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

Is this the front door to the church in the 21st century?

I read this interesting post from social media/PR guru Brian Solis about the future of the news industry, and I couldn’t help thinking that he may also be describing the 21st century “front door” to our churches.

Solis’ imagines the new news industry as personality-focused, community-based, and distributed through the network.

An information producer, passionate about his “subject,” will cultivate a network of people who will help him create content and ultimately publish it through his network’s statusphere and its viral effects. Content serves as the supply of “social objects” around which conversations occur and networks build.

As a former media exec, turning the focus away from the industrial model of news organizations to individual “information evangelists” was almost exactly the blueprint for the future of news I was trying evangelize myself inside the E.W. Scripps Co. beginning in 2005.

Why wouldn’t the “good news” industry work the same? Isn’t this proved by the rise of the pastor personality who uses online social tools to proclaim the good news and gather and “care” for a flock? (And also the decline of the denomination and the church-as-institution?)

Rarely a day that goes by on the NewSpring Web Campus that someone doesn’t say they first heard about NewSpring through NewSpring Senior Pastor Perry Noble’s phenomenally successful blog or the NewSpring podcast.

I think there are a lot of opportunities for traditional church pastors, online pastors and thoughtful church members to serve as a new breed of online evangelist.

And if that’s true, we need to pay for more attention to and what information people receive, process and pass using social media, as well as why and how.

I fear that most churches’ current emphasis on promoting invites and interest in church in our ambient friendship networks online aren’t really all that effective, and worse, may actually be turning people off.

Maybe the news industry can teach the “good news” industry something. At its most successful (online or offline, professional or amateur), journalism delivers information that’s useful, easy to understand, and easy to apply. Some of it is practical, like how to save money, raise good kids etc. And some is just ambient knowledge, so you can be part of conversations and build friendships around what you know and like.

When it comes to evangelizing Jesus “in the network,” the new front door of the church, we need to start with first principles, not assuming that anyone who reads us knows anything about Christianity.

We need to embrace seeker-sensibility by making our message less about church, or even the Bible. We need filter everything we say so that it’s useful, easy to consume and more relevant to everyday people who don’t care about “religion” and are just trying to live life the best they can.

What if the “new evangelist” did what great teachers and preachers, just like Jesus, have always done: Take the stuff of life, the stories of our culture, the news of our world, and the practical challenges and felt needs we daily face, and offer spiritual insight, practical wisdom and life modeling to help people live better.

Maybe that way they’ll earn the equity to point people to Jesus as the true fulfillment of this crazy, beautiful life, and then be able to invite them to taste and see that the Lord is good.

Thoughts/

Filed under: evangelism , evangelism, social media, social networking

Church community platforms are the next big idea

If there’s one nit to pick about the techno-church’s embrace of the web as a platform for advancing God’s kingdom, is that our hunches, ideas, and theories about how that might work doesn’t have much of a foundation of data to support it yet.

That’s why I’ve been so encouraged by the work that Drew Goodmanson and his team at Kaleo Church. Their research into church web sites and in examining churches’ use of community platforms has been eye-opening.

The big takeaway for me from Wednesday’s unveiling of the early findings of its research on community platforms was that among church tech influencers, such as web pastors, tech pastors, and communications directors, EVERYONE seems to be eyeing some kind of turn-key seamless community platform.

And EVERYONE is worried about the potential for creating Christian subcultures, given the so far dismal performance of Christian social networking sites in making in roads into the church.

That’s a good tension.

Take a look at the top five features or functionalities for the community platform:

1. Ability to find, register, and/or get details for events.
2. Ability to post prayer requests or needs.
3. Ability to find serving opportunities at the church based on interest or gifts.
4. Ability to join and interact with home/bible study groups.
5. Integration with existing church website.

The list seems to confirm my own hunch that there’s a deep need for relational connection both within and beyond the community of God right now, and that our physical churches are obviously not empowering or enabling their congregations in this vital area.

A church community platform can and should be evangelistically powerful.

It would be a shame indeed if fear or generational guilt surrounding the church of the past that was evangelistically weak and missionally challenged were to stop the people of God from living in the fullness of Christian community using our currently blossoming social technologies.

What we see in Acts church is not a church scared of subculture, but a subculture that embraces its role as one that is to build itself up for the purpose of evangelism and outreach.

Church leaders need to be helping Christians recognize that community is a means not an end in itself.

That’s not a technology issue. That’s a leadership issue.

