You probably are thinking, what’s the meaning of this email subject. Well, I wanted to take a few moments every Friday and share with you by email some of our learnings with GCM digital, some global trends we see digitally, and how this is going to impact our mission alongside some best practices too. We are sending the email to you because of your interest in GCM Digital as part of the workplace group, but please feel free to unsubscribe if you would rather prefer not to receive these emails. On another note, please forward the email to people who you believe would like to be involved in this kind of conversations.
From Gutenberg to Zuckerberg
We are living in the biggest communication shift in the last 500 years since Gutenberg’s printing press invention. Just that invention changed everything and introduced what we know now as the industrial revolution. The church experienced a huge change too that led to the big reformation.
The information once a luxury to only a few people became available to the masses. Based on this invention TV, R adio, newspaper and other media started to evolve. The purpose was to bring the information fast to everyone. This kind of media created audiences that in most cases were passive audiences. The church has been affected too by focusing on audiences. The more people you get to the room the better it is. While there is nothing wrong with having big audiences, without a clear path of personal discipleship these audiences are risked to remain passive.
New wine in new wineskins
Today 500 years later from Gutenberg the world is experiencing a major change in the way we communicate with each other. Internet and especially social media are transforming passive audiences into active communities. Social media especially gave the audiences a megaphone. There is not no more than one way of communication.
Yet, today many churches are in the gap between Gutenberg’s way of communication and the social media revolution. Many churches are still using the internet and social media as a medium to deliver content and so consider the audiences as passive just as we did with TV, r_adio, and printed media. But the world has changed. There are no more passive audiences and people are creating communities, the young generation does not want to be preached to, but they want to be engaged in a conversation. They want to be heard and to contribute to the discussion.
We need to change from a “printing press” mindset and embrace a “social media” mindset. That has to be reflected in the tools and strategies we create.
Can a conversation online be as real as offline?
A conversation online can be as real as offline. Sometimes can even be more authentic and real. There are lots of situations where visitors are looking to be engaged and because they do not know you personally they would tend to speak their mind. And that means they either criticize you or be open and authentic. Rudina reminded me of a conversation with a young lady that had lost her brother at a young age and was struggling with suicidal thoughts. Most likely she had not been sharing those thoughts with others, but she felt vulnerable to do it online with someone who was willing to listen to her and show care.
Closing thoughts
Digital is not going away but it is growing and evolving every day. Things are changing exponentially and even in unthinkable ways. For example, have you heard about the Metaverse? Billions are being invested in it. But what is Metaverse and how is that going to affect the church? We will share more about it in the future but for today I wanted to share a need and a huge opportunity that we have just scratched. There is so much more we could do and we need to make the most to reach more people for Christ.
What does it take to embrace a new mindset?
