In this discussion of participatory church, I find it really fascinating that there are really two conversations about radical shifts in culture going on right now that share some of the same language but apply them in different ways. One is the Internet/tech culture and the other is religious culture, specifically Christian culture (as I see it from my perspective).

I’d like to begin exploring some of these terms and ideas and how they apply to both Web and Church cultures — starting with …

Curation
One of the endearing mantras of the Internet is this: “Content is king.” This means that design and functionality are both really important, but the most important element is content — usually defined as the words, the message, the information being communicated. (It’s important to note that design and functionality can also be considered content, but for the sake of this short definition I’m focusing on the words.)

In a flat world where everyone can be a content producer and indeed millions of pieces of content are created every day, there is an increasingly important role now for content curators: people who will sift through the mountains of information and filter out the best stuff for the rest of us. (I do a little bit of this in the “Bonus Points” section of my email newsletter.)

In a sense, this was my role with Emergent Village when I was updating that site on a regular basis — sifting through all of the online conversation about Emergent and emerging missional church and presenting some of the best of it for readers to consider. We also produced some of that content, as well, of course. Curation inevitably involves creation at some point.

Worship Curation
In the context of the shifts occurring within Christianity, the emerging missional church movement arguably started with alternative worship being experimented with in the UK and Australia/New Zealand. Practitioners such as Steve Collins and Jonny Baker were reimagining worship and liturgy, which led to the term worship curation.

Jonny Baker wrote the first book on curating worship, in which he interviewed 12 practitioners including Lilly Lewin and Peter Rollins.

I’ve always associated Kester Brewin with the UK alt.worship scene, as well. An interesting thing happened this past summer at the inaugural Wild Goose Festival: Kester Brewin came across the pond to be a featured speaker, touting his latest book Other, and Sparkhouse was a festival sponsor, promoting its latest product Clayfire, “a worship design system,” and its companion blog the Clayfire Curator.

I was hanging out one night on the Patheos RV, drinking the (im)famous Patheos Punch, talking to one of the representatives from Clayfire about what their product did — an online worship planning software, basically — when Kester Brewin stepped into the cabin. I introduced Kester to the Clayfire rep, and asked him, “Kester, didn’t you help coin the term ‘worship curation’ in the UK?” Kester demurred, of course, and pointed to Mark Pierson and Jonny Baker, but the Clayfire rep seemed surprised, as if he’d never heard of Kester before.

It’s such a small (and debatably insignificant) universe, but I was immediately struck by the fact that the term “worship curation” had seemingly gone from creation to popularization to commercialization in such a short span of time — without much sense of history or connecting the dots.

Beyond Worship Curation
For whatever reason, Sparkhouse has already decided to shutter Clayfire. I would argue the online worship planning market was already pretty saturated, and the Clayfire team weren’t able to quickly distinguish their product from the others already available. (Troy Bronsink has other thoughts that are worth considering.)

Ironically, the word liturgy itself is often translated “the work of the people,” and it’s this idea that is beginning to be recaptured in the wider circle of participation in worship curating. But “worship curator” still implies an individual task, and it can too easily just become a hipper, cooler title than “Worship Pastor” or “Choir Director.” And, as Maggi Dawn points out, it would be better translated “a work for the people” or, in other words, “work that is dedicated to God, initiated for the people, and serves to transform the community.”

Yesterday, Scot McKnight re-posted my original blog on participatory church, and the discussion in the comments over on his site is very interesting (as always). Predictably, the people who come from more liturgical church traditions (Catholic, Orthodox, etc.) have weighed in heavily, arguing their tradition is already “participatory.” Some of these comments (especially #24) were pretty compelling, but ultimately I had to agree with anonymous commenter “T” who wrote (in #19), “If one can read the initial post and think that Weiner and those like him are yearning for exactly those liturgical traditions (or any typically protestant or even low-church traditions) and have only somehow failed to encounter them, I think this would be a misreading what’s being said.”

Ultimately, I think that’s absolutely right. Our ancient liturgical church traditions and the more recent innovation of ancient-future worship curation has brought us only so far. We need to go beyond worship curation to missional community formation: creating spaces where spiritual life can be experienced, theology can be wrestled with (without shame or fear, if that’s ever possible), and action can be taken to enact God’s shalom.

