Tag Archives: Facebook

Is Keeping Up All Your Community Amounts To?

screenshot of Facebook friends page
Sunday mornings in the SE USA offer a distinct impression towards communities and what people value. For some people, the hours between 8AM and 1PM are spent in within their faith communities, singing hymns, listening to sermons, and reconnecting to people they may or may not see throughout the course of their week. For some, those hours are a recovery period from work, parties, or family engagements held throughout the week. And for some still, those hours are spent leading the charge for the new week – whether that’s working in retail, starting meeting, project, and lesson plans, or getting in that exercise regimen that can other times during the week be more elusive. Indeed, there’s a lot of life that happens in these hours, and within those contexts noted above, there’s a question that a few moments on a recent Sunday begged me to ask in light of what kinds of communities we’ve become.

Two contexts…

The first sees several of the local broadcast channels displaying current or replayed messages from local, regional, and national churches. Within one of these I stopped on, the encouragement from the pastor was to align the fact analogy of the resurrected Jesus walking with the two gentlemen on the road to Emmaus (Luke 24:13-35). Inside of the sermon, the pastor goes inside and outside of the margin of the text – beginning first with the aligning of the appearing of Jesus as a matter of comfort to the situation which was a matter of shock and anxiety for those who walked with Jesus and knew him. And then he ends towards another margin, speaking to the need of people to be connected to the community of believers whom are on the road of life as well, with a chance that at some point in the relationship they will meet Jesus. As this broadcast happened, there were several points where the camera panned to various persons in the congregation, as well as the on-screen notation of the name of the pastor and the church. No address, website, etc., just the pastor’s name and the church’s name. After the sermon ended, I continued to parouse other channels to see what else might be asking for attention.

The second was a few hours after the above sermon was broadcast, while setting myself to work on a few pieces for the site in a local Starbucks. As I entered, I overheard a group of people talking about the communities they grew up in. Seemingly excited to know that there was so many similar connections between them, one of the women mentioned someone in her circle that has some local nortoriety. At least from her tone, she was proud of the connect. Then male in that small group spoke up about him going to school with her. He remarked about going the entire gamut with the famous woman in the same classes, all the way through to the end of high school. Then he said, “these days I’m connected with her on Facebook. That’s how you keep connected to people you used to know. Well, I’m only as connected as seeing her updates. We don’t interact all that much.”

It was the latter context that led me to sit down and write this much. In the latter, we have a participatory medium – the Internet – and a common channel – Facebook – being used for communication between those people, organizations, and brands who wish to interface with one another. In the former story, we have the one-way medium – TV – and itself a common channel – the rhetoric of the sermon – being used to share a central message that’s designed to knit the listeners around that common experience of listening, and moreso around how they share in the interpretation and activity because of what they listened to. And yet, both of these medium choices (Internet and TV) bill themselves as creating a community, or at the very least enabling community-defining behaviors.

What are the communities that are intended to result from these media actions?

If I’m being critical of the TV message, I found it confusing to be getting a message about being connected to both faith and community, but nothing in the broadcast – at least while I was viewing it – left a bread-crumb trail as to how to do that to that specific community or another one. At least, not the bread-crumb that we are used to – there was a name of the pastor and name of the church – certainly the Yellow Pages would be sufficient for making the next steps.

But then, there’s the critism of of Facebook users I overheard. They already had their Yellow Pages, and indeed something more defined than a name and address, they had some cycle of activity so that they could see for themselves when and how best to build some kind of relationship with another. However, it was only being used as a signaling channel – connection only good enough to get reception of what’s going on in another’s life, but not to build into their lives or be built from their’s. Very much similar to listening to a TV message in application despite the Facebook’s ability to be more than simply receiving a broadcast message.

I wondered, is this the kind of community then that we create with social networks? Yes, I know that many of those visiting here are quite active on their social networks, mixing broadcast announcements with rebroadcasts of other’s brands/announcements, with conversations. But, we can’t assume that everyone who uses these social networking channels are doing the same behaviors. In fact, if one were to take our second story as the norm – following people to keep tabs, not to have a conversation – then we might want to make a better question about social media strategies and approaches that mark our use.

What is the community that you are building as a result of how you utilize one-way (broadcast, P2P) and participatory (Internet, social networking) media channels? Could the resulting behaviors you notice within those be influenced by something more than the content you are filling it with?

GCIA 2011 Recap

Complete GCIA 2011 Sketchnotes - Share on OviLast week, you saw that we posted sketchnotes of our time at the 2011 GCIA Conference. Here’s a small recap our our time there.

Day one was spent getting to know the area where we’d have the conference. Mount Hermon, California is a very beautiful place. After arriving, and being told that I was a bit early for check-in, I took some time to walk around the ground. Redwoods and sequoias all over the place. Taking a small trail walk was a humbling introduction to what I would begin to understand as one of the common themes for the week.

