Digital transformation of mission

Tony Whittaker, the Coordinator of the online magazine, Internet Evangelism Day has written an Open Letter to Mission Agency Leaders.   He begins in this way:

Digital communication is transforming our world in ways that we are only beginning to discern. There are now over 3 billion mobile phone owners and 2 billion web users, and the majority are outside the West. Facebook has 500 million users in nearly 100 languages, making it (in terms of ‘population’) the third largest ‘country’ in the world.

This new ‘digital communication culture’ is superseding the West’s ‘print communication culture’. And remarkably, it has much more in common with the ‘oral communication cultures’ that many of us are so familiar with. Its strengths include two-way interaction and relationship building, visual storying rather than left-brain abstract analytic thinking, and the ability to offer information and help anonymously. 

Tony goes on to discuss ways in which Mission Organisations are still needing to catch up with the digital revolution.   There's something of a mindset that the digital age is only affecting the West.   This may (in part) be the case with the Internet, but in terms of mobile phones, the revolution is huge, enormous, increasingly global.  

Read the rest of his letter and see just how remarkable the potential is for far-reaching changes in global mission.  

Reggie McNeal interview.

Reggie McNeal's book, Missional Renaissance, has been out for some time, but it's still gaining attention in various quarters.   Harold Fickett notes at the beginning of an interview with McNeal that he calls for a "new alignment of evangelical Protestantism with Christ's mission to restore creation. McNeal writes about how local churches should reorient toward having an impact on society. He praises the recent phenomenon of "missional communities"—small groups with a dedicated purpose—springing up to address particular social ills. He claims that what's happening today in the church may change the institution as much as the Reformation."

You can read the whole of the interview here; it appeared online in 'High Calling.'   The interview is valuable in giving an overview of McNeal's thinking about mission, and also an overview of the book.

[Harold Fickett writes full-time. He is the author of The Living Christ, Dancing With the Divine, and a forthcoming biography of Albert Schweitzer. He is also a contributing editor of www.godspy.com, where he contributes columns on world Christianity and spirituality. Harold lives in Nacogdoches where, as a latter-day facsimile of a Southern gentleman, he takes care of his mother, his children, and a dog named Roxie and a cat name Gracie. (His wife, Karen, actually takes care of everybody but allows her husband his illusions.) Harold is a member of the Chrysostom Society.]

If you don't listen, you can't hear and if you can't hear, you cannot know.

In a kind of serendipitous morning, three posts arrived from various blogs I keep in touch with that all seemed to link together.   Maybe it's not so serendipitous given that all the writers are mission-minded in one way or another....


David Fitch wrote 
Neo-Reformed Theology is built on the same logic as evangelical theology. In fact this is also the same logic as the protestant mainline theology and for that matter the Emergent theologies. They all rely on the cultural foundations of the West and in particular the Enlightenment. And, for me, this means all of these movements will eventually fail to engage the new and changing cultures of Post-Christendom in the West for the gospel, they will fail at resisting the consumerist forces of modern American society, they will fail at transformational engagement (eventually). They will all end up repeating the fate of evangelicalism – i.e. being successful at harvesting those who are already in some way culturally inclined towards Christianity but not capable of inhabiting the new post Christendom cultures of the West for the gospel. This is why we need a third way!!

Len Hjalmarson began his post in this way:
In The Secret Message of Jesus (2006), McLaren devotes an entire chapter to contextualizing the concepts of the kingdom of God for the current generation.
Len's shorter post mostly offers a variety of ways of rethinking the way we view the kingdom, and by connection, God's mission. 

Paul Fromont, on Prodigal Kiwi(s) quotes another writer - Barry Taylor - who doesn't at first seem to be writing about mission...but is - note what he says about listening....

