Getting a Clue in the Church

My first paragraph in the previous post alluded to frustrations at Church and at work,  where as a web developer in both places,  in the former as a volunteer and as my "contribution/mission" to the Church, and to the latter,  my employer,  where I feel that my most energetic passions are drowned in responsibilities for upkeep  and additonal development in site functionality and "serving up content",  rather than in trying to figure out what is happening on the "online community",  where as the Cluetrain people say,  "the market is buzzing", and we ain't listening. 

These (at work OR at Church) aren't bad people.  Quite the contrary.  I happen to disagree with them,  but I do for reasons that I feel in my gut need to be recognized, and damnit,  I can't help but feel we're missing something big.  I know the playing field out there often seems overwhelming,  and company after company have thrown in the towel concerning online community because it's just too damn hard.  I often offer a comparison:  Isn't this how it is with trying to be the Church?  Isn't it often easier to run it like an entertainment business and focus on the production of "content" that people can "come and consume" almost as a "consumer" like the television broadcast model?  It's just too time consuming and uncomfortable for some accustomed to the broadcast/entertainment mode to find themselves faced with having to say something about what moves them....they just vote in polls that they like what they see and this is what they like......we take ratings and push more content based on these ratings,  in order to gain more eyeballs.  

Meanwhile,  people are talking.  Groups do happen.  Community pops up and some find a way to nurture it,  and in various churches we find either leaders who intentionally structure for it,  or members who express the need or ask for it,  and ask the questions about how to better know one another.  In the Church,  it's not all about who is interested in what for the purpose of finding a "product" for them,  but it is community for its own sake,  for what it produces or we hope it will produce:   a people who in the process of findng one another are also finding out what drives them,  what gets them angry,  and what part of their world needs something they can give,  and so mission groups are formed.  

Somehow,  I feel that there is a whole lot of possibility for online communication to be a place of aggregating resources and conversaton around missions which are run by people who have been called to do something,  and to do this in community which has the needed ftf elements,  but is "extended" into online technologies that provide what seems to me to be an "extended presence";  that the immeidate and constant availability of others for dialogue and conversation and resource suggestions makes this mission community seem to jump out of time constaints and into a context where the door is always literally open,  and people can talk at literally any hour of the night,  even when most of the participants are asleep.  

© Copyright 2003 Dale Lature. Last update: 9/23/2003; 3:36:00 PM.