You hear this all the time:  "Top-down, hierarchical, push method of communication is out, Social /interactive is in”.

And that is true.  This IS the problem.  But saying that doesn’t get us there.  We have to be confronted with what it is that we ARE doing.  And when I look at what people are doing,  it is still very much TOP DOWN/Push.  We point to our own stuff.  We’re pushing out  headlines.  We have to model,  encourage,  and enable SOCIAL,  else this “Social Media” thing  becomes known as a marketing tool.  You see,  right now,  marketing is very much stuck,  by definition almost,  in a top-down, push mode.  It is “building a brand”  rather than transforming it from “brand” into “community”.  When marketing starts paying attention to the fact that the church is about community and not verbal/textual presentation,  I’ll warm up a bit to the idea of “marketing”.

The other thing about community is that it resists articulation via these old media.  It has to be communicated with channels that are themselves more human.  And our community longings don’t want a “description”.  they want the experience of community.