“…On the final day [of a two-week intensive class on Theology and Popular Music] I attempted to sketch out something of a beginning posture for the initiation of a conversation between these two elements. Posture, being the operative word, because for me, any act of theology requires a posture, an attitude, from which it springs, and for me, this is first and foremost, listening - to the other - if you don't listen, you can't hear and if you can't hear, you cannot know. All too often, in my experience, people begin with a pre-formed schema, which is then imposed over whatever it might be, and then, what fits is accepted and the bits around the edges are cut-off--negated etc. A bit of a broad dismissal of the theological enterprise I know, but I use that analogy simply to say that my approach is a bit different--I am interested in the surprising intersections that arise because of the rupture and disconnect as well as the congruity and synchronicity between various elements…”

 ...if you don't listen, you can't hear and if you can't hear, you cannot know. 

Secret Churchgoers

Earlier this year I read the book, I Sold My Soul on eBay by Hemant Mehta.   It's an interesting insight into how an atheist (a 'friendly' one) viewed Christian church services and what suggestions he had to make about them as far as making them inviting to outsiders, strangers, visitors.

The person who 'bought' Mehta is Jim Henderson, a pastor who'd long since felt that the way most Christians are taught to evangelise is more off-putting than encouraging.  There a recent article on USA Today about Henderson, who has continued to explore news ways of being Jesus-friendly to those who aren't Christians.   Some of his approaches are mentioned in the article but one that I want to mention in particular is his Church Rater website.

On the home page of the site at the moment is a video conversation between Henderson and Matt Caspar which briefly discusses the issues Henderson is concerned with.   Caspar is not a Christian, but he and Henderson did a road trip some time back, producing the book Jim and Casper Go to Church.  Caspar is also Henderson's partner in the ChurchRater.com venture, and says his engaging with Christians is motivated by his desire to get them to question their certitude, and to see that atheists don't have tails and horns.

The Church Rater site does exactly what it says: allows people to anonymously assess a particular church's service.   These reviews are then put up on the site.  At present there are almost a thousand of them.    The site also has an 'endorsements' section where there are links to various comments about the site's modus operandi.   Some are not complimentary, as you'd expect. 

Digital Rivers Newtown - a short story

The Internet Evangelism Day website has given permission for the following 'short story' to be republished.

It’s not often that a completely new town is built on unused open land. But that’s where Digital Rivers Newtown was constructed, in a previously undiscovered valley. People soon came flooding in to live, moving from surrounding settlements such as Printville and TVtown.

A new ethos of communication quickly developed, with its own dialect. The immigrants took a little time to learn it, but for their children born in Digital Rivers, it was as natural as breathing.

Alongside the new housing came shops. Quite soon, the Broogle store developed into the biggest and most popular on main street. Its biggest competitor, the BingHoo mall, had a smaller share of the market.

Broogle had little interest in selling food and drink, and allocated no space in their building to such a frivolous pursuit. So everyone was pleased when a student started selling coffee and fruit drinks from a coffee cart on the other side of the road. Mike Zuckerbook’s Coffee became wildly popular and he was soon able to rent a new cafe opposite Broogle’s. His unique selling point was the layout of the tables, enabling customers to talk to a wide range of friends over their drinks. Mike was continually extending the cafe floor area to cater for the growth.

Then came developments that shocked Broogle’s owners. Mike started to sell some of the same products that they did, as well as others they had never thought of. No longer did residents merely drop in to Zuckerbook’s for a quick coffee after shopping at Broogle’s. People could often be seen walking down the street towards Broogle’s, notice their friends popping into Zuckerbook’s – or smell the coffee – and quickly cross the road. After an hour or so, they might emerge from Zuckerbook’s and perhaps cross over into Broogle’s for five minutes, if at all.

Digital Rivers was changing fast. Its residents were finding their own new incarnation of the interactive grapevine that has existed within communities for millennia.

This story, of course, references Google and Facebook (Google’s founders were Brin and Page; Mark Zuckerberg started Facebook). The phenomenal rise and rise of Facebook seems set to continue. Perhaps half of all web users will have Facebook profiles within a year, certainly the figure is already near 100% for younger ‘digital’ people.

