Trends in Mission

Prior to his current role as Leadership Community Director, Eric Swanson was part of Campus Crusade for Christ for 25 years. Most recently, he served as director of charitable giving for Tango, a private investment company. Eric holds a bachelors degree in social science from the University of California at Berkeley and is a DMin candidate in Transformational Leadership for Ministry in the Global City. Eric is co-author of The Externally Focused Church (Group Publishing, 2004).

In a recent article in Leadership Network, Eric writes of eight trends that he believes will shape the future of missions. He writes in detail about these in the article, so in this post I'll list the trends with only a small note about each.

The eight trends are:
mutuality - East and West sharing the gospel with each other - no longer a one-way street.
partnering - beginning with what indigenous leaders already have
investing in leaders - using the passion of local leaders
combining good deeds and good news - not a new concept, but heightened
greater financial accountability - not just relying on money from churches otherwise uninvolved
business as mission - entrepreneurial people starting businesses in mission countries
focus
technology - these last two speak for themselves

You may not agree with everything Swanson says, nor how he says it, but these points remain worth considering.

Have IPhone, can Worship

Going to the movies, or a concert - or to church? Turn off your cellphone.

However, a growing number of iPhone owners are now using the device to "go" to church. Several churches have begun streaming services over the iPhone, and one of the first to do so is Northland, A Church Distributed, (yup, that's what they're called), which launched an iPhone Web app early in July this year. They offer not only videos of past church services, but also live streaming: the means to be "at" the service even though you're not physically there.

Northland has been innovative in this regard since 2001; hence the “distributed sites.” After opening four separate sites in Orlando, it began webcasting its services in 2006 , and in 2008 began an inteactive version of its webstream with access to an online pastor and the ability to chat with other worshipers.

I had a look at their website: at first it looks a bit underdone, but in fact, as you check it out, it proves to be more than adequate for the task.

While we hum and hah about whether virtual church is real church, there are people out there getting on and doing it. You can find out how they go about doing things technological on one of their blogs.

What does it all mean?

If you think we post too much about the Internet, Facebook, Twittering and the like on here, then check out this video. It asks at the end, What Does it All Mean?, but unhelpfully doesn't give an answer - of any sort.

It's primarily a batch of stats about the pace of life, the advancement of technology, the way in which the world has changed. The information is varied, and covers things like how many babies were born while the nearly five minutes of video plays through; about the fact that people growing up now are being prepared for jobs that don't even exist yet; that so much technological change happens every year that technology students can never keep up; that the amount of information engendered every day is more than happened over the last 5,000 years...and so on. You get the drift.

Not knowing what it means, or even knowing, it's still an interesting video (!)

Face to Face

We spend a lot of time on here talking about new technology and how we can use it as God's people, but it's still good to be reminded of the need for face-to-face communication....

A video chat will never suffice as a substitute for sitting down around a table together. There is something about being in the presence of a human being -- with the potential for physical embrace, the communication of eyes and expressions beyond words -- that serves to help us remember the significance of the incarnation. Thank God Jesus didn't just "phone it in" when it came to the ultimate symbol of self-sacrifice -- that would have been the poorer story, to be sure.

Kirstin Vander Giessen-Reitsma
"Actualizing the virtual"

Flickering Pixels gets a review

We've written about Shane Hipps more than once on this blog, so I was interested to hear what his new book, Flickering Pixels: how technology shapes your faith, was like. The reviews on Amazon.com seemed pretty positive, and then, in my email box this morning, the latest Next-Wave Ezine arrived - with a review of the book by John La Grou. I hadn't even realised La Grou was a Christian when I wrote about him on one of my other blogs a day or so ago, so it was interesting to see his bio at the bottom of the review:

A husband, father, and lifelong technology enthusiast, John built crystal radios at 7 years old and by the end of high school had created most of the electronics for a professional audio recording studio. In his 20’s he helped start what is today the world’s third largest computer company. His Silicon Valley offices added virtual networking in 1986 and never looked back. John and his bride Cynthia also helped establish the first Silicon Valley Vineyard community and are currently developing Compathos, a non-profit, on-line philanthropic resource. John co-edited volume one the award-winning Wikiklesia Project and gave a 2009 TEDTalk on a new life-saving technology developed by one of the companies he co-founded. John also chairs a software consortium whose licensed algorithms are used on over 100 million audio CDs produced each year, while his audio hardware is found throughout the world in leading recording studios and concert halls. He currently serves on college and university technical advisory boards and is a student of life, energy, and sustainability (JL at JPS dot NET, Twitter @johnlagrou).

After all that, you'd expect him to know something about technology. And of course he does, which makes him an apt person to review Hipps' book. Regrettably, he finds the book wanting in many ways. "As a thoughtful work of practical theology, Flickering Pixels is a treasure and worth the price of admission alone. But where Pixels shines in a generous spirituality, I believe it suffers in objectivity and balance towards technology. ....does the author have sufficient technology experience to make an authoritative analysis? More importantly, does Pixels offer a balanced analysis of the way technology can negatively and positively shape faith and spiritual community? On both counts, I feel that Pixels misses its target. "

He goes on to quote a number of examples of Hipps' 'grand conclusions' on technology, which are offered without qualification: “Our digital diet sedates the left brain, leaving it in a state of hypnotic stupor”or “The technology of writing, regardless of context, weakens and destroys tribal bonds and profoundly amplifies the value of the individual” to mention only two.

