Some of you may remember that last month RHCC was going through a time of equipping for social media. It was nothing spectacular, we were just trying to make sure that all the minsters knew about the potential tools for ministry that were out there…and how to use them.
We showed this video there, and got a tremendous amount of feedback from it. So I wanted to show it here. Did any of these statistics surprise you? What does this change in your world if all this is true?
One of the genius’ of Web 2.0 is that it doesn’t create a false world (though it can be used to do that) but enhances the world you already live in. That is most of the time your Facebook friends, are your actual friends. Now, I’m not sure just where all of this is headed, but I do know this. The church cannot just bury her head in the sand.
Decades ago, Milton was a bishop in the United Brethren church. One day Milton heard a man say that one day soon men would learn how to fly like birds, and Milton went off. He vehemently disagreed, because, “God had reserved flight for the angels.”
Good thing his two boys didn’t listen. Because Orville and Wilbur Wright went on to disprove their father. And everytime you fly you are breaking a “theological rule” that never actually existed.
The world is changing at an unprecedented rate. And Historically the people of God don’t deal with change well. We either go into nostalgia for the “good old days” or ignore that change is happening at all. So here is the question that I think every church/non-profit/human with the internet has to answer: “What does this mean for us?”
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There is a lot there that could be disputed. Did you note that the stats came from one book? I know for a fact that one of those stats is at the very least questionable. Wikipedia is terribly, terribly inaccurate. You can say “studies have shown” just about anything.
Now, is social media an important tool, trend, lifestyle, whatever? Yes.
Is it the penultimate thing? Hardly. Didn’t Ecclesiastes have something to say about that?
Bro. Danny, you probably aren’t aware that 80% of statistics are made up on the spot. There were other stats I was questioning, but I’d never really thought that Wikipedia was inaccurate, over the course of time. I know that anybody can change things making it a wild card occasionally, but I’d heard that it was actually a really good reference. That could be wrong though…
Wikipedia has been show to have a real political bias. Don’t ever try to use Wikipedia as a source in a paper. You’ll get shot down. Perhaps I should have said that Wikipedia “can be” terribly inaccurate. There is a lot of accurate information there. It’s just that you cannot know it’s accurate.
I think it’s hilarious that this video about the impact of social media uses “Right Here, Right Now” as a soundtrack, when it was recorded in the last century! Maybe it should be “Somewhere, sometime.”
One of the things I think is very overblown is the comparison of social media to the industrial revolution. The industrial revolution (which is really just a handy way of lumping many societal and technological changes together) changed how people worked, produced goods in quantities and in quality that had never before been done, moved entire populations from farms to towns and cities, essentially created the middle class, etc., etc. Social media doesn’t stand a chance of having that kind of impact.
Jonathan,
I manage change for a large corporation and can say with certainty, “it” is always with us
Your article is interesting, especially in the context of your current series. In my experience, to “never follow/indorse change” demonstrates a lack of the ability to take risk, and to “always follow/indorse change” is a demonstration of ignorance. Likewise, you don’t want to blindly follow change, because you will often be humbled, nor do you want to refuse change out of fear and ignorance, because you will quickly lose credibility.
The real fun with change, however, is that sometimes you don’t know about a change. Be thankful for the change you are aware of in advance, in these we are afforded the luxury of pro-action. Change occurring in our unawareness, however, can elicit knee-jerk emotionally-laden and often unintentional reactions.
The key is seeing the change for what it is, something that is out of our control. [Unless we are discussing self-change, even then there is a question of control] The relationship between control and change is for the most part orthogonal. Sure, there is a change from time to time with which we have the illusion of control, and things go as expected, and we are none-the-wiser. These changes can be the scariest. Because where change and control diverge, illusions and assumptions unite. Danger is always in the assumptions.
This is why it’s important to give change its due diligence, whether before or after the fact. Care must be taken in determining what a change means and how it currently applies. We must always ask ourselves, “what are we assuming?” We must think clearly before we take action. Sometimes change requires swift action and sometimes it requires no action, but it never requires no acknowledgement.
So what must we do?
This is where I believe our communication venue with God is so important, since we are not afforded the magnificence of infinite wisdom, seeking his involvement is imperative. With respect to change, we need His wisdom, we need His control, and we need His intervention. We are all used to praying the “Dear Lord I can’t control this, please change it” prayer, but how often do we pray the “Dear Lord I can’t change it, please control it” prayer?
So this leads me to one of my favorite “divergences of control and change” moments from one of my favorite historical leaders General George S. Patton where he demonstrates his need for the Lord to control:
“Almighty and most merciful Father, we humbly beseech Thee, of Thy great goodness, to restrain these immoderate rains with which we have had to contend. Grant us fair weather for Battle. Graciously hearken to us as soldiers who call upon Thee that, armed with Thy power, we may advance from victory to victory, and crush the oppression and wickedness of our enemies and establish Thy justice among men and nations.”
I digress. So, to your point… the world is changing. Yup, it is, and it always will be. Deal with it. Prayerfully.
– Blake
If one looks into it, both language and human thought in general contain political bias. Saying that Wikipedia is not accepted in academic papers does more to reveal academic biases, than the biases of Wikipedia. That one can now approximate a decent education with a laptop at a wifi-endowed coffee shop poses a significant political threat to university education everywhere. Perhaps the Wiki-exclusion has a bit of inherent economic motivation as well. The fact is that Wikipedia presents a new form of collective-knowledge, and reading an article on their site quickly reveals that they are quite aware of the lacunae in their own articles (notice the “citation needed” functions). That the academic knowledge-brokers are putting up resistance is scarcely convincing that it is merely a fad or a source of misinformation.
Bro. Danny, maybe you’re right about just how far this revolution will go. But I do believe that it is going to change the way we interface with one another and the world. And I think the church has got to be thinking ahead on how to leverage these changes. I imagine we agree there.
Blake, wise words. Change for the sake of change tends to just chase after style at the expense of substance. And I appreciated the way you talked about taking “smart risk” prayerfully. Thanks for weighing in.
Joe, I think you’re the one who originally showed me Wikipedia many years ago. One thing I love about that site, is the communal nature of it. People can edit and change, but they are held accountable by a tribe. It’s a fascinating social experiment, thanks for pointing out it strengths to us.
Joe, true enough. The things that go on in academia are often absurd. Unfortunately, they go on in the Wiki world as well. With academia, the peer review process supposedly does what the communal nature of Wikipedia does. It often fails. The same thing can be said of the Wiki process.
I think perhaps the best plan is to get your info from a variety of sources, and thoroughly inspect those sources.