Day two there was actually the first day of the conference. After introductions and a shared devotional, we got into the day’s sessions. Day 1 of the conference centered on social networking (see the sketchnotes, top-left corner). Presentations by Jesus.net, Cornerstone, BeRemedy, World Wide Open, and several others pointed to the growing use of Facebook in outreach, discipleship, and evangelism efforts. There’s a lot of room in terms of just Facebook activity for several players, but probably at lot more potential outside of using English languages.

Day three (that is, Day 2 of the conference) talked about web evangelism. The day was bookmarked by two great words of encouragement by Stephen Douglass (CEO of Campus Crusade), we heard more about what was happening with Campus Crusade, Jesus.net, and the conversation opened a bit more towards understanding hot just the opportunity, but the implications of using the web as part of the discipleship and engagement effort. I also got a chance to hear from the author of the book Netcasters - to which we’ll have a review coming of that book. Many people also participated in the canopy tour, which took you on heights amongst the redwoods. Apparently, there was also a 2000 year old redwood there – I didn’t go (heights and me don’t get along), but that would have been great to see.

Day 3 of the conference was dedicated to mobile. Clyde Taber (Visual Story Network), Dave Hackett (VisionSynergy), and myself were present to present – and we had Cybermissions and URMobile presenting virtually. Suffice to say, that was probably the most stretched day technologically, but one which ended with several questions and possibilities in terms of what MMM can bring to the table to assist with efforts in that space.

Day 4 of the conference had to do with visual story and visual media. I’ll have to mine for what happened then as I had an early flight out and missed that day of presentations and final remarks.

I will say that personally, I was edified, challenged, and humbled by the impact that many are making in the Body. I’m also quite pleased to see how many people and groups are working other. Also, the “big ships,” and how they have turned and are focusing their efforts not so much on the technology, but making sure that they don’t lose sight of former and new audiences with their Gospel presentations and engagement efforts.

Side note: do a YouTube search for My Last Day by the Jesus Film Project. Amazing artwork and production to their familiar storyline. Graphic warning, but you’ll want to let this one hit you and others.

Other than that, it was an encouraging time just connecting. The brother that I roomed with is working with a group doing some incredible work to train pastors and be solid believers in the Asia region. They have a ton of good stuff, and you can bet that we’ll be hearing some great things of their works as time goes on.

Lastly, I would encourage you to reach out to the GCIA or any of the groups noted on the sketchnotes and partner with them. A unified voice speaks more to Christ’s need to be heard and received than anything else we can do (peep John 17:20-26). If we can work hand and hand, no matter what out issues might be before and after, we’d have the kind of voice and impact in this world that won’t just win people to Christ, but it will have the better effect of making a better world to live in for us all.

About the Sketchnotes

There was a lot of information passed throughout the conference, and it was my hope to capture what I could using the sketchnotes method. I was able to get a ton, and for various reasons left certain names/items out. However, if you really want to see how the first three days of GCIA connected, I’m not sure that there’s a better way than with this kind of picture.

You can click on the picture, and then download it to view at full size. It was created totally on my iPad using the Adobe Ideas application. However, I took full advantage of the iPad as a canvas here and there is more to explore as you zoom into the image. There’s text and color all over the place.

I have pulled out most of the organizations that appear in the notes as tags to this post if items aren’t clear. Most should be, but just in case, that should help some. Many of these groups we’ll end up talking with/about again, stay tuned for those moments.

Apologies to the GCIA group for not getting Day 4 in there. If I were able to attend those sessions, I’m sure that I would have gotten them to fit in there. As you can see though, there’s a lot of detail here, and I hope that I did you all a good service by creating this.

Apps for Pastors

What kinds of mobile(-friendly) applications and services work best for pastors getting up to speed with mobile and social apps?

Though there are several, and a lot of preferred ones depending on the mobile platform you choose, we’re going to highlight a few we’d recommend for certain use cases:

Reading and Studying

Communication and Fellowship

Budgeting and Administration

Those are a few we like. Pastors, what are some apps that you prefer to use on your mobile?

Bonus question: do accountability apps factor into your recommended apps?

Guest Post: Technological Contemplatives

Being called to be both a pastor and a geek is often difficult. The calling of a pastor frequently places me in the structure of the institutional Church which, despite whatever theological claims an individual congregation makes, is an inherently conservative institution. Churches embrace change and innovation slowly (if at all).

The calling of geek, however, places me in the world of the ever-changing. In the digital world technologies rise and fall at a rapid pace, and the ways people communicate with one another is constantly morphing into new forms. From my dual-calling perspective, I have come to appreciate these two opposing experiences of the world. The institutional church’s slowness to adapt often stems from a concern about the dehumanizing tendencies which comes with technological innovation.

The world of the digital revolution, the realm of the geeks, strives to make human communication the social currency of the 21st Century. It is not a matter of one being “right” and the other “wrong.”  Rather, it is in the tension between the two callings that I am afforded an opportunity to be a distinctly Christian presence in the world. I call this presence, “technological contemplation.”