After this review, I don't think I'll be putting Flickering Pixels on the top of my reading list. Which is a pity; it could have been great.

Twittering during the sermon

Some churches in the States have decided to allow people to Twitter during the service. Westwinds Community Church in Jackson, Michigan, for example, flashes worshipper's Tweets on large video screens.

Distracting? You bet!

However, this is a church that already twitters people with information about service times, sermon titles (The Top 5 Things We’ve Done That Made People Mad but Were Worth It, for instance), church notices and congratulations on people's baptisms. So twittering is part of their modus operandi.

But then there a church that's well and truly into the techno age: a look at their homepage shows podcasts listed, video streaming, blogs (there are at least five, and here's a post on the twittering 'issue'), and various other Internet-based areas on prayer, discipleship and so on (which I spent far too much time playing around with).

Here's a comment from the blog I linked to above: For Westwinds, the use of Twitter, among many other things, are [sic] appropriate for us but may not be for everyone. It is our culture. It is expected we will try different things. Some will fail. Some become part of us.

I'm happy I found out about Westwinds....they look as though they're trying out all sorts of possibilities in the technological area, and doing well with most of them. And here's another blog post from another one of their staff with no less than 25 points on the Twittering issue.

Technology and the Generation Gap

"Technology is fast becoming the latest driving force behind what is often called the 'generation gap,'" reports The Barna Group in its latest update. "Technology is shaping different experiences and expectations among generations."

My comment: I think when Barna talks about generations here, he isn't meaning parents and children, but successive groups of young people who may not be far apart in age. (My comments continue in italics below.)

While all generations benefit from the advances in technology, Barna found that "each successive generation is adopting and using technology at a significantly greater pace than their predecessors." The reliance on digital tools is exponentially greater among those under age 25. Another characteristic of the younger generations is what Barna calls "gadget lust" — 22 percent say they consider owning the latest technology to be a very high priority in life, compared to 9 percent of those over the age of 25.

Amongst the conclusions the researchers made are:

• Every age segment is becoming dependent on the Internet. (And that presumably includes seniors - over 60s)
  
• The nation's youngest adults (called Mosaics) are light-years ahead in their personal integration of these technologies. Supposedly the Barna group coined the term Mosaics; I'm not sure that it's used widely outside their perspective.
  
• All Americans (we could replace 'Americans' with 'New Zealanders') are increasingly dependent on new digital technologies to acquire entertainment, products, content, information and stimulation. All might be rather overstating the case; there are presumably a lot of people who don't have access to all technology.
  
• Churches have to work hard to keep pace with the way people access and use content, while also instructing churchgoers on the potency of electronic tools and techniques. Only a minority of churchgoing Mosaics and Busters are accessing their congregation's podcasts and Web sites. The reasons for this will be many and various: check out Lynne Baab's book, Reaching Out in a Networked World for more on this subject.
  
• Many of the same age-old questions about human development and human flourishing are taking on a new dimension. How does technology help or hinder communication and relationships between generations? How does it impact social skills, reading skills, writing skills, etc.? How will it affect tomorrow's workforce? [Barna] - And we might ask, how will affect the way people preach, or don't preach, in the future?

Thanks to the Pastors' Weekly Briefing for the original material.

Voices of the Virtual World

Voices of the Virtual World: Participative Technology and the Ecclesial Revolution, edited by Len Hjalmarson and John La Grou.

"Uttered like a prayer retrieved from the year 2030, spoken in a new tongue, a new form. Listen!" - Kevin Kelly, Co-Founder / Executive Editor WIRED Magazine.

VOICES explores the growing influence of technology on the global Christian church. We hear from more than forty influential voices, including technologists and theologians, entrepreneurs and pastors... from a progressive Episcopalian techno-monk to a leading Mennonite professor... from a tech-savvy mobile missionary to a corporate anthropologist whom Worth Magazine calls "one of Wall Street's 25 Smartest Players." Voices is a far reaching exploration of spiritual journey within a culture of increasingly immersive technology.

This book was originally released in an e-format, which meant that all the links in the book could be accessed directly. The paperback version has shifted all these links to End Notes. The e-format is still available (click on link above).

You can see the list of contents and authors here (click on the button on the right to see the second page). Not many of these people are known to me, but that may only mean I'm in the wrong circles (!)

Two recent books on the Future

New Zealand Unleashed: the country, its future and the people who will get it there, by Steve Garden. Looks at the changes, looks at our history and particularly at our ability to innovate – both from a Maori and a Pakeha perspective. Sees creativity as a vital force in taking us forward. Published 2007 Random House.

Futurehype, the myths of technology change, by Bob Seidensticker. Spends a lot of time telling us how the future can’t be predicted, and how previous predictions have often been wrong. Message seems to be to not to take everything as gospel in terms of hype and media promotion. Published Berrett-Koehler, 2006