Community + Bible + Tags + Blogs = Revival?
I talked with pastor Andy today about the Bibleicious project. We talked a lot about online community, what it was and what it wasn't.
We definately agreed that it wasn't a replacement for offline "material" community. But it could/should be an extention of the relationships we have in everyday life. I've happily connected with these other Vineyard Bloggers as I we have something real in common, even though I haven't met or seen most of them. As a group you guys seem connected closely with your church communities and not retreating to some online escapism or alternate "fake" persona. Your posts and blogs are just an extension of your daily reality, projected into a public forum.
So here is the idea. We combine the bible and del.icio.us giving us a new media that uses tags to connect scripture with our online lives - blogs, news, music, art, devotions, etc.
In doing this we start to see the world through the lens of the bible and we start to see the relevancy of the bible to our daily lives.
It's Relevancy that is fueling my passion, because I really think a real community, relating to each other in love, through the scripture, and on the web could demonstrate the reality of the gospel in a powerful and unique way. For people who don't see how the bible is relevant we would give them dozens of real, current, personal examples verse by verse. Then we show them how the verses themselves become links between people- a way of connecting blogs, thoughts, beliefs, and souls. It brings the Ancient Scripture forward and contextualizes it to the coming blog generation, letting them encounter God in the public forum where they naturally do most of their searching and decision makeing.
So I'm busy building the technical arcitecture and will give you updates on that, but my real goal is not another website, but a loving, healthy community that will be a powerful group witness of Jesus to the coming genereations. If you get it drop me a note. If you don't you might want to let me know what or why. I hope to get a proof of concept up and running in the next few weeks
3 Comments:
Bryan, this is exciting. I certainly agree about the supplemental idea of this website. Once the community is built up, I think it will be incredible. Again, if you can think anything that I can help you with, please let me know.
Stanely,
Thanks for your encouragement.
As far as how you can help - I need:
Help with the plumbing:
1 Programmer
1-2 Layout/Web Designers
Help with the content:
20+ Core community members/taggers to add the meat.
I don't know your background, but I'm sure you can help out. What we will need to do is pick a small section of the bible. I'm thinking Mark or Phillipians and get a small community working together from that one section.
That way we will bump into each other, learn from each other and get the right dynamic going vs. each person hitting their favorite book and we get 20 different 1 person commentaries.
I just stumbled on this project through a friends delicious rss feed. This is really cool. I'll be excited to see this get up and running.
I work in technology for a church and we are always working through issues of online community and what it means theologically and practically, and it sounds like you've come to a lot of the same conclusions we have about online community vs. 'brick and mortar' community (not sure what else to call it). We were privilaged to do a radio show on NPR about it http://www.kuow.org/defaultProgram.asp?ID=9463 in case any one is interested.
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