Today I had an interesting synergy of several items that got me thinking and reading about technology and the church. In my web surfing today over lunch I read or found:
- Bruce Reyes-Chow’s latest post on his moderatorial blog reacting to, and defending, comments he has received about his Web 2.0 moderator campaign
- Shawn’s reaction to, and expansion on, Bruce’s comments in his blog ” I, geekrev” in a post titled “ Not Your Father’s Moderator Candidate.”
- The Hartford Seminary’s Faith Communities Today website and an article on church growth that says that having a maintained web site is strongly correlated to church growth.
- Playing around with the Evangelical Presbyterian Church’s new web site and my comments on it.
- Getting up to speed at work with collaborative learning environments for our classes powered by Moodle
All of this got me going on my comments on the Church in a Web 2.0 world.
Bruce and Shawn have some great points about what churches are (should be?) doing in the new technological environment and how it fits with our past concepts. I’ve got a few extensions:
First, as Reformed churches, we are a people of community. Our religious life and government are completely about community. Web 2.0 is also about community, but about a community that is not necessarily all in the same geographical place but in the same virtual place. But since the gathering is virtual, does this still reflect the new covenant community that we are called to be? Maybe, maybe not. I’ll save that for another time, but note now that the question is there.
Second, in my coverage of Presbyterianism globally on this blog, I think I can say that many Presbyterian branches have nice web sites, the new EPC site being an example, but the best Web 2.0 interactive site I can think of is the Free Church of Scotland Online Forum. The PC(USA) now has some limited blogging, such as Linda Valentine‘s which does get interaction in the comments. But at what level should we expect the online community to be built or gathered? If it is indeed “viral” (spread by non-standard communication) we would expect to see the communities organized around affinity groups or distributed across several nodes (blogs?). Don’t expect things to be the way they used to be. But this is fully compatible with ministry being carried out at the most practical level closest to the congregation and with being a missional church.
Finally, a brief comment on bringing in a younger audience. While I fully acknowledge that Web 2.0 will get the attention of a younger generation, and it might get them in the door of a church, will it actually have an impact on the age of those involved in Presbyterian government? I would note that Bruce and Shawn are both ministers. They do church as a profession. For elders, it is a vocation, and we usually have to have jobs to pay the bills. I was fortunate that I have a wonderful family that is supportive of this crazy Presbyterian government stuff, and I have been blessed by an employer and supervisor who have provided me with the flexibility and generous vacation days to actually follow this calling. It is the unfortunate situation that many younger Presbyterians, while they might serve on their church sessions, and follow all this Web 2.0 stuff, are too busy with a young family and young career to have the time necessary to serve on a Presbytery committee, to say nothing of taking over a week’s vacation to be a commissioner to GA. Yes, elders of any age must make a choice about being active in the government of the church, but once we are older, we have accumulated the necessary vacation, and our career is more stable, then we have a greater comfort level being active, especially being GA commissioners.
For the last 15 years I have frequently been the youngest elder in the room at governing body meetings and committees. I have taken it as a part of my calling to encourage younger elders to become active in church government above the session. And to encourage governing bodies to modify the way they do things so that younger elders are able to participate around their jobs. A couple of presbytery committees have moved their meetings later for me and others, much to the dismay of some respected ministers who wanted to get it out of the way early in the day. But if you want younger elders, you must compromise for them. You can expect them to compromise some as well if you make the effort to show you are serious.
Anyway, my contribution to the discussion for now. I think this one has legs and will continue for a long time to come. As I look at this post I think I raised more questions than I answered. And about all this new technology… Way back in 1997, as an elder commissioner to the 209th General Assembly, I believe that I was the first GA commissioner to post my comments and pictures daily to a web site for my presbytery to read. I have it archived and I’ll find a place to repost it some day. Ya, I was always this geeky.