The danger of the digital world

I was reading a blog a while ago when I came across an article that argued that despite our being more connected than ever we are actually becoming more insular. We have more communications devices than any generation before us: letter, phone (landline), mobile phone, email, wifi communications, Facebook, twitter, bebo and so on and yet we are becoming a generation and a world of lonely people.

Its as if we are losing the power to communicate face to face with people. I want to suggest some dangers of the world we live in and some remedies:

Dangers:

1. Our communication becomes sanitised. Email is quite straightforward, you write what you want to say and send it. It removes the non-verbal signals, it is often emotionless, and it allows us to be disconnected from the response our email generates. I wonder if this is creating people who cannot then deal with the messy world of real communications with real people with all their cluttered non verbal responses, cues and emotions.
2. Our communication becomes clinical. Chatting is becoming a lost skill. We want to say what we want, get our answers and be done with the conversation. But that is not real communication.
3. People abandon church. Because church is messy people avoid it. Either they opt out all together, choosing the less messy world of listening to the radio or they arrive just in time for the service and then dash out afterwards (sometimes I wonder if the church is full of MI5 agents who if they didn't escape as the last note of the last hymn is played we might really get know only to find they would have to kill us as a result).

Remedy:

1. Get over it. The Bible would tell us that such things are sin and they need to be dealt with. We are made for relationship - that's why loneliness is such a big problem. In the garden as the fall out from Adam and Eve's desire to rule themselves begins to be felt one of the first casualties is relationships. Things like email, twitter, facebook and texting are all good, but we need to recognise they are not real ways of relating, and they can become become barriers, they can exacerbate the destructive effects of the fall on our relationships. They cannot and must not replace face to face interaction, actually getting to know the person. In the same way an online sermon or MP3 cannot replace being in a church, Acts 2:42-47 makes it clear there is so much more to being in church than listening to Bible talks.
2. Get out and meet real people. Next time you feel the urge to text someone to ask how they are - why not wait and ring them instead - it is much more relational.
3. Rethink church. Church is not the building, it is not the Bible talk, it is the people. We are Church. But there is more to it than that; church is not just meeting up with the two or three people you find it easy to get along with (what does that say about the power of the gospel? Nothing!). But meeting up with people radically different from yourself who you will find it hard to communicate with and love but who you strive to love because Christ loved unlovely you. That is church, that is what displays the power of God to the world and beyond.

We must work hard at relationships, we must work hard as churches to create an environment that pushes relationship. Hospitality is key in the Early Church and it must be key in our churches too. The church should be a beacon to the world.