“Language creates culture, Yes,” Len Hjalmarson reminds us, “but practices maintain it.” So let us not stop gathering together and experimenting and conspiring and collaborating and co-creating and practicing and participating …

More terms and ideas to come. Until then, what are your thoughts on curation and church? Should pastors be more like content curators, sifting through theological ideas and presenting what is “the best”?

Leagues didn’t play at the festival (maybe they will next year? here’s hoping!), but the music was exquisite. Some of my all-time favorites performed there, like David Wilcox, Over The Rhine, and Jennifer Knapp.

The speakers were interesting, compelling, provocative, and accessible. Some of my favorite people — like Brian McLaren, Father Richard Rohr, Phyllis Tickle, and Nadia Bolz-Weber — spoke multiple times in different venues on a range of topics. And they were just there, hanging out with the rest of us, open to having a myriad of side conversations and, yes, occasionally sign a book or two. The “celebrity speaker” thing did still exist at Wild Goose, on one level, but on another level, great progress was made toward flattening that hierarchy and leveling the playing field. Kudos to festival director Gareth Higgins and the other organizers for creating that kind of space and environment!

Leading up to the festival, I shared that I was perhaps most excited about “the opportunity to develop and grow in spirituality” both for me and for my family. Becky and I attended the festival with our three kids (Olyvia, 10; Hayden, 8; and Elliot, 5), and we were really glad for all the effort put into creating space for kids and youth there. Jamie Rye organized the Kids Tent activities, and Kevin Alton was the youth tent maestro. We are deeply grateful to both of them for there contributions to the festival, making it the amazing experience that it was for our kids!

On Friday night, Shane Claiborne spoke to the youth, and on Saturday night, Brian McLaren led them through a self-evaluation of their own personality types and interests. Where else could our kids have these kinds of experiences? It’s not that Shane and Brian are “Christian celebrities” to ooh and ahhh over, but that they are both humble, authentic practitioners of a way of being Christian in the world that I want my kids to see and to emulate.

When the festival was over, our kids were unanimously adamant that they didn’t want to leave! They had had so much fun — making new friends, playing and running wild with other kids, etc. — that they didn’t want to leave, but knowing they had to, they said with 100% certainty they wanted to come back to Wild Goose Festival again next year.

And that’s what makes my heart swell with joy at the magical, Spirit-filled, spiritual experience of Wild Goose. I found myself breaking down in tears as I talked to people at the festival about the fact that my kids can grow up in a time when this thing exists, where they can be exposed to these conversations about faith and spirituality and practice, where they can bump into other kids from all over the country who are growing up in homes with parents who are seeking this way of following God in the way of Jesus — that this could be “normal” for them. I know this didn’t exist when I was growing up as a conservative evangelical kid. I’m so happy, so overwhelmed with deep deep joy that my kids have this.

I wish more and more of our churches and faith communities embodied that Wild Goose spirit. I have faith that more and more of them will. And that more and more of us will gather again next year at Shakori Hills to be inspired and filled again.

This blog post is part of the July 2011 Synchroblog – Stories of The Wild Goose. Go read more posts inspired by the festival and the Wild Goose (Holy Spirit) that was present there.

Here are some highlights that I’ve gathered from other Wild Goose Festival reflections from around the Web:

“The Wild Goose Festival could easily become one of the most important annual gatherings of Christians in the United States.” —Carl McColman, Day1.org

“The lone commonality among participants is likely their universal search for a spiritual reality more creative and gripping than what they’ve found in a local congregation.” —Norman Jameson, Associated Baptist Press

“At least 25 Christian music festivals are held each summer in America, but they have never catered for theological liberals. Until this year, that is, when the Wild Goose Festival—named after a Celtic symbol for the Holy Spirit—kicked off on June 23rd on 72 wooded acres in eastern North Carolina, not so far from the intellectual hub of Raleigh-Durham.” —The Economist

“Emergence is not what I’ve hoped for — at least not if it means that one side wakes up to the possibilities and fallacies of its own tradition and becomes the New Big Christian Thing. What I’ve been waiting for is Convergence. Thus far, I have found only anecdotal evidence that Convergence is taking place in any significant, broad-based way. But the Wild Goose Festival this year made it clear that this is precisely what is happening among many.” —Eric Elnes, Darkwood Brew

“My prediction? Next year’s Wild Goose Fest will be twice the size of this year’s. And there’ll be twice the amount of ruffled feathers in certain quarters — among those who don’t do well with change and depend upon doctrinal Metamucil to keep them regular.” —Roger Wolsey, Elephant Journal

