Archive for hospitality

Spots and wrinkles on social media

January 24, 2015 / / Comments Off on Spots and wrinkles on social media
Brother URL greets you The Monastery of Christ in the Desert

Brother URL greets you
The Monastery of Christ in the Desert

 

I’ve been thinking about this post for a long time. Writing it feels sort of like telling a friend their breath is bad. You could just let it go, but they really need to know, and it’s better to hear it from someone who cares.

Over the past few years, a lot of clergy and denominational staff have discovered social media and embraced it as a communications tool. You can now read the postings of pastors, bishops, news services, seminaries, and historical societies. And these church professionals are just like everyone else, with learning curves and subsequent successes and failures. They deserve to be cut a certain amount of slack. But the Church as a whole is far enough along the path of digital engagement that we can stand some self-examination, and I see some behaviors that make me uncomfortable.

Of course, there are many wonderful, inspiring people and ministries online. There are people of good will and great faith. Unfortunately, our human failings are also quite visible, and even amplified online, and when those failings are manifest by Christians, our ministry to the world suffers. We form cliques and echo chambers; we are prideful and self-promoting; we lack hospitality and genuine openness.

The world wide web is not just a communications tool; it is a channel for the Spirit where we can unite the Church and welcome those who do not yet know God. It is a space for connection, for outreach, for prayer, prophesy, and forgiveness. It is the world.

And so I ask a difficult question:

Does your online presence witness to the unity of the Spirit or does it promote your ministry, your denomination, your causes? 

I doubt the answer will be simple. We all have our own work to do. We all seek our own tribe. Leaders are accustomed to leading–to being “on” whenever they’re in a public space.

But if the Church and her clergy could lead by example, and manifest online that love that binds us all in Christ, our witness would be strengthened. Small changes would make a difference.

Here are a few questions that may help us think about the degree to which we help or hinder the Spirit’s work online. I hope it will stimulate thought and increase mindful practice within the Networked Church, that blessed company of faithful people.

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As we each consider our habits and practices online, we might ask…

1) Do I ever look at the posts that appear in my Facebook news feed or do I only go to my own timeline?

2) Do I follow anyone on Twitter who is not of equal or higher ecclesiastical rank?

3) Do I follow anyone who is not at least as well-known or popular as I am?

4) Do I follow anyone from another denomination?

5) Do I ever share anything about another denomination and cite it as exemplary?

6) Do I ever hold a conversation on social media or do I only offer my opinion and pronouncements? Do I listen and respond as well as speak?

7) Is there anything I can do to increase my sense of others’ humanity in the virtual world? Is there anything I can do to support individuals I meet on social media?

8) Am I humble? Am I thoughtful? Do I appear online as a learner as well as a teacher?

9) Do my postings ever deride or ridicule another person?

10) Do I know why I am on social media?

Category: Church, hospitality, Internet, ministry, sin, Social media, techology, World Wide Web /

Come, Lord Jesus, be our Guest

January 4, 2014 / / One comment

Mary and Jesus Flight into egypt

A conversation with my father has set me to thinking. Dad was imagining what it might have felt like to be the Mother of God, which made me wonder why God would come to earth as a child. The standard answer to that question is that, having decided to become fully human, God wanted to be born–to come into the world the way we all come into the world. But why did he make himself so terribly vulnerable? Why not fly down like a superhero? Why not walk out of the wilderness like The Man with No Name. Why an infant?

There’s plenty of holy mystery available for contemplation in that question, but this time it reminded me of a passage in Reaching Out, an amazing book by Henri Nouwen that I return to often. In Reaching Out, Nouwen explores Christian hospitality–not merely as the act of welcoming strangers into our homes, but as a fundamental attitude toward other people. Hospitality means moving away from hostility and creating a safe space in which strangers may share their gifts and become friends. This space may be literal and physical, but it is also psychological and emotional, and so we may extend hospitality to others in all our interactions. Nouwen writes:

It may sound strange to speak of the relationship between parents and children in terms of hospitality. But it belongs to the centre of the Christian message that children are not properties to own and rule over, but gifts to cherish and care for. Our children are our most important guests, who enter into our home, ask for careful attention, stay for a while and then leave to follow their own way. Children are strangers whom we have to get to know….We can even say that the love between parents and children develops and matures to the degree that they can reach out to each other and discover each other as fellow human beings, who have much to share and whose differences in age, talents and behaviour are much less important than their common humanity.

Perhaps one of the many graces present at that first Christmas was the opportunity given to humanity to show God hospitality. It wasn’t a test or a temptation, it was an opening for a new relationship. And when Mary allowed the Spirit to enter her body, and someone made a place in the stable, we welcomed God.

 

Category: Christmas, hospitality, incarnation / Tags: , ,
 
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