Continuing on in Naked Conversations: The organizations with the power of numbers and dollars had best soon learn that the more they are ENABLERS of ways to get people enthused and engaged, the more they win a bit more of the ear of those people. It’s very much that way with the church as well. The more churches, as individual communities, and denominations (as groups of these orgs) with their ability to marshal the aggregation of the resources such as education and curriculum and communications can realize that it is iin their own best interest to “host” and “enable” a variety of conversations on a wide range of topics, blogging will move closer to recognition as the “must have” tool.
I was just thinking of how we should be asking, as church, why NOT? Why not just open up the “spaces” where this can happen. Where is the leadership of denominational and ecumennical church groups on this issue? When I was just starting out in the faith, the big thing was small group and lay renewal, and finding ways to get people interacting. That’s still a concern. But we are so much more fragmented and “private” now, it seems. There’s much more emphasis on “Home entertainment”, and electronic convenience. Here’s the most captive audience; an audience that is VOLUNTARILY escaping to entertainment vistas. Tim Bednar of e-church is talking about how online spirituality is a big draw, and it is being populated and spearheaded not by church dropouts, but by the people heavily involved in traditional churches.
However, this is a false dichotomy. Our capacity for relationships is not zero-sum game. If I engage or belong to a cyberchurch, research (dating back to 2001) seems to show that I do not disengage from the local church when pursue spirituality online. In fact the opposite seems to be true, those most active in seeking spiritual information online are the more committed to local churches. (from Internet is changing the congregation)
What I’m stressing here is this: What’s holding us back? As we do with much of our sense of call: STEP OUT THERE. What are we afraid of? That someone might be critical of us? That someone might complain? If they do, is this not an opportunity for not only us to respond, but for THE PEOPLE themselves to respond from their own experience. And is not the voice of the “person in the pew” more often accepted with less skepticism than when “defense” comes from “the seller”; those with supposedly so much to lose from being authentic?
And is this not our goal as a people of God? To be authentic. To admit that we NEED the voice of those so obvi ously willing to give us the critique we need? And is this not a way to harvest that coveted “focus group” accuracy of needs assesment?
This is a serious thing, folks. If we believe that the Church is about something serious (and yes, I do), and that God calls us, all of us, to be a part of the body of Christ and that we all have a role and a calling at any particular time, then this business of opening up all the doors of communcation is vital.
Eric
Yeah, I feel that “authentic” goes deeper than simply “being ourseleves” (as if we really know what that means). It is deeper than simply “accepting” where and who we are and procaliming “I gotta be me”. This to me cuts against what the church is about. The church is about resisting much of this, and recognizing that we cannot resist alone.
While it is often “the best we can do” at any particular moment to attempt to express what we “honestly” feel and assess where we are, there are obviously numerous Christians who “truly believe” and yet somehow don’t seem to have gotten much of Jesus at all, and so there’s gotta be something additional; something more open to transformation.
I meant to reply here last night when I returned home, but I got assigned an errand to doafter work, which had run a little late, and then I plopped myself down when I rolled in at 7:30 and watched several episodes from a Season 9 of MASH DVD I had out from Netflix (great show, BTW)
Thanks for pushing me on this.
Peace,
Dale
Thanks for clarifying. So I guess you mean: authentic as in truthful to our end and means in God. Or something like that?
Peace,
Eric
To add to that, “authentic” is very much thinking of NOT just telling everybody what they want to hear, but being forthcoming about our addiction to the culture, identifying it, and then being the people we were called to be: the church.
In this context, it involves being authentic before God; part of that involves what you said. The recognition of who we are and that we thus have an “alternate vocation”. This business of “appealing to people” through “program”; through “drawing people” is not authentic. It is salesmanship and more of a business model than faithfulness. It has nothing to do with being satisfied with our “true selves” (although one might argue that our “true” self is that one which God calls into being).
But thanks for drawing that distinction. I feel the same way about the sense of “authentic” you reacted against.
Dale
To be honest, my goal as a Christian doesn’t have anything to do with being ‘authentic.’ I’m not really sure what that means. “Blessed are the authentic”? “Blessed are those who come to the Father through authenticity”? Insofar as whatever ‘authentic’ means, I would hope it helps me be a faithful Christian. I know lots of ‘authentic’ people who don’t want to have anything to do with Christ, which is why I’m rather hesitant about that word….
I see this word all the time on the internets but it doesn’t seem to mean much to me. The ‘authentic’ Eric Lee, as in, who who is most ‘real’ to myself, is one who is pretty selfish, an angry driver at times, and to be honest, lustful.
Maybe if you could unpack what that word means or something? I think I might know what your reply would be, but I want to hear it from you.
Peace,
Eric