It has seemed that many of the driving forces behind culture in recent years have dug deep roots into the online world. It's hard to pinpoint exact examples because culture and the internet have become ubiquitous, feeding one another for the general population. Geeky and technosavvy words enter our lexicon daily. Social networks are still being discovered for use by churches, while he pioneers of such tools are anticipating the next big thing.
As these tools become less cutting-edge and more a common utility, churches will be able to find better ways to utilize them for the needs of their congregation. But when we use someone else's toolset... it doesn't always work out like we planned. Sometimes the service stops working, or sometimes you can't get back what you've done with the service. Using a closed system locks you into it, with all of it's benefits and negatives.
If 2006, 2007, and 2008 were about the rise of MySpace, and the subsequent shift to Facebook, what is on the horizon? I believe we are about to see a shift away from several online tools moving away from "services" and towards being a "utility." Open standards will beging to form that will allow users to access their data how they want, the way they want.
The beginnings of this movement is taking place with the Data Portability intiative. This conglomerate of online services are working towards taking exisiting standards (i.e., rss, microformats, and openID), and promoting their use to put together a way for various services to talk to one another. The latest news on the Data Portability fron is that two of the big services heavyweights, Facebook and Google, now have representatives working with the Data Portability team.
The issue with this is, however, that it may take years for this to all get worked out. Churches are doing the right thing and exploring the idea of social networks... but what happens to the church that isn't on the cutting edge of technology, and locks their time, effort, finances - and church members - into a non-open service? I know of many churches who bought into developing church websites, paying for the hosting fee or using a monthy-charged WYSIWYG editor... and then leave their sites dormant. The American church, as a whole, is on a wide range of discovering the internet... some don't see the need for it, others are broadcasting their services in Second Life. Has the average church even begun to look into social networking?
Of course, if the average church has yet to find the benefits of a social network, of podcasting their services, of having an up-to-date website, or even having a broadband connection in their offices... what is the point of looking forward? Does the idea of open services and data portability mean anything to the church?
I think there is a huge lesson to be learned by the church from these consumers of cutting edge technology: the trend is being open, no secrets, and the ability to do what you want with your stuff whenever/however you want it. We as the Bride of Christ should be the shining example of these things. Our lives should be open. Our churches should have no secrets. Our members should be able to share and use our stuff however we want - as well as the stuff of our brothers and sisters.
We as the church need to find a way to have data portability between our church homes. We need to be able to have an easy way to research a church's history. We need to be able to easily access budgets. We need an online standard for prayer requests to be aggregated. Is there a way we can walk along side the creators of online culture, and find a better way for the church to be a "roaring lamb" in the online world, instead of a just a consumer?
P.S. Who are the roaring lambs of the internet that are already out there?
I'm a member of Mars Hill Church in Seattle. We've been dealing with a lot of these same issues you speak of. Here's what our Pastor of Technology, Zack Hubert, said about creating our new communications site "The City":
"Stated simply, Mars Hill changes frequently and we need to have the agility to keep up with a rapidly changing organization. I also didn’t want to be tied into a vendor’s release schedule for new features…if we want to make something happen, we can do it."
We at Mars Hill are both using existing technoligies (e.g. Facebook ( http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=504171597&ref=ts
), Myspace ( http://www.myspace.com/pastormarkdriscoll
), Youtube ( http://www.youtube.com/mhcseattle
) and our own creations to share content/information.
http://www.marshillchurch.org
Posted by: Dustin DeKoekkoek | January 11, 2008 at 02:08 PM