Hello again! I am continuing to peruse this book and will share more thoughts on it. I would recommend checking out the following other blogs that have some great posts about the work. Go read what Wes and Jon have to say.
Working my way through part one of the book, which gives the rules of Google, I was reminded when reading the section "Think Distributed" (36-39) of this SinFest strip. The speaker clearly expected everyone to come to him and that's why it didn't work. It is a similar situation in the church today - we must go out to the people; we no longer live in a world (we probably never did) where it's expected that everyone goes to church on a Sunday. In my youth group there are plenty of kids whose families are "busy on Sundays." I wonder how many of those parents know that the church has a podcast and if they did, would they listen to it? Jarvis speaks about removing advertising as a business and relying on the word of month of the consumer. I think that this will be a challenge for most mainline churches because many parishioners are uncomfortable with evangelism even as small as inviting someone to come to church with them. So, some advertising is necessary. I am pretty sure that's why every church has the board outside that says what the sermon title is for the week. I know I once when to a Lutheran service because I liked the billboard. Would it cheapen a church board to say "Follow us on Twitter?"
I think the other statement made by Jarvis that is important for the church is related and found on page 35 "...ask yourself: How can you act as a platform?" I am thinking about this in terms of religious education (which I what I want to do). So many books on the subject offer a section on how to evaluate a curriculum to see if it is right for you. Is there a review site or a forum for this issue? I found one but it's not fully comprehensive. I would love to see a mashup of RE curriculums that would show me which ones use the same information/techniques, etc so that I could make my own mash up from the selected options. Maybe I'll make that website for my final project =) Frankly, I am also curious to know how many other curriculums rip off an SNL Chris Farley monologue to talk about the Holy Spirit. Forums would be part of this site as well, or a highly detailed review section to talk about the effectiveness, etc of these selections. I think this would make a world of difference for Religious Educators.
The final part of section one spoke to my understanding of my role as an educator: "Make something useful. Help people use it. And then... Get out of the way" (118). That's what I want when I teach; to provide tools that the other learners can utilize themselves and then step out and let them use it. I think it's crucial to the church today. I would not mind an empty church if I knew that people had taken what they had learned and were using it to make themselves and the world a better place. I think WWGD has a lot of insights that the church could benefit from and I am also seeing ways many churches are already on the bandwagon. Churches with comprehensible, easy to find websites are thinking appropriately for the new technological age. The Vatican recently told its priests to start blogging. The experience of church (community gathering for worship, etc) was never confined to one hour on Sunday morning and but I think it behooves us to be using new technology to our advantage.
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Monday, January 25, 2010
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Nice thoughts Angelina, I liked the comic strip, and I have to say I have felt like that character before...I guess I have a lot to learn form Google. One question I have for you is, when you say, "I would not mind an empty church if I knew that people had taken what they had learned and were using it to make themseles and the world a better place." Do you think that "old school" traditions of gathering together and singing hymns, sacraments, in a church building are non-essential to a vital faith community? Can everything and should everything be distributed?
ReplyDeleteThat's a really good question. I really like the "old school" traditions as you call them. I love singing and getting together and sacraments (can't go without those). I think the gathering of people does not have to be in a building specifically designated at church but I am in no way suggesting that I think that what happens in church is non-essential.
ReplyDeleteThere are things the internet will never be able to reproduce until the internet can put me on a holo-deck (which raises its own question about virtual sacraments) . I was more saying that I think for many people the church is non-essential. But they were in church at one point wherein they decided it wasn't for them. I think the goal of church as you describe it is to leave people with tools to use in life and positive experiences so that they do not pass along their memories of church as negative.
Many leave because of negative experiences and you can never bring that down to 0 - but you can decrease it. Maybe a viable anecdote would be this: I used to be a dancer/choreographer; I'm not any more, not because I don't enjoy it but it no longer became what I was called to do in life. I still positively on the experience. It would be my hope that church would be a place where even if you decided you didn't need it, you would leave for good reasons, if that makes sense.
Yes that makes sense...I see what you mean. Many people have a(many) negative experience(s) and then a church environment in and of itself can be repulsive to them. I wonder if something about church is essential in itself beyond providing tools. Is church "an end in itself" rather than a "means to an end"?
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