I rewatched "Field of Dreams" again (for the nth time, at least half a dozen) a couple weeks ago on a Thursday (I think it was May 29th). I remember it becuase after it was over, Janet told me that her parents had offered to pay for a Cold Fusion training class, and I felt encouraged by that; that here was some support for "finding my way" to my dreams. I'm still looking for the time and place most opportune for that.
A decade ago I was writing about how there needed to be "A Compuserve For The Church", since I felt that the Church could avail itself of some of the technologies being used to conect people remotely. The Web came along and made all of that a lot more possible. I was reading an article in the latest WIRED issue today, which was describing the economic situation of MIT today, in stark contrast to the "camping out at their door" that was happening before the big Tech bust. I have often thought that the Church needs a Web RandD group, to explore possible shapes of online Church and doing Church business, both professionally and via the laity.
I followed up Seminary by selling computers, getting my first PC, and soon began picking up HTML from the early Web sites. After a couple of computer support jobs, all the while beginning to write about the possibilities I saw for Online Community and the Church (I picked up a head of steam on this after reading Howard Rheingold's The Virtual Community), I went to work in a Church related setting. What I had hoped would enable me to move quickly toward seeing some of my dreams of working amongst a community of people seeking ways to build online community and enabling people to find some elements of koinonia online, was not to be. Online community seemed to be a distraction to some , and therefore never a priority on anybody's list (or anybody who ultimately mattered in deciding what got project money). It was often a time of deep disappointment, many of those times a disappointment in myself for failing to convince; I couldn't seem to sell it. But this situation was not unique. Companies and also Churches continue to miss the power of "the conversation", and give up way too early. When discussion forums "fail"; when activity doesn't just blossom immediately (often because they expected that somehow, these communities would happen all on their own). Nobody expects Churches to have successful and vibrant communities by simply building buildings, but they expect the mere existence of online forum areas to be inviting and challenging all by themselves.
So on I rant about what amounts to the cluelessness of the Church in technical matters. Communication is such a key component in ministry, and in the management of ministry (time management, communication management, helping the staff and members manage, being a resource and not a clog in the commuication pipe between Church members, between the Church and the people with whom they come into contact, and helping the Church members get to know one another). The last of those communication tasks is where I feel the Church is most clueless. The Web is not a highway advertisement board, even though Superhighway was used and worn out as a metaphor for the Internet. On the Net, people can not only communicate stories as well as information, they can also FIND such things if they are looking for some sort of identification and validation of their own journey in the experiences of others.
Churches have become such EVENT-oriented places, that people do not know those whom around they are seated, "taking in" the performances. One can only assume there is a tacit agreement and support for the kind of message and content being presented. The larger the "audience", the less likely this becomes. Unless the people are also involved in smaller groups, they are not exposed to the testimony of others, except for that given in the public performances, which are often "pre-selected" and tailored for a mass audience.
Online, on the other hand, if the Church can be an encourager of telling stories, and encouraging people to express what moves them and to write wherever the spirit moves us, about the things which we have seen and heard, and to use the vehicle of Web communication technologies to the very heights of our creativity and "technical knowledge", then we are being good stewards of that set of tools.
Mankind's questions unscroll day and night on a computer screen in an office hallway in Mountain View, California.
So the article begins. Michael Malone observes the striklingly small enclave tucked away in a hallway at google, where a lone figure sits and observes the fruits of the labors of his query collating application
Workers here at Google were once fascinated to watch the queries climb up and off the screen, two per second, 173,000 per day. But they rarely stop to glance anymore. Most Google employees long ago lost interest in the words and the astonishing numbers they represent: Each of these questions, culled randomly from six giant server farms scattered around the world, represents 1,500 inquiries, totaling 260 million Web searches per day.
Perhaps it's not a novel thing anymore, and at Google, there are new things happening, and the excitement usually follows that. But for us, in the Church, shouldn't there be more of us huddled around? Shoudn' there be activity in our denominational communication offices and even amongst our members, seeking to produce an response that can become available to the audience from whence these questions come?
In the wall behind the display, there is a cut- out section, like a drive-up window. Just beyond sits Greg Rae, one of three engineers who created this program two years ago. Now, as the site's log analyst, he devotes much of his day to studying the ceaseless scroll. Wearing gym shorts, T-shirt, and wire-rimmed glasses, Rae is a very tall man in his twenties who looks ready for a workout followed by a long night in a university library. He has now watched several million queries roll by.
The "log analysts" and the related "response mechanisms" that we as a concerned and "ready to dialogue" people could and should be working into our "ministry strategies" and thus our ministry dollars and investments. But I see no such activity. I see no "MIT Media Labs" with the Church's name on them. The closest thing I can recall reading about was the article (also in WIRED) about the Catholic Churh's astronomy research happening in Arizona (in the December 2002 issue, The Pope's Astrophysicist). I know there are small operations going on in numerous places that follow this mantra (like Lumicon , who seek to provide resources for things like multimedia worship, who also got a little blurb in , once again, WIRED magazine: Lights, Camera, Religion)
Why is it we read this stuff in WIRED, and not in the Church communications? Here we are, on the cusp of a Wireless revolution (see such writings as Smart Mobs) , and the Church has barely begun to get the "presses rolling" with regards to the web (reference to the Printing Press and the similar period of acclamation and assimilation the Church had to go through to "get with it" in that communication technology transition ).
