Second Church?

Much has been written recently about Second Life and the power of social networks. I suppose a lot can be said regarding the power of the web to connect and build communities that cross time and space effortlessly. The question I will pose here is how will the church respond?

Many of the technologies (and I am a technologist at heart) that power these growing collaborative communities are often placed under the umbrella term Web 2.0. So, will we have Church 2.0 (web powered collaborative communities of faith)? In fact, a Google search of the very term “Church 2.0″ reveals the conversation has already begun!

But I wonder? One of the basic components of much of this social sharing is the concept of an avatar (a virtual persona). Especially in a community like Second Life where you pick your name and build your own person (and personality). Imagine 12 disciples running around and never truly facing each other or interacting directly with Christ face-to-face.

Faith is intensely personal, yet fully realized in vibrant community while technology is often intensely non-personal. As for shared communities like Kaneva , MySpace, Facebook, Bebo and Xanga (among others) the members often portray themselves as well — not necessarily who they really are. So what does this say about church 2.0 and new entries like GodSpace (a Christian social network). Will avatars mask reality? Can you walk into Second Life and really start a church without physical community and transparency?

It is clear that technology can empower communities of faith (more to come on the many options in future posts) but will the distance created between two individuals behind keyboards and internet connections allow for the work of transforming lives through faith in Jesus Christ to take place? Or will the church retreat (as it often has into physical buildings) into Christian on-line communities. Clearly the conversation is just beginning!

You never know, the person surfing through a virtual life may in fact be more transparent then the one sitting next to you on Sunday morning. The Great Commission still calls us to not only seek out the ends of the earth but the ends of the virtual earth as well. So who is up for Second Church?

Everyone is called to ministry (by Bob Munson)

We hear the term “Calling” a lot in Evangelical churches.

> God’s call to the ministry
> God’s call to “full-time professional Christian service”
> God’s call to “bi-vocational wholistic mission service”

I think it has had a very negative effect on Christian ministry. Here are some problems:

A. It is a great excuse NOT to minister. “I would love to serve God in ministry… BUT… I haven’t been called.” It’s an excuse that cannot be analyzed or challenged.

B. It is highly subjective. The Bible talks about calling in very concrete terms at times (eg. Moses and the burning bush). But today, despite words like “God spoke to me and said…”, people generally say they are “called” if they feel a strong emotional pull to do something.

C. It is used to justify bad decisions. Someone is completely unsuited for a task but keeps trudging along because he believes to change profession is to reject God’s calling.

D. Calling tends to be confused with profession. Now we don’t just get called to serve. We are called to a “bivocational youth pastorate in a cross-cultural context”, or a “professional minister of music in New York”, or a “Barefooting, tent-making, ESL Missionary in Peru”.

E. Worst of all, it is used to divide and deny. Many seminaries will not train people who will not describe some mediocre set of experiences that they describe as their “calling”. Mission boards and pastoral search committees will reject people who can’t describe something akin to a “call”.

It is an unconscionable thing that a concept that is supposed to enhance one’s ministry has become a tool to keep people unused and ignorant.

Many people look to the calling of Paul as a guide for how we are to look at God’s calling. It was real… it could happen again, but it is no sense normative. Paul’s conversion and calling was so dramatic because he would have listened to God no other way. We should not seek to live in such opposition to God’s will that we could only respond by such drama. The vast majority of passages in the New Testament on “calling” refers to the call to salvation, open to all. The few verses that do indeed refer to a call to ministry, have had a lot of strange theological baggage tied to them. So…

-I don’t see calling as (necessarily being) miraculous.
-I don’t see calling as a unique aspect of the clergy.
-I don’t see calling as a test of service.

I see calling as a path, and a relationship. When Jesus spoke to Peter, Andrew, and others on the Sea of Galilee, he did not say, “I am calling you to a job as a professional apostle.” Rather, he said “Follow me and I will make you fishers of men.” It is like Jesus was saying,

“Be with me. If I go here, you go here. If I go there, you go there.
Wherever you are will be home because that is where I am. Do what I am doing, where I am
doing it, and it is enough.”

 

Customer Service vs Community Tranformation

How do you evaluate the work of a local church? For a long time the sole criterion for that evaluation has been the satisfaction of the members of the church. Did they find fulfillment in their ministry? Were they happy with the music/preaching/children’s ministry, etc? When there is dissatisfaction then the natural response is to survey the members and find out what would make them satisfied again. While there is some validity to evaluating the work of a church in this way, should this be the only criterion?

Spring Hill currently has three locations. Two of those locations (Frays Mill and Seminole) are inAlbemarle County. One location is in Greene County (Spotswood). To be clear the Frays Mill location is ½ mile from the Greene County line so it has a footprint in both counties. Recent research from the Virginia Baptist Mission Board reveals that Greene County has the second highest percentage of non-churched population in the state (77.9%) and Albemarle County is 13^th on that list (64.4%). This means that Spring Hill’s location put it in counties where 3/4 and 2/3 of the population has no affiliation with any church.

Should those staggering numbers be used to evaluate the work of Spring Hill? If so, how do we use those statistics to evaluate our work? One of the things we must do as a church is to change our mindset of effectiveness from “customer service” to “community transformation.” Customer service asks the question, “are WE happy and satisfied?” Community transformation asks the question “how is the community different because the church is present?” Those two questions are not exclusive of each other. While it is true that there are many people in churches that simply want to be satisfied there are plenty of people in the church who will only be satisfied if they are doing things that make a difference in the community.  So, are YOU satisfied with the effectiveness of Spring Hill? How satisfied is your non-churched friend, neighbor, co-worker? Are we about customer service or community transformation?

A new day

Church is fluid. Truth is not. Here you will find thoughts that we hope will drive the baptist community forward as Christ works in our lives, our community and our world.