Public Space and Blog Space
15 Feb 2004
Read most books with titles like “de-centered/de-congregated church, beyond church”….. and a common theme is the benefits of new modern communication.
The wonders of text messaging, and discussion groups and blogs are proposed as new ways to have authentic community free from the tyranny of church gatherings.
Now stay with me…if you have read any of my other blogs you’ll see that I am trying to affirm many of the emerging church ideas, whilst talking about some of the major flaws they might have (as they must, as will any new ideas).
I love IT, I built a computer with 1/2K (yes 1/2K RAM) when I was 11, programmed in machine code at age 12. I am into all things apple mac, with powerbooks and ipods. We have used virtual officing in our church plant over the years, with e-mail lists and discussion groups etc.
A high for IT for me was at an Emergent theological conference. They had wireless access in the room, where the main speaker was. Whilst he was presenting, I read some critiques of his paper on line, and was able to ask questions other people had put to him. Also thanks to iChat, (AIM), I interacted with other people in the room, asking questions of each other about what we thought was happening, and being said, whilst he was talking. When books were recommended, we bought them there and then from amazon, when someone new introduced themselves we looked them up on line as they were talking, including their blogs. And we journalled the event and put notes on line for others during the event.
That was for me a wonderful use of technology.
I can keep in touch with dozens of people daily, read their thoughts online, coach and train on the internet, and my doctoral program is even done over video conference. IT has helped me connect so far and wide, I can’t imagine my christian life without it.
Yet I get nervous when I regularly read how people are seeing this as their substitute for gathering, and church.
Firstly it is available to those who can afford it and many can’t.
But my major gripe/query, is people who reckon blogs, e-mail, discussion groups are so much more radical than church meetings, when I think they are nothing of the sort.
So in a church meeting, we have a few people putting on an event, that most people have to passively watch…that’s the usually criticism of congregations. Yet on discussion groups, that can have 200 or members, or blogs with thousands of visitors you find that there are 2-3 people who do all the posting, and put all the content on whilst everyone else passively reads and views…mmm sounds the same to me.
This site currently has 6,000 hits per month. Now 5,000 are probably from 3-4 people who check my every word every hour ;-)…but who are the rest of you? My blog log let’s me see every route people have linked to my site from i.e search engines, links from other sites etc….there’s a lot of you reading this, but not posting comments.
Yet look at the comments to the quotes. Just a few people, who are comfortable replying. Most comments are sent to my privately, by e-mail, with people who don’t want to post online.
My point? Lots of people like to read, and be passive, think and reflect, like privacy and public space. The boon of IT is not that everyone gets to interact because they don’t. Many more people get to interact but so many more get space to watch, take in and think without the pressure of taking part.
So hi to all of you who just drop by for a read.
Jason
10 comments
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Comment by John Duncan
10.02 pm on 15 Feb 2004
Mm. It’s a bit like watching TV and suddenly one of the characters turns round and starts addressing you personally. I confess to being someone who has over the last few months been looking at a lot of blogs – six months ago I had no idea what one was – but never quite getting around to participating. Partially it is a technical confusion – I mean, can you just do it? some blogs seem to demand some sort of membership – but also the normal human fears of starting new relationships, etc. Anyway, thanks Jason, for the welcome to those of us who have thus far only read. I have, however been aware that I could go on reading other people’s blogs for a long time without getting involved and that doesn’t seem really healthy to me.
Comment by Finker
10.21 pm on 15 Feb 2004
Thanks for this disarming thought Jason. As a brand new blogger and a reader for a while, I am still working out why I am writing the blog anyway. Perhaps there is a genuine conversation to be had and I should disregard the inner turbulence that’s telling me I should spend more time with my kids. Or on my feeologeecal studies. Or in prayer. Or on discovering more about mind-bending-life-transforming-ministry-empowering technology. enuf.
Comment by Sivin
1.55 am on 16 Feb 2004
“Yet I get nervous when I regularly read how people are seeing this as their substitute for gathering, and church.”
I get nervous too … because the fact remains that many of the 40-50 people who are somehow part of our church are not that “connected” (either by choice, ignorance or simply busyness). And nothing beats good “old fashioned” face to face contact and interaction.
I’m exicted about the possibilities that technology brings and the tools that make it possible for me to even post right now. And I’m delighted with the new friendships and contacts introduced to me through the availability of these tools.
and yet, I feel there’s no “substitute” that could “replace” the “incarnational”-Sacramenal-Real Presence of another person standing or sitting infront of me (plus of course I can’t click them off – there’s a vulnerability in that). The tools of technology may enrich and allow us to explore aspects which we have missed in the past. And I think it may also “magnify” aspects (e.g. the passivity that you talked about here) that in fact is the deeper concern at hand.
Comment by Glenn
3.30 am on 16 Feb 2004
Yes, many of us begin as lurkers. We just want to read and think. Somehow get up to speed. Feel like we’re at least on the same page. It takes awhile to “get the feel.”
