Online technologies are changing our world and have ramifications for everything from business to spirituality. Ongoing social research evaluating our use of the Internet indicates that online communications foster and facilitate the building of new social structures and circles. From email and texting, to chat rooms, social bookmarking sites, web forums, blogs, wikis, and metaverses like Second Life, early adopters, particularly those under 30, are well-versed in online social culture. The evolving new social order has been described as being decentralized, diverse, liquid, and more global than any we've seen in previous cultures.
Furthermore, the new social structures associated with online media spaces display new value systems. Walled-garden
proprietary hierarchies are giving way. Top-down traditional CEO-dominated
leadership models are held in suspicion. New values are geared towards
participation, flexible open networks and communication processes that
are transparent and dynamically interactive.
In the book The Wisdom of Crowds: Why the Many Are Smarter Than the Few and How Collective Wisdom Shapes Business, Economies, Societies and Nations, author James Surowiecki explores the aggregation of information in groups, resulting in decisions that, he argues, are often better than could have been made by any single member of the group. Similarly, Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything by Don Tapscott & Anthony Williams describes a new economy born out of peering, sharing and crowdsourcing. Online communication means provide a way for there to be unlimited resources for conversation, collaboration, contribution and community. It is in such an environment that teamwork operating via group participation becomes the most accepted order.
In many situations, there are advantages inherent in the new social order. The Internet as a platform allows individuals to inform / teach themselves, to discuss / debate issues and policies, to mobilize / organize resources and volunteers. The web allows garage start-ups to challenge major corporations and galvanizes grassroots movements into global causes. The overthrow of bureaucracy will most certainly transform social institutions. Collaboration in science and medicine will likely produce spectacular results.
Problems arise, however, when such concepts are applied to Christians and to our leadership of the Church. If we use the new media paradigms as our only organizational models, I think we miss critical biblical patterns. Obtaining information / knowledge and employing wisdom are two different things. The aggregation of information (learning) is not to be confused with the application of wisdom, which comes from God. In fact, the two are sometimes opposed. Since we are members of the Body of Christ, we can embrace the value of our individuality within a group but teamwork / collaboration is not the same as group authority or rule.
The Kingdom of God is built on dominion hierarchies. In fact, a kingdom is so called because of the authority flow from the rulership of it's King. The scriptures constantly reveal God's designed order and the channels by which His authority operates. Man has been given delegated authority to have dominion over the earth. Numerous scriptures come to mind about authority, headship, rulership, as well as examples of Priests, Prophets, Kings, etc.
In the Old Testament, Moses chose
able men out of all Israel, and made them heads over the people, rulers
of thousands, rulers of hundreds, rulers of fifties, and rulers of
tens. Exodus 18:25 And in contrast, the book of Judges states, In those days there was no king in Israel: every man did that which was right in his own eyes. (Judges 21:25). Likewise, the New Testament is loaded with additional descriptions of leadership hierarchies. We know the angels are ranked, as are the demons (Ephesians 6:12).
There is headship and family order outlined in both earthly marriage
and the in Church (in its spiritual union with Christ).
All this to say, I still think there is a lot to evaluate and explore about the value systems evolving out of new communication models. As a new media enthusiast I'm all for utilizing technology to accomplish Kingdom business. Online technologies support the unleashing of human creativity, ideas and inspirations. But, flesh cannot inherit the Kingdom. And our mandate is to penetrate worldly mindsets with Kingdom values. As Christian leaders, I'm wondering if you are evaluating / exploring / pondering these questions like I am?
Wow - scary. So much of what you wrote about is what I'm currently working on for the Introduction to my upcoming book - "Church 2.0". Great post. By the way, you can continue the conversation about technologies like this in my Facebook group called "Church 2.0" here: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=5831513553
Posted by: Greg Atkinson | October 17, 2007 at 02:32 PM
Greg, I'm also aware that Chris Forbes is authoring an ebook similar to the one you have been working on but targeted specifically to Pastors using Facebook. You can link to him from my Facebook site or at his Facebook for Pastors site.
