Tag: faith

Social media’s impact and the Church

Saw this video over on Jonathan Brink’s site…

Social media continues to have a HUGE impact on the world around us — but I’m not sure it’s having the same impact on the Church. It seems that most people are still reluctant to share their online lives with their church body. There may be some folks within our faith communities with whom we’ll share things with — but overall I haven’t seen folks sharing their lives with everyone within the community.

In other words, folks may be willing to share their thoughts, pictures etc with me (which is great) but they don’t seem willing to do the same with pages that are more public and available to the community as a whole.

I wonder if our community is simply asking the wrong questions, not educating our peeps, or if people are just scared to share their lives and experiences with their church community in general.

When folks are open and sharing — I’ve seen relationships improve and grow tremendously. But when we remain behind walls (online or offline) its hard to imagine any relationship growing as it should.

No matter what, I don’t think any community should be solely dependent upon online sharing. The online must go offline as well. But I think the online world can truly expand and improve the offline.

But what are you seeing? Are you seeing your faith community really growing online? Are your peeps taking part in Twitter, Facebook pages, Flickr etc.?

Share some insight.

Cymbrogi

cymbrogi

A good friend turned me on to this word yesterday during our short phone call – cymbrogi.

A Celtic term used (pronounced koom-bro-gee) that’s been translated along the lines of “fellow countrymen,” “band of warriors,” and “companions of the heart.”

I love the term and the idea that we as a Church, and smaller communities of faith, should be Cymbrogi.

While searching for more information, I found one group online that uses the term in context of “sword brothers”.
Continue reading Cymbrogi

Ubuntu community of faith

I think Ubuntu would be a great name for a community of faith:

A community with Ubuntu is open and available to others, affirming of others, does not feel threatened that others are able and good, for he or she has a proper self-assurance that comes from knowing that he or she belongs in a greater whole and is diminished when others are humiliated or diminished, when others are tortured or oppressed.

HT the corner

Obama creates Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnership Council

“Instead of driving us apart, our very beliefs can bring us together,” President Obama said yesterday at the National Prayer Breakfast.

E pluribus unum, in other words.

From the Whitehouse.gov blog ::

The President named Joshua DuBois to lead the office, and also announced the creation of the President’s Advisory Council on Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships — a group of 25 religious and secular leaders.

“Whether it’s connecting groups that are training people to do new jobs, or figuring out the role of faith-based organizations in combating global climate change, this office creates those partnerships in a way that’s responsible, constitutional, and — bottom line — helps those in need,” DuBois said.

It will be interesting to see what comes from this council.

Transforming Theology

Tripp Fuller, Tony Jones and a whole list of of other folks are taking off on a pretty interesting journey.

I’m playing catchup after a week off but as I’ve briefly gathered, there will be a conference in mid-March as well as several others throughout the year.

Briefly, “The mission of the Transforming Theology network is to tighten the bonds between theology and transformative action in the church and the world.”

Transforming Theology Mission ::

Our goal is an ambitious one: to create the intellectual framework for a progressive religious vision. By forming a broad alliance between the leading scholars and organizations in Christian religion today, we aim at nothing less than to “reclaim the progressive voice.” There are movements on the ground, active in various denominations and schools. Up to this point, however, what has been missing is a uniting intellectual and theoretical vision, comparable to what has emerged from the conservatives…

Beliefs orient communities; they create a sense of common cause; and frequently they motivate persons to sacrificial action. Motivating beliefs of this sort go by many names. They have been called ethical principles, rationales for action, ideologies, and worldviews. In the three Abrahamic traditions they are called “theologies”: beliefs about the world and the religious ultimate that suggest how one should live in the world. In order to guarantee that our project remains pluralistic and non-partisan, we will speak only of “theological models.” We claim that the loss of theological reflection represents a major crisis for the identity of religious communities and for their effectiveness as agents of social change, and we believe that concrete steps can be taken to reintroduce transformative reflection that leads to transformative action. We focus on Christianity, not because it is “truer” than other traditions, but because it is the tradition we know best and on which we can have the greatest influence. Thus our title: “Rekindling Theological Reflection: Transformative Thought for Progressive Action.”

The goal is not to talk about beliefs for belief’s sake. Yet religious beliefs will undeniably play a crucial role if progressive religion is again to impact the world on behalf of social change. The goal is not theory for theory’s sake. But some theoretical framing is required if progressive forces are to have the vision and the sustained commitment to move forward. In the past, progressive religion in America was able to move fluidly from theological models to transformative action, and from praxis in the world to new and richer theological models. We believe it is time to rekindle the organic interplay of religious thought and action. Renewing the justification for action will have general impact on local congregations, denominations, and a variety of progressive networks focusing on social change.

There’s a number of videos and blog posts over on the site and they’re also looking for your input.

In fact, Tripp and Tony are looking for your most pressing ‘God’ question to ask the gathered theologians in March. You can submit them via the comments section on the blog, email, youtube, etc.

And they’re even awarding the most active participants, including a travel stipend to be a special corespondent at a conference in September 09.

So, what is your most pressing ‘God question?’ Share it here and over at Transformingtheology.org.

United as ONE

Last week Peter Rollins wrote (in the spirit of the Apostle Paul)::

You are all children of God through faith in Christ Jesus, for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither high church nor low church, Fox nor CNN, citizen not alien, capitalist nor communist, gay nor straight, beautiful nor ugly, East nor West, theist nor atheist, Israel nor Palestine, hawk nor dove, American nor Iraqi, married nor divorced, uptown nor downtown, terrorist nor freedom fighter, paedophile nor loving parent, priest nor prophet, fame nor obscurity, Christian nor non-Christian, for all are made one in Christ Jesus. (ht: Existentialpunk)

Today, Thomas shared thoughts on Unity vs Uniformity in our tribes and communities of faith.

I believe wholeheartedly in the “ones” in this passage (Eph 4:1-16):

  • one body
  • one Spirit
  • one hope
  • one Lord
  • one faith
  • one baptism
  • one God and Father of all… who is over all and through all and in all.

This is unity… but this doesn’t demand uniformity. The very passage speaks of having different giftings… we are gifted with different things so that we can make a stronger WHOLE than the SUM OF OUR PARTS.

We are all different. We all have different experiences… different baggage… different tastes and preferences and worldviews. This diversity makes the collective whole stronger.

He continued, saying that our communities of faith should not be melting pots where everything is thrown out and the end result is goop, but instead we should be salads — where everything is put together to add value and unique flavor and nutrition.

A carrot by itself is OK but add it with spinach or lettuce and tomatoes and you get a tasty salad. Throw in a few nuts (like most of our communities of faith have :-)) and you have WOW! All the flavors blend together as one.

Perhaps this is why Jesus prayed for the generations of Christ followers that would come after him ::

I’m praying not only for them
But also for those who will believe in me
Because of them and their witness about me.
The goal is for all of them to become one heart and mind—
Just as you, Father, are in me and I in you,
So they might be one heart and mind with us.
Then the world might believe that you, in fact, sent me.
The same glory you gave me, I gave them,
So they’ll be as unified and together as we are—
I in them and you in me.
Then they’ll be mature in this oneness,
And give the godless world evidence
That you’ve sent me and loved them
In the same way you’ve loved me. – John 17:20-23

I hope that in all my communities of faith I offer spaces of grace. Where the labels are shed at the door and a space is created where everyone is equal, regardless of where they are in their walk, regardless of what bounded set they find themselves in, regardless how far they are from the center point as long as we’re all helping draw one another to the True Center Point.