We all know that we are living in a fast moving world. If we knew just how fast perhaps it would scare us all to death. I guess the greatest impact of speed on all of our lives over the past twenty years has been the meteoric rise of the internet. . The truth is there is nothing much faster than a mouse. Click and your there. Its like a huge big brain that we can all access in order to communicate and with which to communicated. Who would have believed even ten years ago that over 70% of our homes in Britain would be connected to the internet?

The Click On Resource

We use it for shopping, for recreational purposes, for business, for education, for social networking. What has made the internet so successful is the ability for users to become producers as well as consumers. All this has come about because the internet has ceased to be simply a place where you go to find information. It is also a place where you can go to give information. In other words the internet has become more and more interactive. I wonder if we have something to learn from this model in the church. Too often our churches are all information based, not much action and no facility for interaction. Take it we feed you but no feedback please!

This shift in internet usage has been given the name Web 2.0. When the web first became popular it was the place where you downloaded what the producers wanted you to have. You visited a corporate website and it was full of information. There was no place to ask questions to engage with the idea. The idea or the information was given and that was what web pages were about. In today’s world-wide web the idea is more sophisticated. I not only want to read what you have to say – I also want you to know what I think of what you’re saying. I also might like you to see what I have produced or created.

Check me out !

In today’s web world it is not just businesses and organizations that have websites, anyone can have a website. This is the age when my view is as important as the feature writer of a major newspaper. The rise of personal blogs has been phenomenal over the past two years. The internet is the 20th century equivalent of the printing press. The world of ideas can never be the same again.

It is in this area that I think we in the church should be directing more of our thinking and creativity. Last year Sanctus Media a small media production company working out of St Andrew’s Bo’ness here n Scotland began to explore the possibility of creating a new kind of church on the net.

Sanctuary First ( www.sanctuaryfirst.org.uk} is a creative web space that is being developed into a place where people can begin to engage with daily worship and connect with others who want to explore in an adventurous way alternative ways to be communities of worship. The site is not completely developed yet but it is up and running and already creating an interest on the world wide web. When completed it will be a users and producers space.

The dynamic that makes SF different is its ability to allow the local church to become the catalyst to create a touching place where users can meet face to face and engage with the material in a way that allows them to open themselves up to God. Stage two is to take the site to the place where the users not only engages with the material but become producers creating material for worship and reflection or comments on the existing material. Some of this is happening already but it is being developed to a greater extent.

All this is a far cry from church as some people know it. However when the idea that the user can become the producer catches on it will begin to revolutionise church as we know it. It’s a kind of biblical idea anyway. Jesus called his disciples not simply to be users of the but he called them to be producers of the fruit in John 15.

Imagine a church where worshippers are invited to write their own songs of praise, write their own prayers, make a film to illustrate a scriptural text, submit a picture that speaks of the God’s grace. Contribute to a sermon through a dance. Imagine a church that is focused on turning worshippers into producers in kind and in action. Now that’s a church more people in the next generation will want to join. That is a church where people are inter- connected. It is in these kind of churches that more and more of the internet generation will feel at home and make their contributions.