I wrote a few days ago that I thought Christian outreach on the web was already making good progress. In my opinion, as I said, there is still a lot to be done in using the internet to build up congregations and associations.

I want to list another reason why I think so.

As I said, Christians tend to have other hobbies and interest. I wrote:

Christians blog. Christians use myspace. Christians, in other words, are already netizens. In my experience, moreover, this has not resulted simply in Christians forming exclusive Christian forums, but in lots of other things. Christians like surfing (I mean on the ocean in real space) and cooking and movies and TV shows. I have no idea if this is done more or less often in cyberspace than in realspace, but it happens plenty. And this is not, and doesn’t necessarily need to be, a concerted strategy on the part of Christian leaders guiding the rest.

I didn’t point out that negative part of that picture in any detail, but let me do so now. While it makes sense for pagan and Christian moviegoers to find forums to talk shop, and Christians should embrace (with wisdom and prayer) the challenges that involves, it doesn’t make nearly as much sense for Christians to find forums to talk to one another.

I’m not saying it is always wrong, one should look realistically at the damage that can be suffered. As I wrote earlier

I suspect many might resist the idea that technology can radically reshape lives, but I think they’re being naive. Communities require communication. The fact that Cingular offers unlimited minutes between my wife and I on our mobile phones is an immense change in our lives from before. We rarely ever are together outside the home, and when we are we have all four children with us, which doesn’t make for much private conversation. Effectively, I have moved to a situation via technology in which I am never alone. Whenever I need it, or simply on impulse to hear her, I can have her voice “in my head.” And she has the same option.

I realize that face to face involves a deeper level of communication. Voice alone will never be as powerful as voice and eye-contact or voice and shared food. Nevertheless, the fact that our voices can be heard without regard for distance is still an amazing extension of community. Without wanting to neglect the role of the other senses, to the extent that communities are built on hearing and reading, geographical space has been collapsed. We have been moved out of exile into a common city.

This was meant to be a positive description, and it is. But the dark side would be when people become more enamored with finding the individuals out there who agree with them, rather than getting along with the Christians in their local congregation. In my experience, the internet quest for the like-minded email list can be a real detriment to the local body. Instead of learning to live at peace with a broad spectrum of Christians, one gets daily reinforced in some cases with those things that make one hard to get along with.

Now, this doesn’t mean that the internet is evil, nor that it is wrong for people to connect with Christians who have common interests and convictions on secondary matters. But it does give us reason to think that churches would be wise to use the internet as a tool to build up community within the congregation.

I think we commonly assume that we only need cyberspace for those separated by great distances. But the fact is, if we don’t see each other except on Sunday, we might as well be hundreds of miles away from one another. Furthermore, interaction through the net is probably going to remind us to get together rather than make us less likely to appreciate meeting in real space.