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More people appear on the radar screen of my recollection tonight, ones who opened up the possibilities for me in the new frontier opening up in the virtual landscape; one where community happened in strange and exciting new ways. Strange in terms of new medium and new technology, but with a familiar ring to it: like the things I was learning about new online acquaintances (and some new online acquaintances were people I knew of and who knew of me offline, but never really knew or understood what I cared about, nor I , them.)
I think of Ecunet and Howard Rheingold first off, because it was 1993, and I had just joined Ecunet, while I was simultaneously reading a new book by Howard, "The Virtual Community". I had always believed deeply in the value of ecumenicity within the Christain tradition but had experienced few opportunities to reallyy interact with a wide variety of Christians from diverse groups and denominations and see so many common concerns among us. "The Virtual Community" wove tale after tale of the connection spawned between distant comrades, and how they would drive long distances to meet or come to the aid of that unseen person with whom they had forged ties apparently very human, despite the huge skepticism shown these relationships by the uninitiated. The un-initiated they had to be, for once one linked across the ether to that "place" where humans meet via some story, shared concerns or interests, and felt that "connection" --- parentheses only because of the pun not intended------they were immediately aware that, values of ftf and bodily , non-verbal comunication aside, something very wholistic nevertheless was transmitted.
Via my new friends on Ecunet, and the stories and passion communicated by Howard through his marvelous story telling and optimism fo rthe online medium, I began to sense the birth of a calling that led me through the pains of learning technical things, which led to jumping in and teaching myself HTML, continuing to read similar positive , hopeful books on the human and social possibilities for online community, and ended up taking a job where I am now utilizing those technical skills and loving MOST of it. The skills have been continuously honed and expanded, but I am constantly being reeled back into the challenges that await the completion of these "potential magnets for some market": the glue that makes the place both "sticky" (bring em' back for more - the commerce hope--- and "create bonds"- the community hope......but I think we put the cart before the horse. Let's not "build and they will come" , and realize probably too late that we didn't give them reasons to stay----each other-----which , in our biz, resources for Churches, people would line the doors of places that felt more like coffeehouses or cafes or small initimate groups where people talk ABOUT the content rather than come in looking for what they're lookin' for and get it and leave
-----but rather, build with the purpose of inviting conversation, which is a much stronger base to attract interest to quality material than one paragraph marketing hype , catalog style. Amazon has shown us that surrounding conversation pieces with real conversation is what ends up showing and demonstrating value. And there are so many terribly important things for us to encourage conversation about. And we sit here negecting the fundamental values that gave birth to the growth of the Net as a place where people congregated, which led to the idea of commerce moving there i nthe first place: "Hey, there's people there, let's go there and sell stuff", which is correct spacially, but tactfully, old world broadcast and marketing is ill-suited here. It's a new world, but perhaps realy old, because its back to talkin' to fellow buyers in the marketplace, and its joining groups who bring together their valued resources around a particular concern or interest.
In Internet years, these past ten years have been a century, which qualifies some of these "spiritual seed planters" for more "balcony people" who stand out; who stand above me and shout me on; to keep the faith. Even as I must meet resistance from within the Church community or in Church-related business where I work on the ways in which our world is changing and how best to meet that world where it converses, there are other supporters who made it possible for me to find something which called out to something deep in me, and to borrow a phrase from the web programming world: something which is delightfully "extensible" for all kinds of ministry where people are.
10:57:49 PM 
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