Agree? Disagree?

Download a PDF of the study.

Filed under: community , community, community management, discipleship, evangelism, social action, social media, social networking

Are churches leveraging their members for radical personal ministry?

One of the most powerful and often undervalued parts of our faith is Jesus’ call for us to do personal ministry leveraged within “one body” of believers.

I think it’s in this area the web will make the greatest contribution to the church.

Perry Noble has always emphasized the importance of volunteers to NewSpring’s ministry. What gives NewSpring’s staff-led, excellence-oriented ministry theological coherence is that we should trust and encourage the body to do most of the ministry.

We have serving rates of more than 60 percent, which is impressive.

But I’ve always wondered whether there are some practical (but needless) barriers to the other 40 percent contributing. And whether the 60 percent who do contribute are being leveraged fully.

That’s where I think a ministry utility could be a killer app.

What if our church members were connected to each other, their resources for personal ministry were searchable and transparent, and they could self-organize and self-resource for personal ministry projects of their own?

Such a church app would generate a flowering of ministry and community like we’ve never seen, and create hands-on discipleship into the bargain.

Want to host a small group? Post your study and your credentials, recruit people, meet online, share materials.

Want to organize an evangelistic block party? Find and contact all the church members in your neighborhood. Create a ministry account to collect donations.

Got a spare washer and dryer? Pledge it to Jim and Bob’s inner-city ministry where you know it will meet a need and be used to share the gospel face to face. Find someone with a truck to pick up and drop off.

Want to get groups of people to church who don’t have reliable transportation? See who’s willing to offer rides, and create a route planner.

Have special expertise? Read what’s happening in other ministries and offer your guidance.

You get the idea … the possibilities are endless. Either as a series of web apps working off a central church database that has an API or as one seamlessly integrated piece of software.

No matter how many fancy commercial web apps there or how many social networking-savvy members we have, trying to create micro-communities of purpose on borrowed and cobbled-together platforms is a real struggle.

That’s why I hope the web developers and web thinkers of the web church — maybe you! — will build an app or apps for ministry.

People just don’t have the information they need about each other to imagine potential ministry, let alone the simple, integrated organizational tools to make it achievable.

It seems to me that too many of our serving opportunities are church-heavy. They are defined by the church, they are primarily for the benefit of the church (although I’m not devaluing the evangelistic purpose of church gatherings,) and they take place on church grounds.

The more our churches can release their members’ resources beyond the church walls, the more impact we are bound to have, on the world and each other.

Filed under: community , community, community management, social action, social media, social networking

The good news in 140 characters?

It’s amazing what we can pack into 140 characters on Twitter. But is that enough space for the Good News of Jesus?

I thought it might be fun to have some fun on a Tuesday afternoon to see if we could kick off a gospel meme that would fly around the Twitterverse in time for Easter.

Here’s mine:

The world sucks. Pain. Sickness. Death. We know we’re meant for more. Jesus will show you how much. He rescues anyone. Just ask. #goodnews

Be original. Be creative. Use the tag #goodnews. Give it your best.

Imagine the power of folks hearing the truth of Jesus simply by scanning their Twitter or status updates.

Post yours in the comments below.

Filed under: evangelism, social media , evangelism, social media, social networking, Twitter

How does your church plan to alter its Facebook strategy?

I’m wondering what other churches think about Facebook’s decision to fundamentally alter the way Facebook pages work.

The change puts organizations on a par with typical Facebook users. Not everyone thinks that’s great for organizations. But it seems sensible given Facebook’s overall strategy to stay competitive with Twitter, fend off FriendFeed, and steal ground from Digg. In fact, Facebook is positioning itself well to become the uber social media app.

You should take a look at this Mashable Guide to start thinking through how you’ll need to strategically reevaluate your presence on the world’s largest social network.

What the new set up requires is looking at the Facebook page not as an alternative brand platform but as a total engagement channel. That creates all sorts of questions about how to staff and coordinate the messaging that goes on there.

The upside is that, potentially, dozens of comments, media and other interactions could now be showing up in fans’ news feeds, giving people limitless opportunities to encounter our churches and ministries, especially among those who would never dream of visiting a church web site.

However, here are some issues i see:

Facebook can’t be a strategy on autopilot, as it largely is now. Just hooking up your pastor’s Twitter feed could create a lot of noise that will potentially “crowd out” other more important messages your ministry will want to send. If you have an uncluttered Twitter ministry feed that might be easier, but it’s not a complete answer. (See point No. 2.)

