Cyberspace - Christianity's Virtual Mission Field

Traditionally, the term mission field evoked images of foreign lands inhabited by native cultures unexposed to the good news of Jesus. The term did not represent any particular geographical location, but rather represented the masses of people hungry to hear the Gospel message, regardless of their location, or their current religious convictions.

Today, the term mission field applies to cyberspace as appropriately as anywhere else. Thinking missionally about the internet takes some stretching, depending on one's age.

A few months ago, I posted this list of Ten Challenges Facing the Church in Cyberspace: 

1. Accept the Virtual World's significance (MySpace is the most visited site on the Internet)
2. View online expressions of Christianity as valuable extensions of real world faith
3. Embrace the opportunity for church without borders (time, geography, etc.)
4. Welcome the presentation of God's Word in the vernacular of current culture
5. Respond to the globalization of the planet with hope not cynicism
6. Develop and maintain an online presence purposefully populating cyberspace
7. Establish virtual outposts for evangelizing, preaching, equipping & training
8. Create interactive portals for experiencing church (i.e. via streaming media)
9. Practice spiritual disciplines in the global online conversation
10. Encourage strategic investment in the iGeneration
    

Why?  Because there are "multitudes in the valley of decision" online.

Since the iGeneration accepts the digital world as normative, wise Christian leaders are purposefully engaging in online spaces.  True, the kids hanging out all evening on MySpace might not make up a traditional unreached people group, but don't think these digital natives are not a field ripe for harvest.  Many strategic groups who are paying attention to such concepts are actually targeting cyberspace prominently in their missions strategies.  They're thinking ahead about where kids frequent and making sure they're there early. 

Case in point, when I typed in the word mission or mission field in Wikipedia (the online encyclopedia used by many under 20's) for this post, I found that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has already been there leaving page edits.  I guess Mormons take the online mission field seriously.  Maybe we should too.

Comments

[Frank Johnson]

Cynthia: This is a great list! The only one I would question is:

8. Create interactive portals for experiencing church (i.e. via streaming media)

I'm not sure we can experience church through streaming media. We can watch services through streaming media, but that's really not church - just an expression of the church (the people). Depending on the setup, we can perhaps chat online with other people who are watching the service.

But to equate that with an experience of church is, I think, going too far. "Church" is far, far more than the regular weekly service - it's the day-to-day interaction between those who have been called out. And I find it difficult to believe that this can be duplicated in the online world in its fullest measure (as a supplement to face-to-face relationship between believers, the online expression of the faith can serve a wonderful purpose, but I don't believe it can replace the face-to-face relationship in its fullest measure).

Even if we look only at the regular weekly service, I don't think online interaction can ever replace the full measure of a face-to-face gathering and what the New Testament contemplates when it describes such a gathering.

That's why I think it's vitally important that, in all of our online evangelism, we point people to a local, face-to-face expression of the church. Even for unbelievers, I feel that immersion into the physical expression of the church is vital to the conversion process. A local expression of deep Christian community is foundational to all effective outreach (John 17:21-23), and I believe that's true even for online outreach.

Just my .02,

Frank

[joe]

Great thoughts!

How do you see your average 100-member church evolving to tangibly embrace these challenges? Especially reconciling points 6 and 8... Will they create intentional presences in Myspace, and invest less in their own webpage and web community? Or will a two-prong approach be the way to go (which is what I see the larger churches doing).

DJ told me he knows of a church who switched their main means of communication over to Facebook. I guess the question boils down to objectives - is a church's web strategy aimed to be a communication portal for members, or an outreach vehicle for visitors. I happen to think social networking done well (like Facebook) can accomplish both priorities well...

[Cynthia]

Frank - as you know from our history, I agree with you wholeheartedly. No amount of virtual anything can ever replace real life relationships. Immersion into the physical expression of the church is vital to the conversion experience - especially as an ongoing process rather than a one time event.

Here was my seminal idea in the streaming media reference. Recently, a woman at my church sent me a profound YouTube clip depicting the spiritual war fought over an individual. One of my children and I decided to watch it together because it fit in with some conversations we had been having. We ended up watching it several times and both crying each time. Then we concluded it was as powerful as any sermon we could have heard due to it's relevance to what we had been discussing and we prayed and both concluded: we just "had church".

I had similar experiences repeatedly with my brother-in-law when he was dying. Once he was physically unable to attend his church, our daily online conversations were where he poured out his heart, we would pray, and celebrate all the work that God was doing in his life.

Joe - the very questions you pose are the ones I'm counting on you to be the vanguard for answering. :-) I know mega churches have the IT staff to go two-pronged. My goal for our church, since we are your smaller, average congregation, is just to get those of us who are online connected to each other. This is mainly so we can build our online community to reflect that which we already have in the real world. All of which is a preparation for the increasing acceptance of the viability and value of online connections and relationships.

Since each church has it's own personality, assignment and calling, it seems each church will approach this differently. For example, a church with a primary teaching ministry might be more inclined to focus on their own web production as a teaching resource to the Body. On the other hand, a congregation with a strong evangelistic bent could likely set up a MySpace outpost as an easy engagement point for those who are searching.

[Antoine of MMM]

I've got a response to this and another item that just will take a few days to pen, but I wanted to get down this though now:

Cyberspace shouldn't be considered 'another mission field' but the next frontier of the mission field that was initally established in Acts 1:8. Expecting any who haven't been successfully able to live in Christ with their neighbors, make disciples, etc. to those in their immediate and near-immediate spheres to be able to take that to the expanses of the Internet is reaching a bit much. Understanding the mission field that is Cyberspace also means understanding the successes and failings of other new frontiers of ministry has they have happened over the course of church history.

Great post Cynthia.

[joe]

Cynthia, it's hard for me to be objective in those speculations ;) I was curious to hear what pastors like yourself envisioned... thanks for sharing your thoughts. I agree there will never be one catch-all formula/strategy that will fit for all churches.

[Cynthia]

Antione - good to hear from you again. Yes; true with any "mission field". Soon we'll be needing your expertise - when we begin to explore the use of the 7th mass medium for Kingdom enterprise. Stay tuned.

[Cynthia]

Joe - there is little need to be objective when preaching, just passionately convinced. Plus, Tim will keep all of us objective.
Now here are the Facebook applications I wish you'd create today:
1) how to convert "secret photos" to simply read personal or private.
2) how to suspend friends' profile photos when I think they're ugly, stupid, incriminating or related to any cartoon characters.
3) how to share a "thankful for" in"stead of "buy a drink"
4) how to know when a "friend deletes me so I can pray for them to repent.
5) how to block getting invited to events because of blogging, I mean teenagers, I can never attend anything.

Dean will substantially elaborate on this list....