I have been asking myself how are we to “be” the church in online community, social networks and all the “Friends” we have have compiled through these tools. I think part of the struggle is that a lot of these relationship and community tools are focused on keeping us “connecting.” Meaning, they don’t want us to leave the site, they want us to stay there as much as possible so we will either buy things or click on advertisements.
I think the same thing can happen in a local church situation, where we are always gathering and connecting for church, but never moving to the next level and “being” the church to each other, to the hurting and “in need” around us and to people who need to hear about Jesus.
So, this last week was my first week at LifeChurch.tv working on their Internet Campus. We were thinking how we could do an online missions event – with the idea of as a community “being” the church online. What we came up with is an online event starting next Wednesday 8pm CST (September 17) called LifeShare: a 7 day online challenge.
You can go to this post on the Internet Campus blog for all the details, but the idea is that sharing is a huge part of online communities, just as it is for believers. As followers of Jesus it is all about sharing what we’ve heard, sharing how we have been loved, and sharing of ourselves as it glorifies Christ. To launch the even we will start with a live stream through Mogulus where we explain the event, we give some “sharing” ideas and we pray for each other and then all of us as a community take a 7 day challenge at “being” the church online!
AND we didn’t want to just limit it to LifeChurch.tv, or have the event be something flown under our “banner”, so we have invited Carlos Whittaker and the Ragamuffinsoul.com community to participate and help us to lead the 7 day challenge. YOUR community is invited as well! After the first launch we are going to have daily live stream check ins and prayers lead by people taking the challenge from across the world!
Again, all the DETAILS are here, with schedules, the 5 different levels of “sharing”, and some tools to help your sharing of your life for Jesus!
[If you are interested, have questions or ideas plese share them!]