Someone or a group of someones will have to come up with a more or less daily process of choosing messages, the right form for them (photos, links, video, notes, discussions) and gleaning the appropriate media. As with a lot of social media questions, is it a media, communications, marketing or public relations role? And how does it rank in the everyday game of priority skittles?

Someone or a group of someones will have to actively monitor the Public Profile and engage with fans who are responding to the media you put out there. These people will have to have a pretty solid grasp of the church and ministry’s DNA and high capacity social media skills if they are going to represent the brand well. Again, it’s an effort that takes consistent commitment and approach to get real results.

We’ve had our Facebook page up for just a couple of months as a “side door” for people to find media and information about our church.

It was still in the experimental, evaluation phase as a ministry tool. Facebook’s decision suddenly complicates matters for me when it comes to resource allocation.

Those are my initial thoughts. What about yours?

Filed under: social media , social media, social networking

Can church work inside a social network for the masses?

I thought this blog post from LifeChurch.tv’s Online Community Pastor Tony Steward did a great service in sharpening our terms of discussion about social networks.

Paraphrasing, a social network is anything that draws people into relationship. A social network service is a commercial or other platform that is about the purposeful business of doing that.

I’ve written lots about my belief that the real work of the NewSpring Web Campus involves building Christ-centered community, and there’s always a tension about what the proper role of a church is in doing that.

And maybe it’s because we’re confusing our “church” terms:

The church, Jesus, designs community.

The church’s gathering places, the sanctuary, the fellowship hall, the web campuses, are the looms of community.

And the church, it’s members, are weaving community into a glorious display of God’s steadfast love and grace.

Let’s face it: Churches have never really had to think about themselves as actively building community. So it’s not shocking that they are apprehensive about it now and haven’t been very good at it in the past.

For centuries, the Sunday services were, in Tony’s formulation, the social network for an entire neighborhood or geographic community. They didn’t have to work to connect people.

The community was (more or less) culturally homogenous.

The community was (more or less) commonly focused.

The community was (more or less) physically congruous.

I think the big question that the NewSpring Web Campus my well end up answering is whether the organic (unnoticed, taken-for-granted) weaving of community in the traditional church — accidental encounters in everyday life, “overheard” conversations through friends of friends, and mutual relationships discovered — can happen in an environment whose “touch points” are far fewer and farther between. Maybe even rare.

A “tightly-woven” church community focuses the power of God. That’s bottom line of Jesus metaphor of a shining city on a hill or our being the salt of the earth.

In both metaphors, dilution, being surrounded by something other, or isolation from one another is how we are weakened.

Concentration. Critical mass. Momentum. Whatever you want to call it, there’s a point where the “tightness” of a community is its power.

We can make a statement with large numbers alone, no matter where we are or what we do.

But we make an argument when the relationships among us, between us and beyond us become pathways for the power of God to flow in a particular direction.

As far as the Web Church goes, there are plenty of social tools, such as existing social network services, that dedicated attenders can use to build connection with others worshiping online.

But the big question for me is whether that connectedness can organize itself organically on a large scale into actions that unambiguously serve and honor God?

You see, even a “secular” social network service doesn’t just create paths of communication. It organizes the investment of time and social capital. The social network spaces we borrow — Facebook, Twitter — aren’t neutral. They are, to varying degrees, pointed toward something.

Can a web church truly be an outwardly-focused body of Christ without an organizing space of its own?

Can a web church truly be an outwardly-focused body of Christ with an organizing space of its own?

If you think that questions this post, that’s because I am.

Talk me out of it?

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

The last thing a web church needs is another social network

We’re not going to create a community on NewSpring’s web campus.

I didn’t misspeak. I’m dead straight. We don’t have any plans for any special community infrastructure to be built into our web campus.

Why? Because we think our attenders are already in communities, and they don’t need to add another one to their very long list.

We want attenders to create relationships, but we believe that they already have plenty of tools to make community happen. If they want community, they’ve got it.

Of course, we’re praying for great conversations in our web campus chat room. But we trust the Holy Spirit will lead people to connect them outside our worship services.

Be honest: Do people really respond when churches force them to befriend and nurture random strangers? Who can claim real success from a lifegroups model that involves placing people with leaders they don’t know?

What if the way to honor God’s desire for us to be in Christ-centered community was for every church attender to be constantly seeking and finding people within their existing networks that he wants them to pour into and to take those relationships deeper, individually or in groups?