“While Christianity tears itself apart, another group (that has always existed) is gathering among the fringes of the flock. The fringe likely consists of greater numbers than the core, because many if not most of the members of the community of doubt have come from the church-proper to now stand slightly outside the fire. The simple conclusion that I have drawn is this: the circumference is greater than the center. We need to understand that exclusion is a dangerous game, and that we are called to love; not judge. When we reach the stars, we will learn that only when we touched the unlovable with compassion, did we truly meet Jesus face-to-face. In my opinion, the movement that is the Wild Goose is touching that vein, and feeling the pulse of The Christ in the Earth and approximately 1,700 of us participated in this life-changing moment that might become known as the Woodstock of the next generation and the new order of ministry.” —Lee Smith, Word of Balance <– this is the best post-Wild Goose reflection I’ve read so far!

“I cannot control what my mind intellectually believes about complicated, theoretical events situated thousands of years in the past. … But here is what I can do, what I articulated for the first time to William and Ryan in a field while eating hot dogs and drinking punch with Mark Scandrette, Tony Jones, Doug Pagitt, and Matt Beams: I can recognize in the Gospel story something powerful and profound. I can say, ‘Yes, this is a story that I want to participate in.’ I can align myself with the Kingdom of God rather than with the powers and principalities of this world. I would love for there to be a party in heaven waiting for me when I die. But even if there isn’t, even if this world is all we have got, this Jesus story, this redemptive work, this sacred community building, this is something I still want to be part of.” —Brian Gerald Murphy, Lessons In Movement Making

Related Links:

Here’s my playlist of videos from Wild Goose Festival 2011 on YouTube.

Here’s a collection of videos from Wild Goose Festival 2011 on Vimeo.

Wild Goose publicity coordinator Mike Morrell (a.k.a., Oh Captain My Captain!) is curating a growing list of links to Wild Goose Festival articles online.

Travis Reed of The Work of the People shot a series of videos with Brian McLaren and David Wilcox in conversation at Wild Goose Festival 2011. They are all worth watching!

Many photos from Wild Goose Festival have been posted online: Wild Goose on Facebook, Courtney Perry, Geoff Maddock on Flickr, and a whole bunch gathered by Adam Moore.

What do you think? Were you at Wild Goose? Will you be going to Wild Goose Festival in 2012? Why or why not?

UPDATE 7/7/2011: Here are the links to all 50+ July Synchroblog posts!

• Anna Snoeyenbos – Wild Goose Festival – A Spirit of Life Revival
• Lee Smith - Goose Bumps: Opportunities Everywhere for Offense. A Fair and Objective Review
• Ryan Hines – 30 Years Later – “Controversy” at Wild Goose
• Karyn Wiseman – Flying With the Goose
• Kyla Cofer – I went to the Wild Goose Fest and came back in love
• Brian Gerald Murphy – Born Again (Again) at Wild Goose
• Chris Lenshyn – Chasing the Wild Goose
• Cherie at Renaissance Garden – Wild Goose Return
• Deborah Wise – Wild Goose Chasing
• Custodianseed – “every day they eat boiled goose”
• Will Norman – Back from the Wild Goose Fest
• Martin at Exiles in NY – Greenbelt and the Wild Goose
• Kerri at Practicing Contemplative – Waterfowl in My Life
• Allison Leigh Lilley – Chasing the Wild Goose and Catching the Wild Goose: Thanks and First Thoughts and A Pagan Goes To The Wild Goose – Part One
• Abbie Waters – Jessica: A Fable
• Steve Knight – Why Wild Goose Festival Was So Magical
• Tammy Carter – Visual Acuity and Flying
• Michelle Thorburg Hammond – I heart Jay Bakker and Peter Rollins
• Matthew Bolz-Weber – Remembering Wild Goose
• Paul Fromberg – Celebrating Interdependence Day
• David Zimmerman – Wild Goose Festival: A Recap
• Unfinished Symphony – Wild Goose Reflections – Part 1, Wild Goose Reflections – Part 2 Making Art Collages, Wild Goose Reflections – Part 3 Photoblogging, and Wild Goose Reflections – Part 4 The Good, The Bad and The Ugly
• Dan Brennan – U2, the Wild Goose, and Deep Freedom
• Mike Croghan – The Wild Goose is Not Safe
• John Martinez – The Table
• Callid Keefe-Perry – Gatekeeping the Goose
• Eric Elnes – The Inaugural Wild Goose Festival: Recovering Something Lost
• Shay Kearns – The Power of a T-Shirt, Apologizing to Over the Rhine, andPublic vs. Private (Part One)
• Glen Reteif – Duck Duck Goose
• Peterson Toscano – I’ve Been Goosed, What I Carried Into Wild Goose, andWhat I Blurted Out at Wild Goose
• Seth Donovan – About More than “The Gays”
• Exiles in New York – Greenbelt and the Wild Goose
• Tammy Carter – Visual Acuity and Flying
• TSmith – What I’ll Take From Wild Goose
• Dale Lature – Wild Goose Reflection
• Steve Hayes – Wild Goose Chase?
• Minnow – Grace Response
• Christine Sine – Encounters With A Thin Space
• Jeremy Myers – Giving Up the Wild Goose Chase
• Robert – Thoughts On the Inaugural Wild Goose
• Anna Woofenden – Slippery Slope Reflections
• Wendy McCaig – Loosing The Goose
• Joey Wahoo – Into The Wild
• Rachel Swan – goosed
• Patricia Burlison – I Called Life
• Jason Hess – While At the Goose
• The Bec Cranford – Wild Goose
• Anthony Ehrhardt – Chasing The Wild Goose on Independence Day
• Joel DeVyldere – So Lost at Last-(In the Woods)
• MK Anderson – Listening To The Wild Goose
• Jamie Arpin-Ricci – Wild Goose Fest
• Unfinished Symphony – #5 – The Last Post … for a while

