Community and the Net: A Match Made in Heaven

This (hopefully) is going to be an interesting blog for two reasons: first, simply because it is my blog, and I always write gripping entries, and second, because I happen to be writing this particular entry entirely from my Treo 600 smartphone. I am in northern California for the weekend at a (not-so) little lakehouse getaway with a good friend, Andrew Brumme, while Corrie is out of town in Virginia at a friend's wedding. As such, I'm composing this while overlooking the lake, in an area where there is no cell-phone coverage for about a five-mile radius.

Some people may be thinking, "...and you're excited about this?...", but quite frankly, yes I am - and for reasons more grand than the fact that my "inner tech-geek child" gets to come out and swing on the high-bars of a virtual playground. Writing this blog from an internet-enabled smartphone in the middle of rural California actually provides the perfect opportunity to discuss a very interesting conversation Andrew Brumme and I were having on the 7 p.m. to 2:30 a.m. (yippie) drive up, reflecting on how much the internet and e-mail have changed just about everything in the last eight or so years. We've all heard the not-so-new revelation that, "the internet is quite literally the most significant communication advance since the the development of the printing press." This is obvious, and if you haven't thought of it or heard it before, then I wish you the best of luck with that private island you've been stranded on the past decade. Before I go down that road, however, swing by memory lane with me for a second:

- I had *maybe* cited a website once before coming to college for a school project because I had been required to do so. Back then, websites looked really, really lame, and the time it took for pages to load made it impossible for small children to use because because of their short attention spa... hey, the image at the top of the page changes color! Cool!

- When I started college in 1997, I had never used e-mail before. Instead, we wrote notes on paper airplanes and spent countless hours molding the feeble minds of carrier pigeons to do our bidding.

- The first e-mail system I used on campus was known as "Telnet," primarily because programmers at the time had a fondness for onomatopoeia, and "Sucknet" didn't seem as rosy. I had to use a modem to dial-in to a landline phone extension to access the system (whether on or off-campus).

- Before that, my biggest exposure to connectivity was through a now bankrupt service, Prodigy, where I fed a year-long, 7th grade obsession with a bulletin board group of "friends," self-titled, "The Drawing Board" (did you guess that we all fancied ourselves to be comic-book artists?). Basically, all we did was post things to one another about our lives, and occasionally discuss our favorite comic artists, although one groupie (Jenn, I think) who was in college, actually had us send in samples of our work and put it together in a newsletter for a design class, then mailed us the copies. It was cool... no, really...

- These bulletin-board servers (like Prodigy, Compuserve, and AOL), were all enclosed communities, with a paid subscription service. AOL was the first to connect its portal to the internet, and this is the only reason it is still around. By 'around,' I mean that's the only reason you keep getting 1,000,000 free hours on a stinkin' cd from a company that doesn't realize it has no reason to exist.

- Thus, the internet has really only come into invaluable usage in the last 8 years. It's only a 2nd grader, people!

That is mind blowing, and even as I hear myself say it, it smacks of "when I was young, I walked six miles to school every day...why, I still remember the first time I used e-mail in college!" I can't think of many things now that I do (especially at work) that don't involve the internet in some way. But again, why is this important or new?

Because, my friends, for exactly the reason you are reading this right now - we can be connected with any other person on the planet in a way that has never been possible before, and this, by nature, has resulted in a radical shift in how we can initiate and participate in community. Although the realities of that statement apply to all people and groups of people, its repercussions for the Body of Christ may be unparalled since it first became the body of Christ. If the Body is fundamentally about relationship with one another in Christ, then we can find relationship and community across the world in ways not practically possible before now. I can put up a website like Ruined for Life for the sole purpose of expressing and sharing some pieces of the journey that God has been leading me on, and every person I currently have relationship with on that journey can share it with me in a way they probably wouldn't otherwise. Furthermore, as they share their own journey through this outlet, or pass it along to other people they know, those people are are also drawn into a community that is not limited by geography or time. This doesn't even take into account the people that might happen across this community on their own through a search engine.

Even beyond this, however, there is access to so much information that can be incredibly edifying on that journey. Teachings, articles, music - we can find this in abundance and with an ease that simply was not possible before. Although the criticism may not be entirely fair, modern Christianity and institutional churches have sometimes fallen into the same power control that was so highly criticized in the illiterate parishes of the middle ages; wheras the priests and clergy were the only ones that 'knew' the Word (because they were the only ones who could read it), modern churches elevate pastors to the same caste of 'spiritual elite' because of advanced degrees and seminary training. Although there is much to be gained from this type of study, it can dilute what was meant to be a "priesthood of believers" into a mere "audience of believers." The ability to share - and personally contribute - in a community of so many makes the idea of following a particilarly gifted teacher/pastor/leader around seem ludicrious (or rather, exposes it as always having been ludicrous).

Welcome to the community; its great to meet you, however it is you got here, and I for one look forward to what God will do with these new ways to share our journey together!