Interesting angle.  Craig Adams tweeted a link to this article this morning. The premise is that people go to church for the “connections”.  And so Facebook IS the church for many (or the role of the crucial “connector”)

Sure, Millennials will report that the "reason" they are leaving the church is due to its perceived hypocrisy or shallowness. My argument is that while this might be the proximate cause the more distal cause is social computing. Already connected Millennials have the luxury to kick the church to the curb. This is the position of strength that other generations did not have. We fussed about the church but, at the end of the day, you went to stay connected. For us, church was Facebook!

Experimental Theology: How Facebook Killed the Church

I have little doubt that the church DOES function as the primary “connector”.  For one,  I think that is a major purpose of it,  given that the church is a set apart community in which  we learn to and  are enabled to be an alternate community.  And we tend to “conform” to the views/desires of those who have given us acceptance,  so in that sense (among other aspects)  ,  we experience formation,  which is another major purpose  of the church. 

Another point worth debating/exploring:

Facebook isn’t replacing "real" relationships with "virtual" relationships. It’s simply connecting us to our real friends.

That too,  is not something with which I would contend.  I experience that.  In fact,  many of those “old friends” are still relationships to which I feel strongly tied and somewhat dependent.  My college and seminary friends and people from my youth ministry days are still people with  whom I deeply desire to STAY connected.  I have yet to experience in any church the kind of ties and depth of relationship that I found in college, seminary (both times) ,  and youth ministries. 

It seems to me that often we seek out “virtual relationships” to compensate for a deficit in meaningful “real” relationships.  I prefer to use the contrast “online” vs “FTF”  (face to face).  Because relationships exist in both places.  What are often called “virtual” relationships are often more “real” than the ftf relationships.  In those cases where online friends know more about us than our ftf friends,  I can see a serious challenge  to the notion that the  virtual relationships are in contrast to “real”.  

The question does remain, though,  as to whether the online friends would be willing to do the “ftf” friendship with us.  There are some “requirements” or “expectations” in ftf friendships.  Like being willing to co-exist in a “non-time-shifted” reality  with us.  There are conveniences to online relationships,  such as the options to postpone reply to a time more convenient to us.    Conversely,  it is easer to “impose” on another’s time if we know that the imposition can be handled at the convenience of the  other.  

I feel that for me,  I have been forced to seek out compensation for the relative lack of meaningful ties outside those college-seminary-youthMinistry communities (what’s a good designation for that?  Maybe that’s my “early church” experience (early as in the days of the church’s beginnings when the community was strongly inter-dependent (even economically so,  which is a direct challenge to today’s church-in-a-capitalist-system setting.  It seems that the loss of economic interdependence has created a profound shift*)

*Even though these “early church” experiences of mine were obviously within capitalism, it was during times when I was a student,  so there was that sense that we were all “scraping together” in order to be there (or our parents were),  and so there was this “in the same boat together” sense.  We all lived  on campus (except for my second seminary stint – and youth ministry was kind of like “on campus”- we all hung out together a lot).  Now that I’m in that adult-with-kids stage,  the sense of distance from the lives of others is very much a reality.  I know it’s not meant to be this way,  but once a family is started and time is flying by,  the church loses its sense of being THE FAMILY that includes a bunch of families.  We’re kind of out there on our  own.  At least that’s been my experience,  despite my being such a “relational” theologian from almost the very beginning of my journey.

tweet source: http://twitter.com/#!/craigadams49/statuses/11789275603402752

I saved this post as a draft yesterday,  when I wrote all of the above after seeing Craig’s tweet and reading the article.  Now,  today,  another article by @micahbales

The #Church is Not #Facebook – The Lamb’s War http://bit.ly/eS6FPK #quakers #emergent #missional #trasn4m #outlawpreachers
tweet URL: http://twitter.com/micahbales/statuses/12189589905088512

comes at this from a different angle, but makes a point that resonates with me.  I’m about to post on it.