This video comes from the Personal Democracy Forum conference earlier this week in New York. The speaker is Jim Gilliam, founder of 3dna and an Internet pioneer/veteran. The subject is “The Internet Is My Religion,” and in this short, 12-minute TED-style talk, Jim shares his personal story and how he’s come to view the Internet as his religion.

Meeting Jim
I remember meeting Jim Gilliam in April 2005 at Liberty University, of all places. (The Internet Archive helped me find a blog post from the time.) I had organized a panel discussion on blogging for an Internet evangelism conference that was being held at Liberty. I was working for Billy Graham’s Internet division at the time, so speaking at places like Liberty wasn’t such a strange thing for me.

Jim was a Liberty alum (as he mentions in his talk), and he was a mutual friend of (fellow Liberty alum) Will Samson, who was speaking on the panel with me (along with DJ Chuang, Stephen Shields, and Nick Ciske). Will had helped setup the first Emergent Village website, way back in the day, and that was my connection to him.

That panel, by the way, was later published in a book and more recently quoted extensively in Craig von Buseck’s book Netcasters (B&H Books, 2010). I guess we had some good things to say back then … But I digress …

The Internet As Religion
In his talk, Jim concludes, “God is just what happens when humanity is connected. … We all have this same cross to bear. We all owe our lives to countless people we’ll never meet. … I have faith in people, I believe in God, and the Internet is my religion.”

Nick Judd at PDF called it “a complicated, controversial, and thought-provoking message that equated the power of God to the power of interpersonal human connectedness the that Internet facilitates.” So, perhaps the “God = the Internet” message is just a metaphor, an “equation.”

The official video description itself states: “Jim Gilliam gave this inspiring talk about his life, his battles with cancer, and how he found grace in the networks and connections that the Internet makes possible.” Finding grace (God’s grace) in the networks and connections that the Internet makes possible. I can dig that.

Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry at The American Scene wrote, “I do believe that God ‘happens’ when humanity is connected. I also believe that God is more and not ‘just’ that, but I also think it’s as important to get the first part as it is to get the second part.” Amen.

Kate Shellnutt at the Houston Chronicle believes what Gilliam is really talking about is the Internet replacing the role of the church in many of our lives: “It’s arguable that today’s Internet has in some ways become the church.” I think this suggestion makes a lot of sense, and churches need to pay attention to this if they want to have any place in broader society going into the future.

When Does the Internet Become a Religion?
At the e-G8 Forum in Paris last month, my self-chosen personal Internet guru Jeff Jarvis challenged world leaders to take a Hippocratic oath for the Internet: First, do no harm. Jarvis also offered his “bill of rights” for the Internet, which starts with, “We have the right to connect.”

Perhaps this is where the values of the Internet become the religion of the Internet: when we shift from “the right to connect” to “the responsibility to connect,” as Gilliam suggests in his talk. Does the Internet simply allow us to connect? Or is there an inherent obligation for us to connect? And not just connect, but to connect and interact in socially responsible and positive ways.

