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i think i want to be like president obama...

not in the power or the celebrity. in the way that he, in his campaign for the presidency, engaged in a collaborative effort, inviting not only support, but active involvement from varying demographics in the movement he was leading. this approach resulted in the mobilization of, among others, an entire generation of young Americans who seemed to be just waiting for someone to invite them into a dialogue about how their country should be run and their resources should be channelled in order to participate in the realization of a better world...

I got my chance on the South Side of Chicago, as a community organizer, and it was the transformative experience of my career. It allowed me to put my values to work and to see that real change comes not from the top-down but from the bottom up, when ordinary people come together around a common purpose...

(barak obama 2003)

Jesus said that the time would come when it would be possible to network effortlessly, but when it would also become increasingly difficult to be an ordinary, private citizen, keeping anything secret because information would flow so easily. it appears as though we are in a time like that. there is always someone with a cell phone taking pictures that show up in albums on facebook or movies that appear to the masses on youtube.

it's enough to make you paranoid.

except we need to remember that nothing in God's creation is inherently evil. all is originally authored by God so all is inherently good. the uses of things are what determines their current righteousness or fallenness.

take rock music, for example. in the past, it has been mistakenly seen as inherently evil simply because of the misuse of its emotive power and energy by some. generally categorized by generations having gone ahead of us as anything incorporating electric guitars or a drum kit, this fledgling genre was attacked in the 60's and 70's by fundamentalist christians as being 'devil music ' and therefore responsible for the everything wrong with the world of the day. this was made worse by the fact that it seemed to be drawing their apple-pie-faced young people out of the hard pews of the churches and into dark concert halls where their innocence would be assailed by demons having leapt out of many a drum kit and into their youthful hips causing them to gyrate in time with the sinful beat.

i mean, yeah. there were and are many things going on at shows that are not healthy at all and never have been, but it's not the presence of drums or electric guitars that causes these things to happen, it's people using something created by God to aid their rebellion. this has been happening since the garden, not just since elvis presley sang and danced on tv in 1957, filmed from the waist up.

the fact that rock music is used regularly to lead people into an awareness of the presence of God at worship events worldwide should offer some support for this little tangent...

so even though there is a lot of garbage on the internet, it isn't inherently bad. we should take advantage of the innovations at our disposal in order to make the good news of Christ known, redeeming this space, this technology.

"The goal is to have a conversation in which people become engaged in life, think about issues, get active in improving their communities and mobilize society for positive change. Politicians and citizens alike would become more informed and learn from each other..." (Dan Tapscott, author of Wikinomics: How mass collaboration changes everything.)

so many of the things that we address together are more meaningfully explored when we are in dialogue. in addition to the online address of this blog, there is a weekly invitation to 'find us on Facebook (Northview Community Church) and follow us on Twitter (NCCtweets)' within the church program. each of these social media is a means by which we might continue the conversations that begin when we come together on sundays.

furthermore, we're thinking it would be fun to get the conversations started before we even arrive at the building. we have begun a regular discussion on northview's Facebook page called 'Field Research.' this will be a way to gather thoughts and insights from our people in preparation for our gatherings on sundays. we all grow from knowing one another and hearing from each other.

there is also some fairly intense work going into a new WEB2.0 website, targeted for launch late this spring. it will also be a means by which we engage in ongoing interaction.

see, this site is not to be viewed as a large online book with information about our church in it. who would go there? although it will have a lot of information regarding where we've been, what we're doing now and where we're going, a more accurate way to see its role in Northview's future is to see it as a wing that is being built onto the church- except instead of being a physical one, this is a virtual one. many of the same things can happen there that happen in a church building: fellowship, discipling, dialogue, laughter, ongoing interaction... except in this case, none of these things are limited by time or space.

online interaction can never be a substitute for face-to-face engagement with one another, but in those times when the face to face time and space are limited because of the busy lives we lead and the breathing room available in the lobby, the conversations can continue in this forum.

roger waters quipped in 1990, while staging an all-star presentation of The Wall, his landmark work with pink floyd, that "What it comes down to for me is this: Will the technologies of communication in our culture, serve to enlighten us and help us to understand one another better, or will they deceive us and keep us apart?”

recently, in planning to rebuild The Wall for audiences this fall, he posted a reflection upon this old soundbyte:

I believe this is still a supremely relevant question and the jury is out. There is a lot of commercial clutter on the net, and a lot of propaganda, but I have a sense that just beneath the surface understanding is gaining ground. We just have to keep blogging, keep twittering, keep communicating, keep sharing ideas.

indeed...