The vision I’ll be casting to our web attenders is simple: Get to know one another. Share any details your comfortable sharing so that you can take your friendships further. Maybe that’s an email. Maybe that’s your Twitter ID. Perhaps it’s inviting them to friend you on Facebook.

We’re not going to hold your hand or do community for you.

Got a problem with that? Why?

Filed under: community, social media, web campus , community, community management, Facebook, social media, social networking, Twitter, web campus, web campus rollout

Is the modern church ready for radically personal ministry?

The church has made a lot of progress technologically in connecting with people.

Blogging, twittering and webcasting pastors are real and transparent. And, with minimal effort, they are reaching far beyond their sanctuary walls with the Gospel. Praise Jesus!

But does the church care enough?

I don’t mean missions. I don’t mean social justice.

I mean do we invest enough personally in people’s lives?

Why do I ask? Because the same research study about online friendship that made me conclude that people who hate social networks are hypocritesalso said that online friendship — and by extension community – is fundamentally about “trust.”

We invest time and effort in them in the hope that sometime they will help us out. It is a kind of reciprocal relationship … What we need is to be absolutely sure that a person is really going to invest in us, is really going to be there for us when we need them…It’s very easy to be deceptive on the internet.

If the church, the body of Christ, is about anything, isn’t it supposed to be about soul care? Isn’t it all about loving one another?

Aren’t all Christians supposed to be Samaritans who invest personally in picking people up and helping them heal spiritually when they’ve been beaten up and left for dead by a brutal world? All of us? Not just those supernaturally gifted with mercy?

In the always-on, life-streaming world of Twitter and other social networks, we’re going “back to the future” of a village life where everyone knew everyone. But is everyone going to be caring for everyone?

Do we even know how?

It’s a question I’ve been thinking about a lot while casting vision for our web campus live prayer team, which will be on hand during each of our services to handle questions, pray for people and generally “listen” to people in need.

It takes a lot of skill to navigate the struggle, the pain, the confusion in another person’s soul. And respond in a way that’s helpful and loving.

And I wonder how we’re supposed to know how to do this well, effectively, if we’re not trained to.

We all know that if people are uncomfortable doing something, they just won’t do it. Could we end up being the worst kinds of hypocrites, talking about love and community and this time shutting our open doors right in people’s faces?

The one problem it seems to me with all this relational opportunity in online social media is that we better be good at doing relationships.

Is our modern church anticipating this by setting up the infrastructure to coach, guide, and support this new era of radically personal ministry?

Lots of questions here. Am I onto something?

Filed under: community, evangelism, ruminations, social media , community, social media, social networking

What do new believers really need?

Have you ever thought about how messy the process of discipleship was for you?

I bet you can think of one person from your formative Christian life — for me that would be NewSpring Worship Leader Lee McDerment — without whom your spiritual growth would look drastically different.

I just spent the last week thinking through my assumption that the NewSpring web campus should offer new believers some clear, “next steps”  — written guideposts about Jesus, the Bible, and healthy spiritual practices to get them started.

I know, from personal experience, that new believers feel overwhelmed about where to begin. But I wonder whether it’s relationships — not study courses — that truly drive discipleship.

Currently, NewSpring officially recommends to new believers that they read the Bible, starting with the Gospel of John, pray daily, attend church every week and get involved in the life of the church, such as by volunteering for one of our ministries and taking part in small groups.

That approach reflects NewSpring Senior Pastor Perry Noble’s idea that he’s responsible for feeding you spiritual milk and maybe setting the table for solid food, but it’s a mature Christian’s responsibility to feed himself.

In the era of “40 days” for this and “12 steps” for that — when the idol of  our age is control, ease and convenience — it’s seems so tempting to think that we have to have a plan for discipleship, a method, a process, a formula.

But the picture of discipleship we get in the Bible is primarily social: hanging out with/modeling ourselves on Christ, listening to sound teaching and living out the “one-anothers.” Spiritual formation is so much more about heart work than mind work.

Knowledge is not the point is it? In Perry’s gorgeous phrase, “we’re all educated way beyond our level of obedience.”

Maybe the church’s true challenge for aiding personal and social transformation isn’t more “teaching,” but helping believers encounter others who they’d like to meet with and spur on one another? (Hebrews 10:24,25)

Isn’t that what social media tools are supposed to be for?

What say you?

Filed under: discipleship , community, discipleship, social media, social networking