Neil Cole writes ::
We must transition from seeing church as a once-a-week worship event to an ongoing spiritual family on mission together. Then people will see church as something worth giving your life for. Honestly, people need one another more then they need another inspiring message. You would be surprised what people will do for Jesus, or for a brother or sister, that they will not do for a vision statement and a capital giving campaign.
(HT @emergentvillage)
Here’s one of those great articles I wish I had written. From @jontangerine… (HT to @stealingsand)
It reminds me is that human beings are still tribal. As an example, if you check your own address book, or think about your family and friends, they probably number no more than two hundred people. We may have more in the book, but it’s rare for our intimates to be greater than two hundred people. Our networks are geographically dispersed these days. Even if your network is mostly in one location, people are so busy living that it can be difficult to stay in touch. Twitter is a facsimile of living and working in proximity for me, and provides something unique, too
Jon touches on a few things he’d like to see on twitter. I’d ditto those as well and add that I’d like to see easy ways to track physical locations as well. There are other social networks that will track your location. BrightKite will even alert you when other users or friends are in your area. A very cool feature indeed. But there’s not a good BrightKite app for Blackberry yet, so that’s a bit of a bummer for me and will probably keep me from switching anytime soon.
I also find this line from Jon’s article interesting, “but it’s rare for our intimates to be greater than two hundred people.”
I think that’s true in so many arenas of life. I only follow 66 people on twitter (and leave the SMS/txt message updates off for all but maybe 5 people) and while I have over 300 “friends” on facebook I really only keep up with/track half of them (if that). But of course it is nice when something catches my eye from those other 150ers and I can get updates on them as well.
I also see the 200 people limit playing out in churches/workplaces and more. It’s really hard to get to know more than 200 people or so in any regular setting. Even if there are 15,000 people in a room, do you really know more than 200 of them? Can you know more than 200 and build real relationships with them?
I think that’s what I love about online communities like Twitter. I know 10xs more about folks like @Jess_Hays and @sgalloway since they joined Twitter than I ever learned about them just seeing them for a couple hours on Sunday morning. The same goes for folks who constantly fill out surveys on Myspace. I learned tons of things about folks in my tribe thanks to them taking some time to be intentionally open.
What about you? What makes Twitter beautiful for you? Do you agree that it’s rare to have intimate relationships with more than 200 people? Do you think that number is much higher or less?
I spoke to my tribe yesterday and encouraged them to think about new ways to express & understand Christian community. (You can listen to the message online via the encounter website.)
Got one comment about me turning into Karl Marx – but I think it was in jest and if that’s the worst they can say… it was a good day ;-).
As I think more and more about my tribe, and Christian community other thoughts are crossing my mind.
I keep asking myself this same question, “So what does this tribe, this community, this oneness look like?” As I mentioned yesterday, “I’m not entirely sure — especially in modern America.”
But I do know this ::
Jesus told his disciples, “By this all men will know you are my disciple — if you love one another.” — John 13:34 & 35.
Seems that Christian brotherhood and sisterhood and community and unity were very big on Jesus’ plan/plate.
In the Hebrew Scriptures we read about the “tribes of Israel.”� The 12 tribes whom God called upon to be different in their culture. To be set apart. To be unique.
He calls them to accept the foreigner into their homes.
He calls them to ignore the idol worship of their neighbors.
He calls them to put their trust in Yahweh rather than in a king, or a Pharaoh or a President.
He calls them to honor the Sabbath — a day you set aside all your business of the 24/7 consumerism and focus on God — the creator of it all.
And so the Hebrews get very accustomed to this calling of being “separate” from the world (not that anyone’s ever really figured that out).
And then Jesus shows up on the earth and starts telling everyone that he was forming a new tribe.
A tribe where the Hebrews would join together with the Gentiles. No wonder they got upset and had him killed. That in and of itself could be considered blasphemy.
A tribe for all who were baptized into Christ and have clothed themselves with Christ.
Where there is neither Jew nor Gentile, Republican or Democrat, conservative or liberal, neither slave nor free, neither male nor female, for we are all one in Christ Jesus.
It’s a radical idea and I believe it calls for radical changes in our thinking and behavior.
When the tribe succeeds – everyone succeeds!
related ::
encounter
SSL :: the rule of life
SSL :: duncan mcfadzean talks about micro-financing