Author: MASadmin

The New York Times has a good article this morning dealing with religion on Twitter. The article focuses on the use of twitter among “evangelicals” and the megachurch set. The primary message from the article, I think, is that existing networks can leverage themselves through the use of social media to reach out to new audience. And there is a subversive element with social media as well, like a mild form of the Arab Spring. For women, Twitter can be useful in developing influence and networks outside the traditional male hierarchy of the church. And it seems that Twitter can also be an effective way for new churches (and, as an aside, is it becoming a thing for young women/couples forming house churches in the evangelical world?) to reach out to new audiences. Sure, in many ways, this can be primarily a tool to reach audiences that are already like yourselves (i.e. they have to use twitter, be able to afford the devices to use twitter, and care about social media) but twitter, and social media in general, can be effective at developing and maintaing relationship networks.

I love that twitter is sending out an executive to reach out to religious leaders (though, of course, us mainliners are left in the dust). I dig that they used analytics to see how often religious tweets are re-tweeted. I dislike, immensely, the implication that KJV verses are, on average, less than a tweet in length but, well, taking bible verses out of context is a thing that we’ve been doing for thousands of years and my campaign against that won’t stop it from happening. But I’m drawn to the theory that inspirational messages have a draw on the internets. Now, I know this is true and I’m sure you do too. In fact, if you’re a child of the internet who came of age in the late 90s, you have been in many grueling battles against the “inspirational” emails that your extended relatives sent to you and 3000 other people. Animated gifts, giant letters in pink and italics – we have seen it all. In fact, we have seen so much, we are no longer feel anything when we see them. We just quietly notice that they have spread to facebook and, with little fanfare, we hide those posts from our newsfeed. The war continues even though the battlefields have changed.

Now, as a proponent of social media, what am I to do with these inspirational messages? Do I join the bagwagon? Do I reshare every bible verse that the ELCA facebook page puts out? I’m not really sure yet. From my experience, bible verses, photos of people, and interactive type posts get the most responses. But there’s a danger lurking in this use of social media, I think. The danger is, of course, in promoting the gospel at the expense of the law. There’s a danger is being Joel Osteen rather than Melanchthon. There’s a danger in devolving Christ into 140 character soundbytes that make us feel good rather then letting the gospel exegete who we are and where we are. Even the proverb quoted in the article by Bishop Jakes “Your words will tell others what you think. Your actions will tell them what you believe” is problematic mostly because I don’t see the challenge in those words. I think it is meant to be a challenge to people but I don’t see it. Now, this could just be my fault – I might be too jaded, bitter, or too much of a hipster/gen-xer to truly believe that such 140 character tweets can challenge anyone. It’s a statement sent to a self-selecting group of people who push a button to receive those kinds of messages from Bishop Jakes. It is a statement to people who already, to some degree, buy into it. It, to me, lacks teeth. But should social media have teeth? Should tweets be mini-sermons where the truth about the world is told and the gospel spoken? Or should it be used in different ways? The executive in the article mentions that she tries to get preachers to be personal on twitter. If true, then there might be a different thing going on here. What people are looking for is a kind of connection to spiritual leaders that feels personal and more real; a single serving feeling of connection to the people who can be seen as representing God on earth. And if that’s true, then I think churches should embrace its use, not because it replaces pastoral care but because it furthers connections in a different kind of environment (and possibly a world that is more alienating than the past). And as much as we try to restrict religion to the private sphere, religion is social. Connections and community matter. And anything that can further that (hey, where two or three are gathered…), then we should do it.

Tonight, I met up with some people from the internet to try and experience the first day of Manhattanhenge. Alas, at the last minute, thunderstorms moved into the area so my vantage point at 23rd street was a wash. As we said our goodbyes, one gentleman stuck out his hand and said “Good luck with the God stuff.” Good luck, indeed.

On Saturday, I sat in on a meeting at the Synod office that was taking a look at Latino ministries in Manhattan. I was encouraged to attend since I’ve been told that english-speaking Latinos are starting to get noticed in the ELCA and they are becoming a targeted demographic. The meeting took all morning and I really learned a lot. I won’t go into details because I’m not sure what’s confidential and what’s not, but I do want to talk about two approaches towards ministry that were brought up and that I can’t get out of my mind.

During the conversation, the topic of mission came up. Actually, the whole meeting was about mission but there came a point where the details came into play. And the group was split into how they saw themselves. Since we’re part of a church that tries to promote the welcoming others, there was a big push by some of the ministries to see themselves as primarily responding to the people who enter their doors. And, in NYC, this isn’t actually a bad conclusion based on demographic data, etc. As Latinos spread out along the subway lines into the Bronx and Queens, working out the logistics of where to be, matters. Opening the doors of the church and seeing oneself as primarily a nurturing kind of church – where the church is opened to everyone who walks in the doors (and if you are in Manhattan, people do walk into your doors), seems a natural expression of some of our theology. As much as it seems like a passive form of ministry that only takes care of those within its walls, in an active environment like NYC where people go across rivers (and state lines) to visit churches, this isn’t actually a terrible idea. Churches can live this way. And there are churches that thrive in this environment. And if I look at my first two years of seminary education, this is exactly the kind of church environment that I am being trained to be apart of. CPE, Pastoral Education, basic biblical survey courses, and the like, all lead to me being embedded into a church environment that has open doors, takes cares of people who enter the congregation, provides active mission support to the wider church, runs food programs, marches in political rallies against societal injustices, and all that good stuff that the mainline churches seem to do. But the more I think about it, the more I think that training isn’t quite right.

The other side of the discussion at the meeting was focused quite a bit on what it means to reach out and be active in the areas where latinos live. There was vague words thrown around like “boots on the ground,” “going out there,” “meeting people,” and all that. And I realized, while sitting there, is that I don’t really know what that means. I mean, in my head, I can kinda imagine what that might look like but I don’t really know. There’s been nothing in my seminary education (so far) about that. We talked quite a bit about going out and preaching the gospel. And since we’re good Lutherans, we spend quite a bit of time focusing on what we say when we go out there and speak. That is a practical detail that matters. But how to speak? That doesn’t seem to come up as much. Like, if I was asked to go into the Lower East Side that is inaccessible to subways, to reach the heavy latino populations out there, with my boots on the ground, what the heck does that even mean? What would it look like? How would I do it? I don’t really know.

I’ve got some ideas, of course, but all these ideas are rather new. I’ve watched my home pastor work the neighborhood in away that I envy. He talks to people on the street, visits local businesses, and is a visible presence. He’ll wear his collar, is called father all the time, and still takes time to chat with the waiters at the local dinner or the young family walking their dog and inviting them to the Blessing of the Animals service. That’s one way to do it. But would that be enough? Hmm. I’m not sure. I’m sure there’s more that can be done that would do more than just get butts in the pews.

For the Latino ministries to grow in Manhattan, I think they’re going to have to actually go outside. Some will come in the doors but not enough. And I think Latino ministries can get bogged down and subsumed under wider cultural realities of the Metropolitan New York Synod if they are not careful. I’m curious to see how english-speaking Latinos are taken into account. I didn’t hear them mentioned much in the meeting. But, at our Synod Assembly, during the Project Connect presentation about raising up new leaders from within congregations – there were two english-speaking Latinos looking at a sea of white faces. We’re kinda already here and we’re being pulled into leadership positions already. But that’s not an excuse to wait for us to show up at the door steps. We’re out there and as a church, we should just be incarnational, and get on out there.