I think Jim Gilliam has certainly moved the conversation forward in ways that I’ll be thinking about for quite some time. I think the implications for missional faith communities are tremendous. I’d love to continue this discussion (with Jim himself, at some point) and with all of you.

What do you think about Jim’s speech? Are you going to sign his “The Internet Is My Religion” petition? Why or why not?

Simon Mainwaring, ex-Nike/Weiden creative and Fast Company blogger, has written an intriguing new book (related to this whole discussion) called We First: How Brands and Consumers Use Social Media to Build a Better World.

UPDATE 6/11/2011: One of my other Internet and media technology gurus is Shane Hipps, a Mennonite who’s the teaching pastor at Mars Hill Bible Church in Grand Rapids, Michigan (along with Rob Bell). I finally got to meet Shane — and have a couple of really interesting conversations with him — at the Big Tent Christianity conference earlier this year in Phoenix.

I just came across this recent interview with Shane (via Mike Friesen‘s blog), and I had to post it here as it relates to technology and spirituality. In this whole conversation, Shane’s voice is one I am keenly interested in and one I’m regularly listening to (and I think you should be also):

Photo: Esty Stein / Personal Democracy Forum

     1) you have a purpose for which you were created

     2) you can access all the resources you need to achieve that purpose

At first blush, the second part of that equation might sound like “pie in the sky,” wishful thinking, or, worse, a “prosperity Gospel.” But, as I think Voyle explained adequately, the point isn’t to dream of unrealistic goals, but rather to see our situation realistically (point A) and recognize what resources we need (and which are available to us) in order to get to our most desirable outcome (point B).

For example, in a coaching exercise we did together, I decided to focus on being overweight (Point A) and my desire/goal to exercise more and eat better (Point B). I realized, as I was being coached by a colleague, that I need to replace the negative messages in my head (e.g., “you’ll feel bad,” “your motives are wrong/egotistical”) with positive ones (e.g., “you’ll feel good,” “you’ll be happy,” “your motives are good/healthy”).

Of course, it still takes a bit of faith, in a sense, to believe Voyle’s two points — about ourselves, about our organizations, about the systems we find ourselves in, and about the wider world. But I can’t think of anything more worth hoping in and hoping for than that promise of Resurrection, new life, new possibility.

What is Point A for you right now? And what Point B are you trying to reach?

This fantastic TED talk by poet Sarah Kay starts with her poem “B,” which begins, “If I should have a daughter, instead of Mom, she’s gonna call me Point B …”

The tragedy, Voyle says, is, “Many victims don’t know that they’ve survived.”

[Pause and reflect on that for a moment.]

Instead, they are so stuck in replaying that narrative of victimhood, that they haven’t moved on to recognize and tell their own story of survival, which they need to do in order to move beyond, to a story of thriving.

We have a lot of “victims” in our churches who are resistant to change. We need to help these people (young and old, alike) open themselves to new ideas and new possibilities. One such provocative idea/possibility from Volye is this: “What would happen to our churches if they … simply became places to support people to do what they love?”

In the Christian tradition, Voyle compared these three stories to:
    1) Bad/Good Friday (the crucifixion of Jesus)
    2) Holy Saturday (the time of calm and yet confusion)
    3) Resurrection Sunday (the victory of grace over death, the inbreaking of new life and new possibility, the event that turns Bad Friday into Good Friday)

What has this post got you thinking? Are you hurting, surviving, or thriving?

In this fantastic video from The Work of The People (recorded on the morning Bin Laden was killed, before it had been announced), Tripp Fuller shares a thought-provoking story about serving eucharist to Osama Bin Laden.

In the simplest sense, appreciative inquiry is about asking good questions that focus on the positive aspects of a situation or problem, in order to get a person (or group) telling stories that reveal how to accentuate the positive (rather than how to eliminate the negative). As Rev. Voyle said, “Appreciative inquiry engages all stakeholders in the storytelling.”

It’s, of course, this storytelling piece that is most interesting to me, and a lot of what Rev. Voyle shared with us resonated with me in terms of how well it aligned with my own thinking about kingdom journalism and missional church.

So often in conversations about church — and especially denominational decline — we focus on the negative: “Why are people leaving?” Appreciative inquiry flips that question on its head and asks, “Why are people staying? Why are people engaged in faith community of any kind at all?”

I found Rev. Voyle’s own answer to that question quite compelling: “Grace is somehow available there in such a way that we can receive it.” May it be so.

