E-comm

Facebook. MySpace. Message boards, email, and yes… blogging. These are all modes of communication that have countless numbers of people communicating across our nation and even our world. Words and phrases are thrown around at the speed of light (okay, you science peeps…don’t correct me speed of light and how fast info moves- it’s just an expression) by single units of humans sitting in darkened rooms, communicating with other single units of humans sitting in other darkened rooms. (Well, maybe the rooms aren’t that dark, but you get the picture.)

Don’t get me wrong- I do like technology, but lately I’ve been pondering upon the way we cordon ourselves off away from others, so that we can communicate with others- who are far away. I love using email as a quick way to get info out to others. I can think about something that I need to tell someone, let’s say at midnight, email them and forget about it till the next day. Very simple. No fuss, no muss. However, the human touch is set aside if that’s all one uses. In Facebook, etc, one can make a statement, no matter how nice or how rotten, and back away, ready to ignore or answer the responses that come up.

My ponderment settles around the question of relying ONLY on e-communication (or e-comm) and how that affects the way we interact with others, in the old-school low-tech way. I’m afraid that regarding e-comm as THE way of communicating cheats us out of being a community that has eye to eye and hand to hand contact.

Acts 2:42-47 says: “They devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. Everyone was filled with awe, and many wonders and miraculous signs were done by the apostles. All the believers were together and had everything in common. Selling their possessions and goods, they gave to anyone as he had need. Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.”

Sounds like a real live community of faith to me. I just can’t envision how it would have worked in the electronic age. Perhaps the apostles, each sitting in their individual homes, would send out their blog, to which the faithful would respond on their Facebook page and purchase Facebook gifts to give each other. Perhaps they would all gather, on the “I Love Jesus” message board and have “worship” by talking about how great God is and how we should serve Him. Maybe they could buy stuff for the poor through ebay, pay for it with paypal, and send it fedex. Alright, maybe I’ve gone off the deep end a bit, and remember… I do like technology, but I wonder if we sometime allow e-comm to take the place of being the living and breathing community of faith that gathers together to worship together, pray together, serve together, etc. The challenge offered here (myself included) is to make that extra effort to connect or to re-connect to actual human beings, and just sit, face to face, and enjoy some old-fashioned slow-paced visiting.

If you need me, I’ll be out on the porch… rocking…and ready to visit.