guessing that the same dynamics that led to criticism of the megachurch will be leveled at the web church once it, too, is firmly established as a new expression of church.

And the study might offer hope to the Web church that it is adding to the fullness of Christ’s kingdom positioned as a complement to other church expressions for those who Bobby Gruenewald <a href=”http://swerve.lifechurch.tv/2009/06/11/who-are-you-reaching/”>defined recently</a> as “distant, mobile, curious and digital.”

Thoughts?

Filed under: evangelism, web campus , evangelism, web campus