Future Shock

In my first semester at Luther, I was in the middle of a spirited debate with my RTA classmates about the church's shortsightedness regarding social media.  Traditionalist lamented the downward spiral of church attendance and felt that embracing social media was only going to make things worse.  They also stood on the idea that church was about community and with social media, all sense of church community would be lost.  I said their definition of community needed to be rewritten to keep with the times.  If people aren't in the pews the church needs to go where the people are.  If their online, then the church needs to get online.  In the future, churches that best adapted to this trend were going to be the churches that thrived.  

Much to my delight, I found someone who was talking my language in this regard.  In Elizabeth Drescher’s “Tweet If You (heart) Jesus,” Drescher takes us on a tour of the Digital Revolution like Willy Wonka takes his guests on a tour of his chocolate factory.  This is the world of social media where people are coming together in a way reminiscent of the early days of the church with a digital twist.  Websites, blogging and text messaging allow people to connect and stay connected in a very deep and interpersonal way.  This is giving rise to cyber groups, communities and cliques without spatial limitations.

Many are intimidated by this movement and see this a contributing factor to declining church membership numbers.  Drescher is encouraging the church to embrace this movement and take advantage in order to reach more people than ever before.

There are drawbacks.  It is not a perfect world, nor should we expect it to be.  Communication via cyberspace does not allow much for visual cues, which could easily lead to miscommunication and false representation or mistaken identity.  Learning new rules of online etiquette also has it hazards, which can unintentionally damage relationships.

As we get better using this technology and as this technology improves, I think we'll get better at reaching people who don't go to church and deepening our relationships with those who do.