But I’m not sure that anything electronic will ever substitute for the connected-ness of face-to-face relationships. Even webcams and voice, can’t sub for hugs and coffee or personal touch or 3D smiles and eye-twinkles.
Comment by James
4.18 am on 16 Feb 2004
Jason,
What a great, interesting and thought provoking post. I hear what you are saying but I think my concern is a little different than the one you bring up. For a long time the Church has been trailing behind in cultural changes and seems to lean towards the conservative end of the spectrum when it comes to “change”. In Chattanooga I began to think about this in a new way while listening to Doug Pagitt talk about all of the changes in just the last 100 years or so. He pointed out that most of all books on Christian theology were written by people who had no concept of having a “conversation” with someone they could not see. To talk with someone you had to be in close enough proximity to “hear” each other. With Alexander Graham Bell, that changed radically. Now technology creates new possibilities at amazing speed. Jesus Christ ministry pretty much happened within a short distance of where he lived. Our ability to connect and communicate intantly anywhere around the globe has large implications on everything from the question in the gospels (who is my neighbor?) to how we meet, connect, communicate and gather. Your post is interestign because it shows the dual nature of the technology. It could be used in a negative way to replace the gathering as we have always done it or it could indeed replace it in a positive way by actually becoming a new form of gathering. (I know two married couples who actually met through this new technology) I think often ecclessial dreamers are afraid to think about this in a positive way because it threatens the “vocational” portion of what we do. If the end result of the technological gathering is the forming of a faithful community of people who bring Christ to their world why do we resist it so much? Maybe in this age where people commute an hour from where they live to get to work (resulting in 50 hours or more per week away from home)it does not make sense to focus on “parish” ministry. Maybe part of being faithful in our day is recognizing we are not limited to the same physical proximity issues of those who wrote our theologies. If we are going to rethink sermons, soteriology, eschatology and everything else we should not be afraid to see some radical changes begin to appear in the how, why, and where of gathering as a confessing community.
Comment by graham
11.29 am on 16 Feb 2004
“If the end result of the technological gathering is the forming of a faithful community of people who bring Christ to their world why do we resist it so much?”
Great question, James.
Comment by maggi
11.55 am on 16 Feb 2004
it interests me that there are different kinds of cyber-communication: some (I’m one of them) use e-mail, blogs, websites etc as a means of extending a similar kind of communication to books and letters into a technologically available medium. We write as ourselves, we use “proper” written english, we reply to comments, etc.
Others seem more to have morphed their communcation skills – e.g. post anonymously or with a cyber-identity; write experimentally, not ‘as themselves’. This must also give us some kind of caution – cyberspace is ssurely a medium of communication, but not a complete locus of relationship?
Comment by Mike O
3.13 pm on 16 Feb 2004
I know this is an oversimplification, but blogowners can be divided into three categories. The first category is informational – the blogowner is anonymous (for lots of good reasons), and the primary focus is discussing (or just even posting) the topics.
The middle type is categoric informational, but somewhat relational. You may know more about the blogowner, his hometown, occupation, role in the church, etc. But the blog may center on a hobby, avocation, or goal that is a part of their life tapestry, but not the whole.
The third type is the relational blog. Lots of interests, relational happings in their “face-space” and ease in contacting them privately. Since these blogowners are relational, the relationships happen with a number of different media. And, given the diverse nature of the interests and topics, many posters will want to confine their visibility to one (the blogowner) or a few.
Blog engines are still in the first generation phase. I would like to be able to edit and correct my posts, but no blog engine allows that. So, I often don’t post. If I could type, then look at what I said, then rewrite it, I’d post more. After all, we all know what Bird by Bird says about first drafts.
The blog space is “all or none”. If I could post and have it be visible to only a certain few, I would post. I’d let the blogowner decide how big the space is, and who is in it, but that is certainly a negotiable option.
Blogging was born as an informational tool, but has become a relational tool. Let’s recraft the technology to make it more of a relational tool.
Comment by Jason Clark
5.23 pm on 16 Feb 2004
I’m with typepad and I can make all the changes I want and use ecto/kung log for my edits…easy peasy.
Comment by Dave
10.24 am on 17 Feb 2004
Well, as a semi-anonymous categorical informational blogger, I thought I`d pitch in. Blogs, message board and anything else online are definately no substitutes for relational face-to-face missional community. Sure blogging etc has the potential to be more participatory than most modern churches (as a greater number of people can be “involved”), but there are a lot of onlookers. I consider that emerging message boards and emerging [grid] blogging are a subculture of the emerging church, which is a subculture of the wider church, which is a subculture of the wider community.
Yet the vision of the early emerging leaders was to be ( as opposed to do) missional relational church to disciple those in community and to include those in the wider community. E-relationships may sound “cool”, but they are not radical from a missional perspective as how can you appropriately e-disciple those you are in e-relationship with through a “relational tool”?.
I believe Jesus comanded us to GO into all the world and make disciples. Not mak e-disciples. GO is not a code for Go Online, and I do not believe blogs and message boards, useful, vital and beneficial that they are, are a missional aspect of the emerging church.
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