My previous post highlighted some valuable thought and reflection about sharing who we are online,  but it often bothers me a great deal (like right now) how rare it is to see any of this kind of talk and analysis and conversation amongst “church communications” efforts.  I find myself drawn to people who are not having this conversation in the context of the church and what community means in that context.

Why is that?  Are we not that interested in what makes people tick?  In what they’re looking for?  In who they are?  In who WE are online? In what makes online relating different, better,  or not enough as compared to face to face?  For me,  these are absolutely key questions,  especially as we attempt to “navigate” this expansion of the horizons of human communication.

And so why are all the good resources on this NOT found in our theological discussions?  This seems to be a no-brainer IMPORTANT ENOUGH TO WARRANT INTENTIONAL AND EXTENSIVE RESEARCH.  And yet there is so little of this. 

I find that I often have to START with the people who recognize the relational implications of this and talk about it amongst themselves,  and thankfully,  write about it on their blogs and  in their publications.  And these often come from people who are out there living the flow and immersing themselves in  it, like Tara Hunt and Jeff Jarvis.  (And there are many others I’ve been following since near the dawn of blogging like the “Cluetrain” folks (Doc Searls, David Weinberger,  and from time to time, Chris Locke).  There’s Chris Brogan , Shel Israel, Howard Rheingold.  (Rheingold , although I mention him last in the list,  is really the pioneer of the study of human relationships online,  first in his ground-breaking The Virtual Community in1992,  and then ten years later in Smart Mobs).

Right now,  I know of ONE such study going on,  on the blog of a guy I met at a conference of religious communicators (RCC2010- Religious Communicator’s Congress, held in Chicago this year):  Wil Ranney at simuality.com.  There may well be others,  but the point is that they are not in plentiful supply.  Wil’s posts and the research/studies that drive those  posts is an excellent resource,  and I’ve been there watching and commenting.  Denominations and communicaiton agencies related to the church need to be ALL OVER this.  Large corporations spend millions researching it.  But here we sit,  just riding the wave without much of anything to speak of regarding reflection on what all this means to us the body of Christ.  It seems tome that online communication is the number one place to connect in an intentional way that can take these theological concerns and possibilities to the streets,  outside the “confines” of the usual “power structures” of Christendom (and they are ,  quite literally,  “confines”.  The refusal or avoidance to study this as if it’s an important shift is baffling, but  then,  maybe not.  The church has historically fought against the revolutions in communication (ala The Printing Press).  So now that the Printing Press has become “entrenched”, it is the new “establishment” and once again,  people are end-running it and communicating outside the bounds of the new gatekeepers.  And that scares a lot of people.