Increasingly, Facebook is becoming a ‘web within the Web’ – a one-stop resource creating less need to go into the wider web world so frequently. (This is a reflection, in some ways, of the proprietary content that AOL and Compuserve used to offer to their subscribers in the early days of the Web.)

Recent developments by Facebook are enabling more types of third-party content to be integrated into Facebook profiles and fan pages. Expect to see further dramatic developments in this area, making Facebook even more of a one-stop universal resource. The opportunities for FB fan, community pages and groups will continue to expand.

Despite its various quirks, Facebook is now a powerful yet easy opportunity for any web user to share faith online: read how.

Evangelism

I don't think I've mentioned Seth Godin's ebook, What Matters Now, on this blog (although I have on another I write). The book is laid out in single page 'essays', some detailed and some succinct, and they come from a wide variety of authors. I was taken with this one, which is entitled 'Evangelism' because it almost entirely shows how evangelism should be done.

It comes from Guy Kawasaki and since the book is free, I'm sure they won't mind a bit more promotion by my quoting this section in full. (I haven't yet quite thought how 'downloading' the product applies to Christianity, but I bet there's an application somewhere.)

The future belongs to people who can spread ideas.
Here are ten things to remember:

1. Create a cause. A cause seizes the moral high ground and makes people’s lives better.
2. Love the cause. “Evangelist” isn’t a job title. It’s a way of life. If you don’t love a cause, you can’t evangelize it.
3. Look for agnostics, ignore atheists. It’s too hard to convert people who deny your cause. Look for people who are supportive or neutral instead.
4. Localize the pain. Never describe your cause by using bull shiitake terms like “revolutionary” and “paradigm shifting.” Instead, explain how it helps a person.
5. Let people test drive the cause. Let people try your cause, take it home, download it, and then decide if it’s right for them.
6. Learn to give a demo. A person simply cannot evangelize a product if she cannot demo it.
7. Provide a safe first step. Don’t put up any big hurdles in the beginning of the process. The path to adopting a cause needs a slippery slope.
8. Ignore pedigrees. Don’t focus on the people with big titles and big reputations. Help anyone who can help you.
9. Never tell a lie. Credibility is everything for an evangelist. Tell the truth—even if it hurts. Actually, especially if it hurts.
10. Remember your friends. Be nice to the people on the way up because you might see them again on the way down.

Guy Kawasaki

Leaving the Four Spiritual Laws behind...

David Fitch is writing a series of posts entitled 'When They Will Not Come' and in the latest he notes two vital points. The first is this:

In our evangelism-thinking, let’s move from “bridge” to “onramp.” If there is one overriding conclusion for me in all this, it is that missional church leaders must move from
a.) Training people to offer non-Christians a “bridge” to salvation, that is susceptible to making salvation into a transaction, to
b.) Training people to become themselves “onramps” who through their lives offer nonChristian an avenue (themselves) through which people can enter the work God is doing in Christ reconciling the world to Himself (2 Cor 5:19). This concept of moving from a “bridge” to an “onramp” is key for me.

His second point is let’s move from justification before God “by Christ” to living life “in Christ,”
and requires rather more room for him to explain than I have here. Well worth reading.

Maybe it IS true...

Peter Scheele presents an idea of the possibility of God in this rather quirky video about the round/square/triangle. The sound quality is a bit weak at the beginning, but once he stands up and starts talking (almost literally) in your face, things improve. Worth watching for the way in which a simple idea can open up the imagination to something much bigger than we can grasp.



And here's a comment from Ron Hutchcraft in relation to the idea that the "Millennial Generation" has fallen through the cracks. "They're an unreached generation; they might be the most-unreached generation in history, but because of the internet, they're the most reachable generation in history."

The other 3 billion

I've only just caught up on this story, so excuse it being a little 'old.'

The 'other 3 billion' is a phrase used to describe the 3 billion people on the planet who don't have ready access to the Internet. O3b Networks is based in the Channel Islands and has a project well under way to provide 16 satellites that will drop the cost for ISPs and operators to provide Internet access over 3G (third-generation) and WiMax networks to people in countries like Africa, Latin America, the Middle East and Asia.

