Now, with the internet, connect with lost people is easier than ever.  Here is one quick guide to meeting lost people online.

1. Get your laptop.  Sit down on the couch and turn on an episode of something.  The episode will serve as your time  indicator.  When the show is over, you can put down the laptop.  That way you don’t spend too much or too little time online.
2. Go to http://www.plurk.com and set up an account.  Plurk is a great conversational social media tool.
3. Once you have an account, customize your page.  Add a picture or an icon.  Make sure and fill out your bio.  If you have a family, say so.  If you have a hobby, mention it.  Check out my plurk page at http://www.plurk.com/pauldwatson to get some ideas.
4. See the search box in the bottom right-hand corner of the timeline?  Go to that and type in a word that describes your hobby or interest.  If you like photography, type in words like camera, photo, photography, etc.  I alway type ‘writing’ because I have a seven year track record for freelance writing.  I can connect with the writing crowd.
5. Make sure that you set the search results to search ‘Everyone.’
6. Read the results.  Click on any that sound interesting.  If you like their timeline, follow them or add them as a friend.
7. Repeat.

Here is a simple guide to having a prayer ministry rather than begging for prayer all the time;

1. Print out a calendar. (I’ve attached a sample to this post.)
2. Write one name on each day of the calendar.
3. Every morning, look at the calendar and contact the person for that day.  You can use twitter, plurk, texting, email, or just a plain and simple phone call.  Say something like this: “Hey (insert name)!  I just wanted to let you know that I’m praying for you today.  If there is anything you want me to pray for specifically, let me know.  You can reply to this message or call me at (insert cell number.)
4. Then you wrap it up with this:  ”If you get a chance, I’d love for you to pray about (insert one thing).  It’s really close to my heart right now and your prayers would mean a lot.”

Next month, add another name to each day of the month so that you are personally praying for two people every day.  Continue adding people as your schedule allows.  

I get a lot more out of praying for people that I do asking them to pray for me.  You know what?  I think a lot more people are praying for me now than ever before!

Please, please, please do not use the number of friends you have on Facebook, Twitter, Plurk, or other social media tools to measure the impact you and your ministry have among the Online Generation.  I suggest that the number of conversations you have is the minimum unit of impact measurement, followed closely by the number of spiritual conversations.  A la Seth Godin, ask yourself, “Would the people I’m talking with - followers of Christ and those who do not - allow me to crash on their couch even after we’ve had a meaningful spiritual conversation?  Do they know I love them regardless of their spiritual choice?”

Even though it might sound like we are giving something away because we aren’t ‘in-your-face-with-Jesus,’ I can’t help that we will have a bigger impact for the Kingdom in the long run.

Thoughts?

Offline churches use a broadcasting strategy in their Sunday morning services.  A few, very innovative churches, cloned this approach online.  In Second Life, they bought land, built buildings, and set up times for speaker-driven services.  Unfortunately, I think broadcasting online will have limited success in reaching the lost online because it runs counter to their cultural expectation for communication.  (Lifechurch.tv is an exception, but I haven’t seen them account for the on-demand expectation of the conversational online culture.  I think they will, though.  They are pretty smart.)

Bottom line, we have to consider the culture of the Online Generation and adapt the form/delivery method (not content) in a way that meets their basic expectations if we want to see a widespread movement.

They want to talk.  That’s not a bad thing.  So let’s talk.

I think the hardest thing to remember at an internet ministry conference is that everything we do - all the technology and online tools - have one purpose: to introduce people to Jesus.  Everything we do has to be about Jesus and people or it is all pointless.

So, if you are doing online ministry and can have an entire conversation without talking about God’s Word or showing people His love, you might want to rethink your priorities.

If we want to reach the Online Generation, we can’t forget what I call, ‘The Lightning Rod Principle.’

Lighting rods attract and redirect lightning.  But while they sit on roofs all over the world, wind blows against them, bugs rest on them, and rain hits them.  Yet we wouldn’t call them ‘Wind Rods,’ ‘Bug Rods,’ or ‘Rain Rods.’  They don’t attract these things.  They attract lightning.  That is why they are called ‘Lightning Rods.’

Similarly, Christian Websites generally attract Christians.  Sure, occasional outsiders stop by to check things out.  A few might even choose to follow Christ.  But, by and large, they attract Christians.  Outsiders generally won’t go to a Christian website out of curiousity.  Most Christian websites, from an outsider point of view, aren’t that interesting.

