Amen , Micah, re:  , The Lamb’s War: The Church Is Not Facebook  **.  I was just writing up a post in my drafts yesterday (now a published  post at The Church WAS/IS/FUNCTIONS-AS Facebook? , where I expressed my sense that we’ve lost that “early church” status or mode of being. 

we are once again in the position of the early Church, which shared the gospel as a small minority in a vast, cosmopolitan, pagan Empire.

The Lamb’s War: The Church Is Not Facebook  **

Yesterday I was trying to articulate the sense of interdependence that existed amongst fellow high schoolers  in my youth group, Fellow BSU participants in college,  and fellow seminary students (and even extending that sense of interdepedence into the youth ministry setting,  where the youth group I was charged with also shared a common culture and social centrality).  It seems that the early church recognized the requirement of an interdependence that was required to be a truly “separate” people;  and this was separation from the culture and economics of a people living in an empire and in its economic realities.  Economics are a powerful cultural force;  a force which provides and order or a framework in which we operate.  The early church intentionally built its own structure.  It insituted a “common economy” where everyone shared everything.  Today,  we jettison that particular set of economic choices,  and instead re-order everything to fall in line with the order of capitalism.  And the formative forces of “America” are quite successful at lifting up whatever particular form of economic model that is presently in operation as the only one that makes sense. 

I think this set of realities is what contributes and to varying extent DETERMINES the models of relationships we are expected  to have with our fellow Americans.  The Church,  however,  for me,  exists and insists on continuing to exist OUTSIDE of that umbrella of consciousness.  It is “an entirely different mode of  being” (as Gordon Cosby is often heard to say re: the church).  

These economic realities also pervade the culture of the Web,  and of Social Networking.  If we are not extremely careful,  we adopt the machinations of the larger culture that “umbrellas” the Net,  and seek to operate as citizens of the Net according to those values which cast its shadow from its canopy over the whole operation.  This is why I feel so strongly about how naive the church has tended to be re: it’s mode of operation visa vi the Internet and it’s “Social  Media”.  The very “Social Graph” is VERY different in the way it should operate and be observed and understood.  The way a church person seeking a theologically sound vision for Social Media thinks about that “database” which represents  the  “Social Graph” is quite a different way of thinking than that of any “generic” non-profit or business.  That is why I am so repulsed when I hear people talk about “their church brand”.  YUCK!  This mixing of secular marketing and theological vision is a red flag for me that says : “Compromise”

(**I meant to change the title of my post before  I posted it.  Live Writer ,  when I click “Blog This” while on the page from which I am quoting and about to write a log post in reaction or as a “related thought”,  it grabs the title of the page,  which if it  is a blog,  is the title of the post— after writing this explanation,  I decided to go on and craft my post’s “related” title,  but the auto tweet that WordPress does has already sent the old title….so just so you know,  that Tweet title is Micah’s blog post’s title )

(I know I probably ventured somewhat away from your original point,  but your post got my headed in that direction)