The Meta-Church of The New Millennium

Its web of relationships differ from those of a country in three ways:

• No geographical or temporal boundaries exist-relations flow ceaselessly 24 by 7 by 365.

• Relations in the network economy are more tightly coupled, more intense, more persistent, more diverse and more intimate in many ways than most of those in a country.

• Multiple overlapping networks exist, with multiple overlapping allegiances.
Kevin Kelly

On a few previous occasions, I have written about how technology is changing the way we interact with others and have speculated a bit on how these changes are impacting our culture. The Church and the secular workplace will need to incorporate the changes in the rules and the playing field or suffer the consequences.

Recently Seth Godin, Yahoo’s Vice President for Marketing, successful author, and self made Internet millionaire, proposed what he termed the Word Perfect axiom.

“When the platform changes, the leaders change.”

He observed that Word Perfect totally dominated the word processing market while DOS was the operating system of choice. When Microsoft started shipping the first versions of Windows, Word Perfect ignored the changes in the playing field and the rules. Within a year it was too late. Word Perfect never recovered any meaningful market share even though they eventually produced a product for Windows Operating Systems that was better than Microsoft Word.

Recently, I realized I am a part of two churches, a brick and mortar church and a meta-church. The brick and mortar church is located in Montgomery County and has a pretty homogenous membership. All most everybody shares a common ethnic, cultural, political, economic, and, theological viewpoint. Generally, this viewpoint is strengthened and is ever more tightly defined by most of our social interactions and the information supplied by the leadership. I would guess no one travels more than 20 miles to attend this church, located near the center of our county.

I also belong to a meta-church. This church is fueled by unlimited long distance phone service, email, and most recently, Facebook. The younger members of this church and not a few of its elders would add cell phones, texting, and Twitter to that list. My meta-church literally stretches from Cambodia to Holland. Its geographic center is probably somewhere close to the Southeastern corner of Tennessee. This church is remarkably diverse. Some of its members are hard core conservative charismatics; some of them are Catholic or Orthodox; some of them are Episcopalians; some are quite liberal in their theology; and some are solid Reform Protestants. Viewpoints on politics and the economy stretch all the way from left wing Democrats who would not be offended if called utopian socialists to an extremely serious Tea Party activist who might be offended if called a conservative Republican.

In my meta-church, we share ideas and argue about issues. Generally we manage to keep our emotions under control even when we disagree. Sometimes we discover that there are certain issues that should be limited to private correspondence. Because we are exposed to a wide diversity of viewpoints, we change and we grow. A surprising number of my blog entries are answers to questions or problems first explored in my meta-church. As Kevin Kelly observes, many of my relationships in this meta-church, “Are more tightly coupled, more intense, more persistent, more diverse, and more intimate in many ways,” than those found in my brick and mortar church. I hate to say it but a phone call or an email sent to a member of my meta-church is much more likely to receive a quick and thoughtful response, than a similar attempt at communications with a member of my brick and mortar church. If I found myself dealing with a serious emotional problem, my go to guys are preponderantly members of my meta-church.

Because,“Multiple overlapping networks exist, with multiple overlapping allegiances,” approximately 2/3 of my giving goes to ministries connected to my meta-church and about 1/3 goes my brick and mortar church.

New communication and information technology will never replace my brick and mortar church any more than it will replace my local car repair shop, but already my mechanic has become a technician (really). He talks to my car with a computer, his office is connected to a world wide network of suppliers and online troubleshooting resources and informational tools, and his billing system is part of the international credit card system.

What are the implications of all this for the Church in America? I believe, like my automotive repair shop, the Church had better find ways to become a part of a larger meta-world or face cultural irrelevancy. One member of my meta-church is an Orthodox priest. He writes an outstanding blog that receives comments from as far away as Communist China. I have another friend who sends out inspirational newsletters on a regular basis to members of his meta-church. Those are just baby steps. I believe that the Church should make an effort to explore and encourage the development of networks that both reach down into their membership and up into denominational headquarters and national resources.

There is a company that for a fee will study a corporation’s patent portfolio. One of the products they produce is a “mind map.” By studying all the inventors listed on critical patents, a competitor can get a very good idea of who is working on what and how research and development teams are structured. By luring one or two key people that are at crucial intersections in a corporate R&D mind map to leave their job with offers of better salaries, working conditions, and benefits, a company can deal a significant blow to a competitor. Can such a tool be used to encourage and support the development of a meta-church within and without a brick and mortar church?

The Church in America probably should give up any thought that they have God locked up in a box. Diverse opinions and viewpoints should not only be tolerated but encouraged. No, I am not going to give up the Apostles Creed, but the fact is I can argue with a Christian who is a liberal social activist and at the end of the day we can still share communion together. By the way, the Episcopal Church is studying the possibility of sanctioning communion on the Internet (really). We really need to be willing to change and explore new ideas. We really need to support and encourage fledgling attempts at utilizing the new technology to reach out into the meta-world we inhabit.

The meta-church of the new millennium could not have been imagined even 25 years ago. Historically, this is less than 1.25% of the Christian era, barely a drop in the bucket, but as the song says, the times they are a changin’.

A link to a very old video by a very young Bob Dylan. Cut and paste because I don’t know how to make a hot link appear at the bottom of a blog entry. Ah, this new technology.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wlUSwcuY29I