If you want to have conversations with outsiders, you have to set up websites that interest them.  Set up a tech podcast, a photography website, or a fantasy football league.  Then you will attract - and hopefull build community with - people who are passionate about tech, photography or fantasy football.  Some of them will be outsiders.  Some will be Christians.  But the ratio of outsiders to Christians will much greater on those kind of websites than any Christian website.  (The conversations will be less slanted, too.)

Here is  the other thing about lightning rods: they direct lightning into the ground. In fact, if lightning rods didn’t redirect lightning, they wouldn’t be worth anything, would they?  Similarly, websites have to do something with people they attract.  If they don’t do anything with their traffic, then they are kind of pointless.  In this day and age, they should direct people into community.  Christian sites should direct Christians into online community.  Tech websites direct techies into community.  If websites don’t guide their traffic into conversations that lead into, or tap into, community, they they are kind of pointless.

So, who is your website going to attract?  And what are you doing with the people you attract?  If you want to encourage interaction between Christians and outsiders, is a Christian website the best way to do it?

That paragraph may be as clear as mud if you don’t interact online regularly, so let me give you an example.  There is a community of over 100 men and women, from the ages of 15 to 50, spread across the world, who like to knit and crochet.  They use the strengths of many social services to connect throughout the day.  They talk in depth on their blogs, chat in Plurk and Twitter, share photos with Flickr, and video with YouTube.  They buy and sell products through a social network for knitters, called Ravelry.  Update:They interact in a Facebook-like social network called Ravelry.  They also buy and sell products using a service called Etsy.  They meet offline in small gatherings, even though all the offline members do not necessarily interact online.  They constantly talk about family, cooking, work, projects, hopes, and failures.  They encourage one another all the time.

There isn’t a single social media service that fulfills all their needs, so they use many.  And they are pretty typical.

So, what does that mean?  Well, being active in one social media service isn’t going to cut it.  We have to follow the trail of community interaction and use what they use.  We cannot say we want to start a spiritual community in Facebook and think that will get the job done.  We need thousands of communities that operate across multiple social media services if we ever want to make an impact in lostness online.

I’ve supplied different arguements for online communities, but I had a recent realization - it really doesn’t matter whether people experience REAL community online or not.  That determination isn’t important.  

What is important is that there are lost people interacting online all the time.  And they need Jesus.  I’m going to walk with them and encourage and challenge others to do the same.  When God opens the door, I’m going to read His Word with the Online Generation.  I’m going to teach them that we express our love for God by obeying His Word.  And I will teach them to teach others.

Everything else is up to the Holy Spirit, really.  He is the one who makes true spirit-level community happen.  He is the one who directs the paths of those who choose to follow Christ.  He is the one who will transform the online and offline lives of those who choose to love God with all their heart.

So, really, the conversations about community are fun but are they vital?  Do we have to answer everything to everyone’s satisfaction?  Is it enought to say, “Look!  There are people who don’t know Jesus.  Let’s walk beside them for a time and show them who He is and tell the about the wonderful things He does?”

Maybe the questions about online community are the wrong questions.

Communities regard non-contributers with suspicion.  This is true in villages in India as well as communities on the internet.  If you want to engage online communities to find persons of peace, you have to have a reason for being in the community.  If you are going to be part of the community for any length, you have to contribute to the community.

An online writing community invited me to be a part of their weekly chats.  They invited me because they felt I had something to contribute.  (I was a freelance writer for seven years.) Because I contribute, I am welcome in the community.  This allows me to pray for the community and be available for spiritual conversations when and if they come.  My contribution earns me the right to take up space and time.

Do the communities you engage regard you as leech or as a contributer?  What are you doing to contribute to online communities?

I see this blog as a kind of open accountability.  I want to to know what I’m doing.  I decided to include a copy of my report below for you to take a look and ask questions.

Two Month Progress Report - Reaching the Online Generation

2008 September 19, 2008

Activities: 

Concluded Curricula Development project. 

Reaching the Online Generation Blog

• Published over 55 posts on http://www.reachingtheonlinegeneration.com
• Followed up with people who made comments on http://www.reachingtheonlinegeneration.com with an invitation to an ooVoo conversation.

Personal Blog

• Re-designed my personal blog to be a platform to engage the Online Generation
• Published over 35 posts on my personal blog.

Social Media Services

• Identified 54 social media services
• Created categories for popular social media services.
• Used Twitter, Plurk, Facebook, Bebo, Pownce, and Rejaw to communicate with members of the Online Generation.
• Learned how to use Ping.fm to communicate across multiple social media services.

