10 in '10 - Church Trends: Community
2010 will be the year when community goes mainstream. Now, you may be thinking that already happened with sites like Facebook and LinkedIn but it didn't. What we have seen the last couple years is social networking taking the place of community. This year more and more people are going to be saying that they don't want updates from Facebook "friends," they want face time with real friends.
We have already started to see signs of this with sites like suicidemachine.org and "unfriend" becoming word of the year. People are deciding that they don't get their desire for community fulfilled by racking up hundreds of online friends whose updates they can ignore. This year the trend will be away from creating a large social network around yourself and instead creating fewer deeper relationships.
Since the church has been a center for community for a long time, this is a perfect chance to get people connected to a real community. Show people that they can build relationships that are deeper and more meaningful than they find online. We shouldn't be advertising the church as a great place to meet another hundred people to friend, but as a place to find people who will be true friends who know and care about you.
Comments
Hi Andrew, it's Alberto.
Hi Andrew, it's Alberto. I ran into your website from Angela's FB. I hope you don't mind commenting on the 10 in 10 series. As far as this community post goes, do you think this has become true so far now that we are heading into May?
Thanks!
Yeah, I think that the trend is still towards fewer closer friends. Now, there are a lot of people in the churches who are just starting out in facebook and twitter as well. That whole crowd will probably take a while to "get over" social networking, but I think the trend is valid. Even with online friends, people are seeing that the friends they can really rely on are the ones they have offline contact with.
On the other hand, for people you already know or have contact with, there will always be a place for indirect contact (phone calls, txt message, email, facebook update). However, this is very different than replacing community in "real life" with digital friends.
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