I probably should have mentioned The Starfish and the Spider book also.
Posted by: Cynthia | October 17, 2007 at 02:39 PM
Cynthia... Thank you so much for writing this discerning piece, and posing the question(s).
All you writers out there... **smile**... As you consider the innovation that the web brings to the Church and its mission, let me encourage you to think through and thoughtfully produce one or more sections that will pique great hearts and minds to consider the following...
If God's nature is self-sacrificing (and of course I believe it is), and His mandate for the Church is to also be others-centric, especially 'the least of these'... then consider how the new-paradigm further widens the gap between the digital haves & have-nots. In fact, I'll go so far as to name it the 'unjust irony'... that those who could best benefit from this low-cost tool (our inner city friends), have the least access. So consider if there's a looming opportunity for the Church to deploy internet tools to instead close the digital gap and the overall gaps in our communities.
Here's one very thoughtful article that might inspire some of your thoughts...
http://www.urbanministry.org/new-divide-online-segregation-church-0
Looking forward to your proposed books.
YBIC,
Neil
Posted by: IndyChristian | October 17, 2007 at 04:55 PM
"Problems arise, however, when such concepts are applied to Christians and to our leadership of the Church. If we use the new media paradigms as our only organizational models, I think we miss critical biblical patterns. Obtaining information / knowledge and employing wisdom are two different things. The aggregation of information (learning) is not to be confused with the application of wisdom, which comes from God. In fact, the two are sometimes opposed. Since we are members of the Body of Christ, we can embrace the value of our individuality within a group but teamwork / collaboration is not the same as group authority or rule."
This paragraph I am still nodding my head over. It's just simply true.
@IndyChristian: I agree. That's why in the pursuit of all that tech does, we as believers have to constantly be reaching out with it, making sure that it doesn't become a shell speaking within itself, but rather something that can be appreciated and used by those who need it most. To close those gaps though, we need a bit of a spark to pioneer that. The OLPC project is one end that is doing it, but the church definitely should be doing a good deal more.
Posted by: Antoine of MMM | October 17, 2007 at 05:00 PM
Hi, I think that the church, as an organization on earth is not benefiting from social networking and other web 2.0 applications.
I administer the blog of the youth group of a Church in Lebanon (middle east) and it has helped us to reach out to our community, make connections that were not possible before. The tool is helping us to communicate and later on to meet face to face with different people.
Today, we are the models to our Church and to the rest of the Churches in Lebanon to see how we doing and whether they should also use it. At least to try blogging!
Posted by: Raffi | October 18, 2007 at 04:09 AM
Here's a link about NGO's and their questions, doubts and lack of readiness to adopt web 2.0 applications.
This is applicable to the Church too, as an organization.
http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/non-profits_and_web_20_real_world.php
Posted by: Raffi | October 18, 2007 at 05:27 AM
Read the interview of Tim Challies with Darren Rowse of Problogger.
Daren has good points. He adds "Christians were at the forefront in using the Printing Press tool to print Scripture... are we as the Church embracing and using this new technology (web 2.0) - or are we being left behind?"
http://www.challies.com/archives/interviews/interviewing-the-problogger.php
Posted by: Raffi | October 18, 2007 at 10:20 AM
Neil - appreciate the feedback and thanks for the urbanministry link - and yes, I've made many references on my blog to Christians distributing technology across the digital divide as a point of ministry endeavor.
Antoine you and I often agree.
Raffi - although the sidebars on my blog are horribly outdated you will find Challies, Problogger and Read/Write Web there so looks like we think the same also.
Posted by: Cynthia | October 18, 2007 at 04:14 PM
cynthia,
sorry i'm late to the party. thanks for this helpfully provocative piece. we have to be careful that we don't let technology be a sociological driver in place of wisdom and the counsel of the scriptures. this is a very helpful post.
Posted by: stephen shields | October 22, 2007 at 03:37 PM
Stephen - Late? I was assuming you were taming the blogging beast and disciplined enough to only respond to certain blogs on certain days. :-)
Posted by: Cynthia | October 22, 2007 at 06:05 PM