Partnered with HSBC (a worldwide banking corporation), Google, and Liberty Global, a private equity provider that provides phone and Internet access in 15 countries, this project will use medium range satellites, which can recieve and send signals at around 120 milliseconds, which is close to that of a fibre network. While fibre networks were already available in developed countries, the laying of them is not economically feasible elsewhere.

Why is this of interest to the Church? Because the Internet is one of the most extraordinary gifts humankind have received in the last century. It enables evangelism, outreach and ministry on a scale undreamt of, and achieves these in a myriad of ways. Certainly, like any other system, it has a dark side, but this isn't a reason to ignore it.

One liners

If you have a need for short, pithy sayings that are clever enough not to make non-Christians (and Christians, if it comes to that) go Duh!, then check out Australian writer Grantley Morris’ collection of one-liners. The Digital Evangelism Issues site says ‘They avoid the pitfalls of being trite, slushy or religious.’ I wouldn’t agree with that entirely, but there’s a big enough range of them for anyone to find the right statement for their church or website. You can find them here.

Incidentally, Tony O'Hagan says: putting up an easy-to-remember website URL on the church sign board is an under-utilised evangelistic strategy. You are very limited in what you can communicate via the church sign - but as an introduction to the website it can become a key that unlocks a universe! Better still … there’s an very obvious local place to get spiritual follow-up if the website should bear fruit.

Being tangible

The Tangible Kingdom is a new(ish) resource from a site called !! The Tangible Kingdom. There's a book which has received quite a few kudos, and you can see a 'remix' version of it here.
I personally didn't find that particularly helpful maybe because I didn't look at it carefully enough, but there's also a video:



The video is slow and quiet, and takes a minute or so to begin to make its point, but it does make its point - by using one neat symbol.

Thinking outside the Web

We often think that the Internet is pretty much a Western/Asian system, but in fact there are huge opportunities for digital ministry in the non-western world. 1.5 billion people now use the Web, and 4 billion own a mobile phone, the majority of them outside the West (apparently there are more mobile phone users in Africa than in the US). And with mobile phones becoming increasingly an adjunct of the Net, the potential is enormous.
A relatively new blog called Digital Evangelism Issues (DEI, for short - get it?) has appeared on the scene, with its emphasis being on exactly what the name implies. It's run by a group whose focus is Internet Evangelism Day (IED, for those who missed the mirror image) and their site focuses on encouraging people to use the Internet for evangelism. It helpfully supplies an abundance of material.

I noted on another blog a couple of days ago that there's an increasing assumption that everyone has access to the Net - businesses offer specials online, cheap air fares only appear in many cases online, online banking is being regarded by many banks as the 'norm,' and so on. However, in a Passing Notes opinion piece in the Otago Daily Times last Saturday, it was pointed out that many people in the Saga Generation (those over 55 - my description, not his) don't regularly have access to the Net, and to a degree are becoming cut off from the Internet-based trend. We need to avoid assuming that everyone is Wired.

Less is more

Aim lower
Think smaller
Give up
Go have a cup of coffee.

Do these statements strike you as the best approaches to evanglising those who haven't heard of Christ? In the smart little video below, you'll find that each of these statements makes sense...in context.



I can't tell you who made the video, or where it comes from, but it's certainly an effective piece of work. It's also found under a different title: The World Congress on how not to mess up the Great Commission too much.

What if Starbucks ran its business like the church?

This can only be described as scary....because it's too close to the truth.



By the time you get to the end of this, you'll either be screaming (because of the overdose of coffee slogans) or because you wonder where Jesus might have gone on this particular morning...?

Afraid of the Holy Spirit?