As one of the presenters, I was challenged to follow the TED Commandments and present something original and entertaining and funny and succinct (I had 10-12 minutes). With at least one TED fellow in the audience, the pressure was pretty intense to deliver. Well, let’s just say I had fun despite having to work through some technical difficulties (I could’ve definitely planned better than I did). You can see the results by watching my presentation:

Philip Clayton is the main proponent behind Theology After Google and the broader Transforming Theology project at Claremont, which I’m tremendously excited about. Philip interviewed me following my presentation to dig deeper into the question of whether online community is “real community” and what practices we can bring to our online interaction that can lead to a better world. Here are my responses:

Highlights from Theology After Google (#tag10 on Twitter) for me include the brilliance of Callid Keefe-Perry, Monica Coleman, Dwight Friesen, Jeff Jarvis, and Barry Taylor; the fun of competitive cornhole; the rare opportunity to sit in conversation with John Cobb and Glen Stassen; and most of all the joy of new connections and friendships.

And from now on, I can say I spoke at the same conference as Jeff Jarvis. That’s a dream come true.

Bonus: Watch more presentations from Theology After Google »

Action: Leave a comment with your thoughts on “theology after Google” »

I’m extremely excited to be speaking at the “Theology After Google” conference, March 10-12, at Claremont. I’ll be joining Tony Jones, Adam Walker Cleaveland, Spencer Burke, John Franke, Dwight Friesen, Jon Irvine, and others. If you’re interested in learning more about using social media in communicating ideas (especially folks on the West Coast), I hope you’ll consider coming out to this unique conference!

My Take on the Apple iPad
The big news last week was the launch of Apple’s much-anticipated iPad tablet computer. I wrote up the story for the Halogen TV website with my prediction: “It’s not the device itself that’s magical. It’s the innovation that the device now allows—the new interactive games/applications and multimedia ebooks/e-publications (magazines and newspapers) that are going to be developed—which will make the iPad a ‘revolutionary,’ must-have device.”

“Theology After Google” student Wesley Menke nicely synthesized the iPad news with my presentation in his blog post “Apple’s ‘Magical Realism.’” His take on the “magical” language employed by Apple in its marketing of the iPad and contrasting it with the “liturgical” (“work of the people”) concept of Web 2.0/new media is a great observation. This is, in fact, one of the big criticisms of the iPad—that it is a device for consuming media rather than creating media.

I don’t think this is in any way an “accident.” Apple is, no doubt, banking on the market being ready for a consumer device for reading/experiencing multimedia e-books and e-publications (magazines and newspapers). Other companies are quickly joining the e-reader/tablet PC race, but their offerings will now have to stack up against the iPad. And, besides, Apple’s computers are built for creating, while their other mobile devices (iPod, iPhone) are not. In that sense, iPad fits perfectly with Apple’s other mobile devices, and this makes perfect sense now that Steve Jobs is calling Apple “a mobile devices company.”

To get the full content, be sure to view the “Notes” tabs on each slide.

In summary, the three challenges that I identified at this point in history are:

1. Be reverse incarnational
2. Maintain the physical in the sacramental
3. Promote spiritual practices, such as fasting from media and devices

Just days after giving this presentation, I was intrigued to find out that the world’s first “online baptism” had occurred through the Internet campus of Flamingo Road Church in Cooper City, Florida, of a woman (Alyssa Eason) in Fayatteville, Georgia:

Having quoted at length from Gavin Richardson’s blog series on “Spirituality and Social Media” for my own presentation, I was intrigued to read Gavin’s comment on the “online baptism” post at ChurchCrunch: “I’ve been a part of some worship communities a few years back which actually did some baptism via the Internet within the virtual worlds there. I’m not a fan of them as I see a sacrament needing some physical proximity to it. However, from what I am told the instances I knew of, people eventually went to counseling or into a church community through the encouragement of the [Second Life] community that they were baptized in.”

I just hope that churches like Flamingo Road that are going down this path of disembodied sacraments are asking the theological questions and counting the cost.

