Rev. Diane Teichert and Erica Shadowsong, Director of Religious Exploration
Paint Branch Unitarian Universalist Church
April 7, 2013
Erica told us about a woman who blogs about the computer gaming industry. For those who don’t know, “bloggers” write the equivalent of newsletter columns that they publish on-line and for which they hope to earn a following. And Tweets, if you don’t already know, are like very short blogs but with a 140-character limit.
The blogger who goes by PeaceBang is also the minister of the First Parish Unitarian Universalist Church in Norwell, MA, Rev. Victoria Weinstein. PeaceBang poses the question: Is the Internet good for religion? (http://www.peacebang.com/2013/03/16/is-the-internet-good-for-religion/).
Here is PeaceBang’s answer to the question: the Internet is good for liberal religion but not for all religions. That’s because, “Liberal religion is about interpreting, evolving, being open to the cross-pollination of ideas and theologies. Liberal religion has inquiry at its heart and delights in challenge (or should!). [But], I don’t know if the Internet has been as good for orthodoxy, which is dedicated to tradition, hierarchy and authoritative interpretations… The Internet is essentially a creative space for the free and ephemeral exchange of ideas, feelings and questions. Orthodox religion doesn’t thrive in that atmosphere.”
As a liberal religion, Unitarian Universalism is definitely benefitting from the Internet. Perhaps that’s not surprising, since the inventor of the World Wide Web, Tim Berner-Lee, is a Unitarian Universalist!
But, I’m thinking more specifically of a particular website which probably has brought more people to UUism than any other: beliefnet.com where you can answer twenty-questions and Belief-O-Matic™ will tell you what religion (if any) you practice…or ought to consider practicing. I did it once, when the website was new – it told me I was a Unitarian Universalist – good thing, as I was a minister already!
From time to time, newcomers here tell me they first heard about UUism from beliefnet.com, and went from there to the Unitarian Universalist Association website where they clicked on “Find a congregation near you,” entered their zip code and ended up coming here, no doubt after checking out our website first! How many of you have answered Belief-O-Matic’s twenty questions?
I got a chuckle from the small print that says: “WARNING: Belief-O-Matic™ assumes no legal liability for the ultimate fate of your soul.”
Now the thing is, how many people who were told they should consider Unitarian Universalism by Belief-O-Matic™ have NOT ever visited a UU congregation? Or tried once, and didn’t return? National surveys have been saying for decades that ten times as many people identify as Unitarian Universalists than we have Members in our one thousand congregations. We used to groan and moan about that and wonder how we could get all those people to actually join a UU church!
But now UUism is seeing our presence on the Internet as part of our ministry. We are feeling encouraged about our share of the religious market and, therefore, about the growing influence of our values in society. We are wondering how we can increase our Internet and social media presence to better serve the needs of those people even though they are, and may remain, outside the walls of our congregations.
In fact, the UUA’s Church of the Larger Fellowship, founded in 1944 as an international by-mail congregation of UU’s scattered around the world, has become in the last fifteen years, thanks to the World Wide Web, a growing on-line congregation with an active prison ministry, Facebook groups, pastoral care, blogs, podcasts, and more. The Church of the Larger Fellowship (CLF for short) even has on-line worship services. They’re not on Sunday morning, so you can check them out without missing the in-person, real-time Beloved Community here!
Apropos of Worship Associate, Celinda Marsh’s Chalice Reflection this morning, anyone can go to the CLF website and light a virtual candle for your joy or sorrow! I wish we had the projection technology and a drop-down screen, so we could show you how it works: you hover over the flickering flame in the chalice on the screen and move it over to the wick of one of the candles in a bowl of sand which then lights with its own flickering flame! You have the choice of typing in what your joy or sorrow is or remaining anonymous. People can then comment, offering you words of congratulations or support! On-line caring in action!
All this on-line capacity for growing our faith is well and good, but Erica and I agree with PeaceBang that the really important question for a real-time, bricks-and-mortar-and wooden-deck in the woods kind of UU congregation like ours is the one that is printed at the top of your Order of Service this morning: How can we transform our congregational culture so that it better reflects the things that make digital ministry so appealing and so effective?
If people (especially the Gen X’ers born between 1965 and 1980 and the Millennials born 1981 or later) who are so adept at, and at home in, on-line social networking and the other capacities of the Internet are finding spiritual community on-line, what can we learn from that? Does the experience they would have here, if they took the chance of checking us out in person, afford them those same qualities… plus the emotional and tactile benefits of eye-to-eye contact, visible facial expressions and body language, hand-shakes, and hugs!
What is it that people experience in on-line social networking? As Erica was saying, she values social media because through it new voices are heard and authorities are challenged. When Gen x and Millennial folks speak here, are they heard? What if they want to do things differently than the ways in which things “have always been done at Paint Branch” what happens?
As Celinda was saying, she values social media because it affords her glimpses into the joys and sorrows of friends and family, glimpses she would not otherwise have because of time or distance. And, similarly, I value social media for the honest intimacy with which people share their most momentary and/or most momentous experiences. When Gen X and Millennial folks make their way here, will they find honestly intimate interactions? Will they find hearts and minds open to the joys and sorrows, momentary and momentous, of their lives?
We believe that many of the people who are told they should consider practicing UUism by Belief-O-Matic will really enjoy the sense of community in our congregation. They will thrive and grow spiritually here. They will bring their friends, and make friends. They will sing and dance and hang their artwork. They will convert their yearnings for peace and justice into actions. They will teach and learn and plan and lead. Some might marry and raise children here. All would love that this is a place for healing and hope, helping and rejoicing.
But many of them have yet to even try to find a real-life community that has the kind of integrity and awesomeness for which they flock to the Internet. They don’t know YET that even though our congregation is not perfect, we do practice integrity and awesomeness here. And when we are getting it right, it’s not just on a screen: we see and hear it in person, smell, taste, touch and feel it in the flesh, in the present moment!
We say YES to being a church in, and for, the social media age!