Natives, Immigrants, and Aliens – Oh My

Since Marc Prensky first coined the terminology in 2001, language about internet usage has been discussed between the poles of Digital Native and Digital Immigrant.  Natives, are those who have grown up with the presence of computers in their midst, which has changed the way their brains actually process information. Immigrants, on the other hand, are those who remember a time in which computers were not the ever-pervasive tool they are now. As such, their minds don’t process information in the digital world as readily as natives. They have what Prensky calls an “accent.”  The example he uses is the use of e-mail to see if someone got a voicemail message (I actually consider the use of any voicemail at all a digital accent).

Since Prensky first wrote in 2001, the shift has happened again. It’s no longer simply a matter of being a digital native or immigrant. We now have to wrestle with the reality of mobile natives and immigrants. These are people whose primary means of communication is their cell phone or, increasingly, their smart phone.

In this mix of natives and immigrants, I want to posit a third identity – there are aliens among us. Digital, and mobile, aliens do not have accents – they don’t even know the language!  These are people, or organizations, which have rejected the digital and mobile aspects of the communications revolution. Tools like e-mail frustrate them. Cell phones and text-messages tend to frighten them out of their minds. Church institutions make up one of the most populous groups of digital and mobile aliens in our culture. Older churches, in particular, lag behind the curve in the use of technology for communication. Many older (in terms of “years incorporated”) congregations do not even have access to the Internet in their buildings.

As such, tools like e-mail, Facebook, Twitter, texting, and instant messaging are not utilized to keep people connected. These digital aliens continue to use a tool from the 1800’s to communicate (the land-line telephone) and use this tool in a way that hasn’t been popular since the 1990’s (leaving voicemail at home). To digital, and mobile, natives (and immigrants) the efforts of these aliens are often met with a sense of hostility – as though a foreign world were invading their lives.

Crossing the Bridge

This sense of hostility between “native” and “alien” is a serious problem for churches. How can a congregation, which is called to communicate the message of the Gospel, spread the message of Jesus if the tools they use are met with a hostile response (often times from members of their own neighborhoods)? To begin, churches must recognize that that is a divide between the way they are designed to communicate and the way the rest of the culture communicates. Without this spark of recognition, congregations will continue to mark themselves as “aliens.”  This awareness must then lead to actions which enable the message of the Gospel to cross into the world of the mobile native.

Transitioning into action, however, is more than simply taking the tools of mobile natives (and immigrants) in hand and assuming that communication will happen naturally. To communicate effectively in the mobile world three interacting realities must be wrestled with.

First, it must be understood that “natives” of any culture have any number of rules and practices which attend their actions – most of which are not verbally transmitted but are rather learned intuitively. The intuitive nature of these rules makes it difficult for non-natives to discover what they are, as natives have never been forced to describe them!  They are simply, “what you do.”

When churches try to take up the same communication tools which mobile natives use, then, they will inevitably violate some of the rules which guide behavior. At first, natives (and assimilated immigrants) will view these violations as humorous or mild annoyances because they realize that the aliens simply don’t know better. If the church is not sensitive to the lines they are crossing and refuses to learn from past violations, however, mild annoyance can shift to hostility.

Second, churches must understand that taking up new tools of communication is not simply changing the means of communication. We must understand, and embrace, that what communicates well in one cultural setting will not communicate equally well into another!  When a church migrates into the world of mobile connectedness great care must be done to compensate for the drift in meaning from one culture/medium to another. If this care is not taken, a church may very well end up communicating the opposite of what they believe they are communicating. Taking the Gospel into a new communications medium needs a care which is similar to that of translating it into a new language. Time must be spent learning to idioms and grammar which is unique to the mobile world.

Third, churches must learn how to appropriately critique the culture of the mobile world without condemning. As the unspoken rules, idioms, and grammar of new communications tools are discovered Christians must ask, “How are we able to take up these tools within bounds of the culture, while honoring Christ?” It is as we wrestle with these questions, churches can take on a prophetic role, pointing out some of the unforeseen consequences of the mobile culture as a fellow traveler rather than as a voice from “on high.”  In fact, it may be that churches and individual Christians which have wrestled with the mobile world and it’s realities may choose to limit the presence of the technology in their own communities (for example, Twitter fasing).

Calling all Contemplatives

Churches must come to the understanding that, because of the digital and mobile revolutions, they are now missionaries to a foreign culture. The means by which they typically pass information is now as alien to the culture as a foreign language, and must change. This is where technological contemplation is vitally important. The call to cross the chasm between mobile native and alien is not simply a call to immigrate into this new era and pass ourselves off as natives. Rather, it’s call to re-engage the message of the Gospel while simultaneously reflecting on this rapidly changing culture in which we now live.

Churches need contemplatives who are filled with a missionary passion to identify the best of this mobile world in which we live – for that’s where the Gospel is ready to break through.

Wes Allen is the geek-pastor of the Central Baptist Church of Riverton-Palmyra and the Associate Regional Pastor for Ministry and Technology with the American Baptist Churches of New Jersey. He can be reached via Twitter, Facebook, or his blog Painfully Hopeful. He loves Jesus, technology, and the Phillies. He has never been subjected to Vogon poetry.