12/17/2006

Congratulations to YOU!

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9 comments:

Anonymous said...

One change, which I might welcome, would be a move away from the Sunday-morning-hand-shake comment "good sermon pastor" to the Tuesday-evening-feedback-and-brainstorm open session. I think people will still expect professional ministers (if they have one) to do their homework and be students of the word, but they may be engaged in the process and not just with the end product.

Anonymous said...

Demographically & culturally, my congregation is not yet where John suggests, although I would love it. We only have 1 service, Sunday a.m. In our bulletin, I list NEXT week's sermon text for their study. On Wednesday, I send out another email highlighting some aspect of the sermon or touching on another point not mentioned on Sunday. It keeps things fresh in their minds and keeps them processing. What I'm shooting for is my own Tuesday blog where they begin to interact, like a weeklong online small group.

Wishing I had a crystal ball, I can't wait to see how the "movement" you describe affects things like the LCC and elections in general. Like I said, our church ain't there yet, but I'm hoping we are in the next 2-3 years.

Hugh said...

Eventually, someone will invent a Christian video game that will be visually stimulating, highly interactice and multi-player so your entire small/cell group can play together called youWorship or something like that. The preaching and worship will be spectacular, addictive and non-threatening. This will suffice until we develop holodecks, after which all church services will move into the virtual world. When the machines get smarter, they will take over and turn us into batteries and we will all live in the matrix.

Anonymous said...

I wish my congregation would join the internet revolution. I have around 50 morning worship attendee's at this time and right now only one of them communicates with me through email. Of course, I must consider that we only have two young families that might actually know how to use a computer. Perhaps the internet revolution will the way the church can capture the lost generation of young people.

james Moore

Anonymous said...

I can hear what you are saying about participation in the process--people seem to want a say in what those in power are doing.

HOWEVER, denominations may be too late for this. Most of my people could care less about the denomination or even having a voice. What you say applies to PASTORS like me but not to my laymen. My laymen think the denomination is just as out of touch with the local church as the congress is with the real world and they don't even care about it. They think the money we send in is not any better than taxes and they think we get less back for it.

But I do agree that pastors who are Internet savvy expect to be in the loop on denominations deciding things. I don't see any effect on worship or preaching--my people are pretty happy with sitting and listening.

Anonymous said...

MyChurch.org is "next" in this trend.

It'll be interesting to see if the "user generated content" wave will transform the mid-week connection of some churches through that site.

I believe it will... even though I will still do funerals and loan out folding chairs :-) Yippie!

-David

Anonymous said...

I believe the wave of internet religion is past and it has been missed. It, like religion in the pews, has now been corrupted by the religious snake oil salemen out for a buck and some folks to think they are great.

Sadly, when things move from grassroots to those in higher positions, it is destroyed. Too bad we can't have Jesus without the Pharisees!

Anonymous said...

Let's not forget Podcasts and live streaming video. When in the past have we been able to hear sermons from many gifted speakers across the nation. With the abundance of quality teaching that can be found digitally, couldn't our local churches, especially the smaller ones, become more a forum for discussion than a congregation passively listening to a pastor who may be better served spending his time shepherding his flock as opposed to preparing a sermon? I'm sure we've all been in services with pastors who weren't particularly gifted speakers but who had abundant talents in other areas. The church could be more about serving and loving it's community and less about glad-handing the pastor on Sunday morning for a "good" sermon.

Keith Drury said...

OK I missed it for many readers this week... I had not planned to speak of how the Internet ITSELF changes church as much as how the Internet CULTURE (e.g. participation, expected input & response) may have a cultural ripple effect in the church... while a person may not even have an Internet connection they can be influenced by the culture... But I failed to make that clear in the article...sorry about that.