I posted a blog, more accurately a rant about technology and lack luster community that is the result within the church on my own blog a while back. To provide some background, Willingdon's College and Career group is now doing PodCasts, which I guess makes sense considering we have our services on the web. But after last week's bible study on making disciples (the Great commission), I am doubtful that this new technological direction will aid that goal. Here are my thoughts I would love to hear yours....
Fundamentally I believe our desire in using these new technologies is not because we are too busy to attend on Wednesday, Saturday, Sunday or whenever you would normally meet - and that is a problem in and of itself, it is our society's movement away from community. A community which brings with it expectations. I feel that we would like to ignore the following passage, integral to the development of true disciples.
"1In the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who will judge the living and the dead, and in view of his appearing and his kingdom, I give you this charge: 2Preach the Word; be prepared in season and out of season; correct, rebuke and encourage with great patience and careful instruction. 3For the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. 4They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths. 5But you, keep your head in all situations, endure hardship, do the work of an evangelist, discharge all the duties of your ministry." 2 Timothy 3 (http://www.ibs.org/niv/index.php)
Our generation wants to be able to practice their faith at arms distance from anyone who might want to do anything other than encourage. Who would want to be rebuked or corrected, surely not I. Yet from everything around us we can see that our generation is in many ways lusting after community. Apparently the only mode they feel they have left to utilize in that search is their computers, and there enters Myspace, the Mecca for all seeking community - especially those individuals who self profess disillusionment with the Church, as in building, not the body persay. I stumbled across one such individual (attending a bible school nonetheless) and his friend who herself is apart of a church in London, England called Asylum (http://www.asylumlondon.com/) - targeted to "the needs of a subculture."
As much as I think myspace is a good thing, especially for closet writers like myself - with a blogging addiction rivaling my caffeine addiction. I have also found it to be a place that saddens me, as I find more and more profiles with people indicating they are Christians and finding their sites to be full of suggestive content, anger, hate, and all together non-Christian content. Is this how we disciple? I was not aware we had to become like the world... As such I do believe if the Church - the body - is to survive and even grow in the world of the Web and all that comes with it - we need to start being truly genuine. I didn't say all the same - but honest to the Word, and bare that truth to the World.
2 comments:
Good points, Jen! I see this too - my church's young adults group got a "forum" a few years back and we really enjoyed it for a time. But we gradually realized that it was simply giving us an excuse to simulate relationships but with little responsibility. It had the added struggle of removing people from the people they were talking to, thus making it so much easier for words to be misconstrued.
Ultimately it seems that there can be no real replacement for true community - but I think even in our "realtime" church families we are still struggling to approximate what spiritual community truly is.
I read Life Together by Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and it changed my entire life and outlook on community - I highly recommend it.
Syncretism: more or less combining two separate policies. Where should the line be drawn? Is the goal to cast as wide a net as possible, but have wishy-washy Christians? Or is it better to aim for secure, well-grounded understanding? In my opinion God is not looking for half-hearted commitments (that being said living as a Christian in any capacity is still "good"). In some cases thinking that you're "Christian enough" is actually worse, as seen with the Laodiceans, who were luke warm, and were guilty of being the worse of them all.
And yet, the question still is tough =/
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