 Second Life

• Learned Second Life – http://www.secondlife.com
• Attended a Second Life church service  - ALM Church

 Online Communities

• Developed a rubric for identifying indicators of online communities
• Invited by an online community to participate in their weekly online chats.
• Researched how communities use social media services to interact and develop communities.
• Identified four distinct Online Communities 

Meetings

• Participated in ooVoo conferences, phone calls and face-to-face meetings with business and church leaders about the Online Generation - 13 altogether.

GodRev/Looking for God

• Followed up with 264 contacts from the Looking For God USA website.
• Extended invitations to join GodRev.
• Set up a Discovering God group, no members yet. 

Access Ministries

• Identified a possible use of Squidoo Lenses, http://www.squidoo.com, for access ministries for the Online Generation.
• Identified access ministries for Second Life church planters – tour guides and clothing designers.

 Prayer

• Developed a prayer calendar of people to pray for in order to encourage prayer for the Online Generation.
• Talked with a local church planting director about mobilizing their prayer team to pray for the Online Generation. 

Challenges

• Raising prayer support has been more challenging than I anticipated.
• Getting past Gate-keepers to talk with Christians of the Online Generation has been more difficult than I anticipated.

 Thoughts/Observations

Online church planting is not measured by the number of people listening to you, but the number of people you can get talking with each other about Spiritual things and, ultimately, God’s Word.

Church planters must contribute to online communities.  Communities regard non-contributors with suspicion, especially if the non-contributor expects a platform for their topic of choice.

Categories of Social Media Services

• Social Voting – like Digg
• Social Bookmarking – like Google Notebook
• Social Conversation – like Twitter and Plurk
• Social Networking – like Facebook, MySpace, and LinkdIn
• Social Aggregator – like FriendFeed
• Social Tools – Flickr, Ping.fm,

Because environments like Second Life have limited First Life consequences, people have room to live out what is in their heart – good or bad.

Common objections/concerns raised by others about reaching the Online Generation:

• People can be fake online.  There is no real accountability.
• You have to meet face-to-face to have real community.  You have to be able to touch to live in community.
• What about Lord’s Supper, Marriage, and Baptism?
• Can you really build relationships online?
• What will happen to brick and mortar churches?
• What about tithing?

Jesus said that He had seen no greater faith in Israel than that demonstrated by the Roman Centurion who understood that Jesus didn’t have to be physically present to heal his servant.

About the ‘where two or more are gathered together’ passage:  Did you have a quiet time?  If two or more have to gather to experience Jesus’ presence, why did you bother?  Additionally, do you physically lay hands on everyone you pray for about healing?  If you have to be there physically, why did you bother?

The Online Generation will give generously to humanitarian causes.  Tithing for the Online Generation will be for social services and projects, not to a religious group occupying a building.

The more a community in Second Life mirrors the offline world, the easier it will be to engage them with the Gospel.  The more removed a community in Second Life is from reality, the more difficult it will be for them to engage the Gospel in a way that results in offline obedience.

Indicators of Online Community

• Multiple points of contact throughout the day.
• Give and take – Are members contributing as much as benefiting from the group?
• Encouragement and Support – they have a form of prayer for members in need
• Dismay over the prolonged absence of community members
• Communication across multiple platforms
• Talking about their work and family
• Sharing photos and videos
• Raise or provide services to help people in need.
• Offline meetups

Each element gets a point if there is evidence within the community if the element exists.  The higher point total points of all the elements, the greater the likelyhood that community exists.  Lower points don’t indicate a lack of community, they may indicate a new/younger community.

Many communities begin around Social Objects like the iPhone, wine, computer games, knitting, etc.  They use Social Markers like the kinds of books people in their niche read, people they’ve met, what games they’ve played, where they’ve been, and the blogs they read to identify ‘insiders.’  Hugh Macleod articulates these principles in his blog.  The more mature a community, the less they need social objects to hold them together.  Social markers, however, still help the community identify outsiders and filter new members.

Future Activities:

Continue activities to raise prayer support, team members, and financing for the Reaching the Online Generation initiative.

Continue looking for people who are reaching the Online Generation and learn from their efforts.

Continue my personal attempts to reach the Online Generation using various social media services.

Create an online community for people who are reaching the Online Generation.

Create a free ebook about reaching the Online Generation.

–END–