I often envision ways that online communication can enhance the Church community because of the central importance I place upon the idea of Church membership,  and the demands and commitments that should be implied by that.  Many in the Church see online advancements and suggestions that these advancements should be appropriated by the Church to help us “be Church” as signs that we are “giving in” and becoming more “electronic” and, thus,  by implication,  more “impersonal” in that we will inevitably de-emphasize face to face meetings in favor of  the online.

This is not the vision that I have.  My presumption is that if Church membership means for us the radical shifting of life and its energies toward development and nuture of a community which does everything with a focus on what will enable us, prepare us,  and empower us to be on mission,  then those energies do not stop beckoning us when we leave the physical prescence of those to whom we have been tightly joined in covenant.  We are still longing to be in the company of the committed,  and our thoughts are often turned to what we will talk about and hear the next time we are together.

In some measure,  online activity participation in an “environment” alive with the postings and contributions of those with whom we share our spiritual lives,  can help us to continue some of the interactions from which it is difficult to pull ourselves away inorder to return to our other engagements.

More in “Connecting When We Are Not There”