- Cyberchurch is People, not Institutions.
- Cyberchurch is not a Department Store for Consumers.
- Cyberchurch is neither democratic nor non-hierarchical.
- Cyberchurch does not replace the physical and it does a poor job reproducing it.
What about online communication/community can be described as "church" (as opposed to, say, "religious writing" or a "faith-based network")? Is church defined by the act of worship, by common values or beliefs, by a commitment to service in Christ's name, something broader? or something narrower?
What can "cyberchurch" add or contribute to the tangible manifestation of the Church in the world? (For me the latter includes both the face-to-face interactions with people and particular physical/geographic space dedicated to the sacred.) Is it primarily a forum for discussion and sharing of resources, a way to communicate to members, a way to reach out to those who are not members? Or is there more?
Let me know what you think!
2 comments:
Hmmm... interesting article, although it seems like some of it is just tech-language for the sake of sounding cool. Are we a part of the cyberchurch by building and writing on our blogs? If that's true, what does it even mean?
Although maybe it's jumping the gun to expect immediate results. We're planting the oak grove, I guess. That was a pretty cool metaphor.
It does make sense to say that Christians are 'being Church' whenever they meet together in the name of Jesus. And you could say that reading and writing blogs is a kind of church activity - building community, tackling social issues, discussing theology and spirituality, sharing prayers, whatever. But if you call all this 'cyberchurch', what do you call the actual self-described churches that are springing up online, where groups of people are calling themselves church? St Pixels, Living Sounds in Second Life, i-church.org, that kind of thing.
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