TheyCallMePastorBryan

I have gone a long time without contributing on the discussion about social networks that I wanted to pursue.  Unfortunately, life has kept me busy and this is the first time in over a week I’ve had a chance to sit and write.  I’m sitting in a lodge in the mountains in Colorado, taking a little break before enjoying the outdoors.

I am viewing this post as a springboard to a long discusion about social networks, spirituality and evangelism.  I’m operating with a few different ideas floating in my head, so I hope to float some of those thoughts out there to give you an idea where I’m coming from.

The first is that I recently read Flickering Pixels: The Hidden Power of Technology to Shape Your Faith by Shane Hipps.  He borrows deeply from McLuhan, especially around the quotes “The medium is the message,” and “you become that which you behold.”  The basic idea of the book is that the technology we use shapes us in ways beyond how it communicates a message.  The very form of the technology shapes how we process.  My personal opinion is that a more accurate statement than “The medium is the message” would be “the medium greatly shapes the message.”

I’ve also been bookmarking and noting some different comments about how the facebook generation processes.  I found this article helpful in that it lays out a few ways that the internet community driven sort processes.  I’ll list a few here, but check out the article for the full list.  Some of the statements I’m finding significantly helpful are:

1. All ideas compete on equal footing
2. Opinions compound and decisions are peer-reviewed
3. Contribution counts more than credentials

Here’s a series of quotes from another article.  ”People tend to come to social media loving the freedom and openness that it provides, along with the ability to empower everyone and to feel like you are giving them a voice. But sometimes eventually that freedom and openness is seen as a liability and threat, and eventually turns to control…When you invite social media to play a large role in your organization, you have to be willing to let go of some of the control as well. This is why I think many churches and leaders are skeptical…because they don’t want to give over control.”

I’ll be back in a day or so with some of my thoughts.

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In the topics suggestions, ee posted this:

Obviously you are already doing this, and may have already had some posts on this, but I thought it would be interesting to hear your take on evangelism in the age of social media/networking.

How do things like Twitter/Facebook/Search Engines/etc. affect the way that one connects with spirituality, and how do you see the role of the pastor/priest/mentor changing (if at all)?

I will eventually give some response, but first I’d love to foster an open conversation: How do you think social networks effect spirituality? How does it shift Christian engagement in evangelism? Do you think it should reshape the role of pastor/spiritual director?

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In honor of the big Timbers/Sounders game in Portland tonight, I thought I would share this clip from the Colbert Report about whether it might be time for America to care about soccer.

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On my old blog, I made a post lamenting that church attenders were more likely to support torture than non church attenders.  I think to be fair, I need to post something from a survey lately that I see as a positive of the church getting compassion.

A survey (HT:Sojourners) is now showing that the more often people attend church, there is a higher chance of them supporting the creation of a pathway towards citizenship over immediate deportation for illegal immigrants.  I find this encouraging in a couple ways.  The first is that treatment of illegal immigrants is an issue that I’ve reflected on some, and have experience with.  I worked for a farm that utilized a number of illegal immigrants to do the work nobody else wanted to do, and in so doing saw the vast potential for those people to get worked over by the system.  In essence, those with legal status served as a buffer for the illegal immigrants and handled the financial situation for the others.  What I believe happens is that the legal immigrants skim a lot of money before it gets to the others.  In essence, there is no protection for these workers so they have no recourse to getting a fair pay. I talk about this to point out that it isn’t just some random provocative issue, but one I care about because of my experience and observations about the dark side of our current situation.

The second way I find this encouraging is that it shows the church might be able to move beyond parroting one religious party’s stances on all issues.  My hope would be an ability for us to advocate everything that the Bible speaks about and not allow ourselves to be run by two issues.  I don’t want to see the church become parrot of the democrat party either, but I do think we need to rethink how we are politically engaged.

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