Whether out of ignorance, faith, or belief in the safety of numbers, an estimated 52 million people around the world, 42 percent of all search engine users, entrust the site with some of their deepest, most vulnerable thoughts and desires.
Geez, doesn't this just embarass us? Can't we place some people to ...at least "watch"...but preferrably to watch and observe and ask the kinds of questions author Malone asks:
... 22 hours into this endeavor, I find it hard to turn away. I have the haunting sense that at any second, something valuable and vital will appear at the bottom of the display, only to disappear at the top five seconds later. I force myself to stay alert for the questions that burn through the humdrum, that force you to try and picture the person who just typed it.
These are the cries for help.
Regardless of what one thinks about what kind of comunication is happening on the Web, there can be no doubt that there are real people on the other side of all those keyboards. These queries scrolling across this culling program's output screen are representative of a goldmine of questions. I have often pontificated on how the Church and her communication agencies need to be figuring out how to do "Search Engine Science"....to understand the techniques and technologies of the Search in order to help the "Search for Meaning".
It is nearly midnight when the last and most disturbing of these cries appears. It arrives buried between searches about seafood restaurants in San Diego, thongs, mafia cheats, and bisection bandwidth topology.
Santa Clara, Calif. > What to tell a suicidal friend
This query hasn't come from Kuala Lumpur or Genoa or Montevideo, but just outside Google's front door. A drama is unfolding only a few miles away, and there is no way to help; I don't even know the person's name. I can only sit and watch the words crawl up the screen and disappear. This is a contract between man and machine, and I can only observe, not intervene.
Stricken, I glance over at Rae, who has returned from night league volleyball, his spiky blond hair still wet. He, too, has seen the query and is typing away furiously. Finally he stops and looks up at me. "They're going to be OK. They got referred to the right places."
"You can do that?"
"Yeah, well, I can see how the system responds. And if it doesn't give the right information, I'll find better sites and attach them for future queries."
"But you can't help the people who ask the original question."
"No."
"Just the ones that follow?" Rae nods.
"You've just got to do the right thing. The hard part is figuring out what the right thing is."He thinks a moment, then gestures at the screen. "I know people trust in this thing. They believe it will have the answer. And I don't want it to fail them." As Rae talks, 50 more queries scroll up the screen.
Question for us: How long will we remain silent? For me, my concern is not so much to provide "white papers" of spiritual "answers", but ways to connect people asking questions to , well.....more people asking the same questions. Again, the conversation , and the "connection" provided there, are roads to the answers. We need to know, and they need to know, that we are not alone.
Here's where a blogger who takes pride in his writing faces something intimidating, at least this is how I feel coming into the start of this. And the THIS is: Today marks 20 years since the day of my first meeting and first date (this was a blind date, you may have deduced) with my wife. Next year we will have our 20th wedding anniversary. This is a blog which I feel intimidated about doing (I've thought about it all day today since awakening, and giving Janet - my wife - a big hug). It's intimidating because it is something I want to express well, and just not sure if I can, or if I really do it well, whether or not I will like it, even so. But enough of what I think my ability to "write it up". On with what I'm all prepared (or not prepared) top write, which is what the last 20 years has meant.
When I first titled this story/article, the "functions" I had in mind were the "limited set" or "usual set" of functions that are often associated with Church Website "basics": information about the Church and basic schedule, personell, mission statement, etc. (brochure information). Most Churches begin by transferring most of their brochure information onto a Webpage. Some add a calendar, which usually ends up displaying a long-past set of events, and long-past sermons if any ----- very few are posting sermons, which I think is oo bad becuase often it is one way to reflect something of the content of the sermons, which is one "yardstick" people use to evaluate what the Church may offer to them as a source of challenge and or inspiration on a week to week basis.
Beyond this basic starting place, the programs of the Church. organized in some basic outline kind of fashion (ie. Schedule, Staff, Mission, Ministries, Education, Membership etc. is a typical navigational structure. Many provide a basic description of each of these sections and any sub-sections which describe the various entries under those areas (like under Ministries, a description of an after-school tutoring program the Church provides).
I feel that I have arrived on the Church web scene too early (as it often seems with just about anything having to do with new technologies and the Church----- the Church community is often not among the early adopters of new technologies). I think this is particularly true in the case of online technologies, having to do so much with the idea of providing more ways to "communicate", and since communication is so key to community, there are debates and exploring of effects of new technology, and concerns about damaging the fabric of community by an uncritical acceptance of "new ways of meeting"; concerns which are worthy to be taken seriously.
