In 1993, I went into a Doctor of Ministry program that was experimenting with a group doing most of their group dialogue online. Many of us had technology specific projects in mind for our final thesis, and mine was to explore and test case an online community as a form, resource, or enhancement/distraction from/to Church. It was to explore the social psychology of online community. Howard Rheingold had just written The Virtual Community and I was energized. I had always been an “early adopter”. I had a VCR in 1980, while I was in Seminary, and lugged it’s 50 or 75 pounds or whatever it was out to the car and up to Cincinnati from Louisville every weekend in the first half, to utilize it in reacting to and dialoging with the youth ministry I served while a seminary student.

I believed then (after reading The Virtual Community), and now even more so, with the growth of the Web, that online technology would expand the Church’s capacity to share resources; and that one of the most precious of those resources was to host and enable and encourage conversation. I believe that the Church MUST , in every way shape or form, be working to create new spaces for dialogue; that there is something critical at stake in our recognizing that much that is holy about the Church is its calling to put people together so that Pentecost might happen amongst them. Jesus said that “the Kingdom of God is AMONG you”.

So the Church is to be not only Conversation Starters, but Conversation hosts, enablers, encouragers, and evangelists for that part of the good news that suggests to us that each of us is an integral piece of the Body of Christ that is the Church.