I began by starting a meeting on Ecunet called "Sojourners Link", because I wanted a place to invite any who read Sojourners to dialogue around the kinds of issues that this magazine focuses upon. I very shortly received a note from one of the Ecunet Board members telling me that it just so happened that Sojourners was coming online onto Ecunet. And so they did.
I wrote some notes welcoming them to our community, and giving a little testimony about what the magazine had meant to me over the years, particularly during the days of the Gulf War when I felt most estranged from the Church which, in my particular experience, had sold out to patriotism, and had refused to speak any kind of prophetic voice to the hysteria.
Because I had already begun my initial meeting on Ecunet called "A CompuServe for the Church" , a Board member invited me to take part in a discussion taking place between the Board and Sojourners. There, Bob Sabath was representing Sojourners as a former Sojourners community member who had also become a computer consultant by profession.
Bob and I hit it off almost immediately. As I remember it, Bob wrote me and expressed how what I had been saying about online communications and the Church had struck a similar chord of vision in himself, and we began carrying on a lot of conversation around what all this Internet development and online communication meant for the Church. We attempted an "Computer Mediated Mission Group" , where we intended to develop a small group modeled around the Church of the Saviour mission groups. Although that group didn't really jell, I think that as we become accustomed to the technology and familiar with the personal possibilities and benefits, such a group will be not only possible, but a source of great renewal and affirmation to many who are starved for any level of personal caring and willing outlets for our spiritual stories.