I didn’t really delve very much in my presentation into the whole debate over “virtual community” with Shane Hipps, which I’ve written about elsewhere. And here’s another gem from N.T. Wright that I had planned to include in my talk, but unfortunately it was left on the cutting room floor:

There is a video of me giving my presentation on “The Theology of Twitter” out there somewhere that I’m hoping to get my hands on. If/when I can get that posted online, I’ll update this blog post with the video. Stay tuned …

UPDATE: Well, thanks to the Twitters, I received a DM (that’s “direct message” for all my non-Twitter readers, all two of you, hi Mom and Dad!) from Jake Johnson alerting me to the series he’s writing currently on “Ministry in a Post-Christian, Digital Society.” At first glance, I can tell there’s great food for thought and conversation fodder there. Here’s just a snippet: “I’ve been thinking that post-modernism is dying. It’s on its last legs. Taking its place is what I’ll call Digitalism. Whereas Post-Modernism (in simplified terms) was the subjection of truth to cultural context, Digitalism is the subjection of truth to personal context.” In his first post, he also shares a brutal quote from William Gibson. Check it out »

Back in the day, there was plenty being written on “networking” as an important practice for job-seeking. The point of it was to schmooze with enough people in a variety of social circles in order to make the right connections for you to move up, get a job, sell products, make money, etc. Sadly, sometimes this is the main motivation for people to go to church. Whatever the setting, “networking” has primarily been about you getting what you want or need or feel you deserve.

At some point over the past 10 years, I began telling friends (and anyone else who would listen) that “networking” was one of my “spiritual gifts.” I realized, saying this, that networking was not one of the traditional gifts in a strictly biblical sense. But I found the joy and satisfaction I got from connecting personally with other people, as well as the thrill of connecting like-minded people to each other and people to things (e.g., job opportunities, good information, etc.), was really a lot like the serenity and fulfillment one might receive from a healthy, life-giving spiritual practice.

Rather than focusing on myself and how I’m going to benefit directly or advance my own career, social standing, etc., I sincerely attempt to practice the discipline of self-less giving—connecting for the sake of the other, with no expectation of anything in return. At least, that’s the philosophy I’ve tried to adopt, however imperfectly it’s worked in practice. Whether it’s online or in-person interactions, I’ve tried to view networking as a spiritual practice, something that serves others first, rather than myself. And I still enjoy the fringe benefit of the personal satisfaction I get when connecting.

I’d really like to challenge others to view networking, both in the virtual and in the physical, as a self-less giving/connecting spiritual practice. No one likes to feel used by their “friends,” and hopefully no one wants to be a user. Giving truly is better than receiving.

Communication is Connection
This may just be how my strange mind works, but I was reading this weekend about John Maxwell’s new book project entitled Everyone Communicates, Few Connect. Now, to be honest, I think of “leadership gurus” like Maxwell as being some of the most self-motivated people, teaching other people how to always get ahead of others, but I’ve never read any of his books either, so I’ll stop the critique right there. That’s just my impression of who is and what he teaches (I may be way off).

Maxwell says something interesting about communication, which, as a communicator and a lover of networking (including the social networking kind), I perk up when I hear: “The secret to communication — whether one-on-one, in a small group, to an audience, or in a meeting — is connecting. If you can connect with people, you can communicate with people. This is something I learned early in my career, and it has helped me as a husband, father, friend, communicator, and leader. I cannot image what my life and my career might have looked like had I not learned how to connect.”

Maxwell is walking the talk, so to speak, by connecting with his readers through making the book writing process more “open source” and inviting participation and collaboration (something the folks in the Wikiklesia project know well) starting on September 1. I think that’s fantastic! It really just underscores again the importance of approaching networking as a spiritual practice, valuing people and appreciating connecting.

Idea Camp D.C.
This weekend I’ll be in Washington, D.C., to attend Idea Camp D.C. and to connect with folks from around the country representing 40+ organizations that are engaged in “Compassion and Justice” work. There will be people there that I’ve only communicated with in the online world (and many more I’ve never had any contact with), and I look forward to connecting in person.

I’m looking forward to learning much from them, and I look forward to giving out of my knowledge and experience as well. I’ll be approaching this exciting networking opportunity as a spiritual practice, to see where the Spirit of God is moving and join in it, however I can.

Theology of Social Media
In a similar vein as “networking as a spiritual practice,” I’m looking forward to speaking on the theology of social media at the Christian Educators Fellowship “CE 2.0 Christian Education & The Internet” conference, September 11-12, at Pfeiffer University. Registration is only $50, and the deadline to register is next Monday, August 31. Thanks to Jonathan LeMaster-Smith for inviting me to participate in this conference!

Read about other unconventional spiritual practices on Christine Sine’s blog »

Photo by lewis chaplin