Mark Driscoll (looking slightly worn out in the photo) spoke to a bunch of Anglicans in Australia recently. He listed 18 obstacles to evangelism in Australia - as he saw it. One of them stood out to me:

8. Many of you are afraid of the Holy Spirit. You don't know what to do with Him, so the trinity is Father, Son and Holy Bible. You are so reactionary to pentecostalism that you do not have a robust theology of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit calls people into ministry. He also empowers people for ministry. You don't have to be charismatic but you should be a little charismatic, enough at least to worship God with more than just all of your mind. The word charismatic here means prosperity, excessive, bizarre. In London, it means you're not a liberal. Don't get hung up on all the terminology. Do you love the Holy Spirit? Jesus says the Holy Spirit is a ‘He' and not an ‘it'." Ministry cannot be done apart from the Holy Spirit - I think that is in part leading to the lack of entrepreneurialism and innovation, because if it's not already done and written down, you're suspicious of it.

I don't think the Aussie Anglicans are alone in being afraid of the Spirit. Even Pentecostal churches in NZ don't seem to have quite the life they had back in the 70s and 80s, when there seemed to be a real Holy Spirit move.

Is Christianity in NZ changing?

New Zealand blogger, A J Chesswas, has an interesting blog called Put up thy Sword! which I sometimes catch up on. While I was searching for something else today, I came across a fairly lengthy post on his site (it was written back in March) in which he discusses another blogger's post discussing The Changing Face of Christianity in New Zealand. (Unfortunately, the original blog is only accessible if you've got a Wordpress account.)

The post is divided into five sections:
Evangelism becomes a dirty word
Salvation takes on extra dimensions
End-time fever dies down
The extremes become more attractive
New lingo, same deal.

Chesswas looks at each of these areas in turn, asking whether they are just different of another person's growth in Christ, or whether they're actually changes in the way we view Christianity. Worth a look.

Evangelicals: a dying or changing breed?

An extract from an article by Christine Wicker, formerly a religion writer for The Dallas Morning News , and author of The Fall of the Evangelical Nation: The Surprising Crisis Inside the Church .
The article is entitled: American evangelicals, once considered monolithic, are fragmenting.

Evangelicals almost never convert a native-born American who wasn’t raised in a church. That most evangelical growth comes from stealing the sheep from other denominations. And that they’ve stolen about all they can.

They’re also admitting that most evangelicals won’t evangelize. And if they did, it wouldn’t get them anywhere because the usual methods don’t work. They don’t work first because they usually rest on the idea that Christians are the only ones saved. In today’s religiously equalitarian culture, that assertion causes evangelicals to seem distastefully holier-than-thou.

Conversion tactics also focus on telling people the Good News as though no one else knows it. But most everyone has heard it. Again and again. The trouble is that they aren’t convinced. They aren’t scared of hell. They aren’t hoping for heaven. And Christians haven’t been good at giving anyone better reasons than that for following Jesus.

Wicker makes a number of other important points; you may agree with them or not. For New Zealanders, the article is of value because it looks at a society that's not too dissimilar to our own.

Lost to UnLost

In Don Everts and Doug Schaupp's, I Once Was Lost, the authors identify "five thresholds" by which most young converts come to Christ. Using the parable of the growing seed in Mark 4:28–29 to frame the process, Everts and Schaupp outline five distinct "seasons":

• from distrust of Christians to trust;
  
• from spiritual complacency to curiosity;
  
• from being closed to Christianity to being open;
  
• from meandering to seeking;
  
• entrance over the "threshold of the kingdom.

Evert and Schaupp's book departs from a modern, rationalistic model for doing evangelism. It doesn't offer a manual. It is fresh, real, and based on the authors' direct experience. The label postmodern is held loosely, meant simply to describe "how things are right now," rather than to conform to a technical definition.

From a review entitled, The Five Steps of Getting Un-Lost, by Chap Clark.

Evangelism in the Small Membership Church

Written by Royal Speidel. 126pp Published Abingdon, US. $25.99 (Price at Epworth Books in Wellington)

Speidel stresses: passion for Christ, inspiring worship, loving relationships & quality programmes. This book will help pastors have “God eyes” for big possibilities in their churches by focusing on visualizing goals; worship; creating a loving environment; passion and commitment; prayer; witness; time management; leadership recruitment; hospitality; assimilation of new members; and managing change and conflict.