Beth Kantor had an interesting post today at her social media blog, lending her expertise and considerable network of social media professionals to trying to leverage faith using digital tools.
Here’s an excerpt of the post, but you should read the whole thing:
I sense a lot of fear among traditional religious institutions around embracing and leveraging technology change. They seem to fear losing control and having traditional hierarchies challenged in an increasingly open source and bottom up world. Ironically, the best of social media leads to the kind of direct peer to peer communication among people of faith that was the origin of most mainstream religions before formal institutions and hierarchies were established. No doubt the new technologies can be distracting and take away from mindfulness and rich spiritual practice, but they also offer tremendous opportunities for enhancing and supporting religious communities in unprecedented ways. And many folks don’t seem to understand, as the book Groundswell articulates so clearly, at the end of the day it’s really all about relationships and NOT the technology tools.
When you look at the whole scope of faith institutions online, I think she’s right. But I’m also deeply encouraged by the breadth and depth of engagement with digital tools by evangelical churches.
I’ve volunteered to be a part of whatever workshops and initiative Beth gets rolling.
The quicker we get to social media being a standard engagement tool rather than a faddish effort to prove our “relevance” to the culture, the better in my opinion.
