a bigger bang - fantastic feature in today's guardian on web 2.0

the guardian weekend magazine has a huge feature on web 2.0 - the bigger bang. there is a main feature and then lots of interviews (link to them from the main feature page) with some of the leading lights of web 2.0 companies. it's a pretty good selection though you might have chosen a few others to add to the list. if you are wondering what web 2.0 is each of the interviews asks that question.

wikipedia
bebo
blogger/odeo
flickr
writely
myspace
digg
craiglist
wordpress
last fm
feedburner
del.icio.us
technorati
netvibes

one of the things i do in my job is to try and give some sense of what's happening in culture because the church in mission must engage with it - ideally positively and incarnationally. several people in the blogosphere (me included) have been banging on about the significance of this stuff for a while now. i think many people see it as either an irrelevance or an indulgence, but this stuff is changing the way people (especially younger people but increasingly all of us) construct their lives and interact. i'll be photocopying this article/feature and giving it to many youth workers/church leaders/mission leaders. this is part of our context.

i uploaded a presentation earlier this year that i gave on communication. these are some of the questions i was suggesting we need to be thinking about. and just asking them shows up just how much lag there is in many churches practice and thinking...

can we imagine...
church beyond gathering?
church beyond once a week?
church as always on connectivity to christ and one another?
church where community is the content?
theology and resources of church being open source?
church valuing the wisdom of the crowd rather than the knowledge of the expert?
our church/spirituality being easily found by seekers because we tag it that way?
an ethos of low control and collaboration?
an economy of gift?
church as spaces for creative production and self publishing?
church as providers of resources for spiritual seekers and tourists?

Technorati Tags: a bigger bang, guardian, web 2.0

Comments

[Drew B]

Yeah great article, but a little out of context some of it.

Nice blog btw :-)

[lowell]

Good article and great questions Jonny.

You must have read The Wisdom of Crowds by James Surowiecke.

I have noted though that absent from you list is the question: Kingdom Entrepenuers . .. . or Fundraising beyond badgering the same expended few . . . .

There is an emerging generation of independent, savvy thoughtful people making a living simply sitting in starbucks and creating blogs and websites that generate revenue . . . ie affiliate marketing, etc

I am referring to the

[bob c]

the San Francisco Chronicle also has a solid piece today: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2006/11/05/BUGIGM5A2D1.DTL&type=business

[John Davies]

Yes, from my allegedly 'submerging' church perspective I can readily imagine:

Church beyond gathering? -- the housebound lady getting her regular visit from a parishioner; the texts between the girl in the church meeting and the one who doesn't go any more;
Church beyond once a week? -- Wednesday morning communion, Thursday Boys Brigade, Tuesday lunch club;
Church as always on connectivity to christ and one another / an ethos of low control and collaboration -- well every church, ever, struggles with those ones - and only human will and interaction, not systems, will help sort them out;
Church where community is the content? -- the parish church!
Theology and resources of church being open source? -- the theology of the people has always been so, and the people are the resource;
Church valuing the wisdom of the crowd rather than the knowledge of the expert? -- accepting for now the challengeable notion of the 'wisdom of the crowd', many traditional congregations run that way;
Our church/spirituality being easily found by seekers because we tag it that way? -- the parish church - instantly tagged, easy to locate
An economy of gift? -- massive tradition of volunteering
Church as spaces for creative production and self publishing? -- massive tradition of creativity too;
Church as providers of resources for spiritual seekers and tourists? -- the open door, the quiet seat, the prayer book, the listening ear...

[Randy]

have you tried secondlife.com? I'm considering some sort of ministry there, house church, coffee house, pub etc. Wow is all I can say.

[jonny]

nice response john - i like it...

i haven't tried secondlife - i find my first one enough to manage at the moment!

loweel good comment about entrepreneurship. a guy bill bolton has just written a grove booklet on entrepreneurship and mission. i am meeting him later this month. in cms we are very keen to explore this connection. maybe we'll do a few blahs about it etc. bill ran the school of innovation or something in cambridge for 11 years where they launched 3 businesses a week so knows a thing or two about it.

[Phil Smith]

Thanks Jonny, I read the article on saturday with great interest as I feel distinctly undereducated in the area of Web 2.0.
I was fascinated by the principles on which these applications were founded and the difference between the nature of these applications and the church. wikipedia I found particularly interesting. the article seemed to suggest it was founded by two guys who felt that if you got enough people talking, between them they would discover what is true; challenging the widely accepted belief that it is much better to consult a small selection of academics than a large number of 'plebs'.

[Pernell]

Hey Jonny - Great questions. I just put a copy of this on my blog.

[Jeremy]

The sharing ethic, the valuing of each other's creativity and expression, the freedom to voice an opinion or ask a question - the web appears to be creating a space that is perfect for discussion and discipleship. There is a narcissistic edge to the web 2.0 stuff, but on the whole I think it's exciting for the church.
Secondlife is a different prospect altogether in many ways. I wouldn't do it myself, but I suppose it's only a matter of time before there are missionaries in there. There's a full time Reuters journalist in Secondlife, after all. Maybe the CofE should appoint an official online bishop...

[adrian]

we brought matt locke, head of bbc innovation to scarborough a couple of weeks ago to talk about the technologies the bbc are investigating - most of it web 2.0

what struck me from matt's talk was that this stuff has been created and used with enthusiasm by the 25-35 generation, but not, it seems, with the same vigour by the current teens-20s. he gave some interesting stats, which of course, i have forgotten.

i do remember him asking our audiance of GCSE age students how many used myspace. i think of 200 there, about 15 put their hands up. hardly any had heard of secondlife.

will they catch up, or have we, the 30-somethings claimed this territory as our own and they, naturally, will want to develop something of their own? will it be anti-technology?

my personal observation is that they use mobile phones as if they were cybernetically attached, but can take or leave computers - perhaps a bit like we treat radios... they're there, but we're not often excited by them.

just some thoughts.