Winding Up God for Summer

First, some housekeeping. Some of you may have noticed that in the Facebook and Twitter worlds I am little more than an apparition. To those of who noticed and took the time to comment through the kind ministrations of others, thank you. The simple fact is that I discovered the hard way some of the dangers of social media, and felt that deletion was the right and proper action to take at the time. It was a tough choice, but a needful one, and the resultant hole in my mediocre life is not insignificant. 

Secondly, my absence from blogging. I am a serious advocate of the view that if you have nothing worth saying, don't just say something to keep the hit rate flowing. Many bloggers fail in this and you the readers deserve better. I look back and see my own proclivities in the world of inane waffle and choose now to write only when a worthy thought (or not so worthy) emerges. 

Thirdly, I have found time that I didn't know that I had. Take life and subtract Facebook, Twitter and pointless blogging and you are left with a hole that can contain the reading of books and the embracing of twins! I have managed to read "The Godseeker's Guide" (Rabbi Blue) and am fast consuming "If This is A Man" (Primo Levi) - who would have thought that I would find time to read. There are lessons to be learned about managing social media, but only from the stand-point of the former addict presently absent. 

So, to the post. As a curate (and an idealistic one at that) I used to rail against the tendency to wind down ecclesiastical operations in time for the school summer holiday. I would be the first to observe that God didn't take a holiday so why should we. Oh, the simple life of curacy. My sainted Training Incumbent would do as he often did and utter "calm down dear" in the face of my protests. However, it is right to say that incumbency and all that Vicaring lark brings with it a more balanced sense of self-preservation. 

The thing is, during August you have two choices (as the Vicar). First is that you tear yourself a new tailpipe upon the stress of wondering where everyone is (the simple answer being 'on holiday'). Alternatively, you can be realistic and take the lead of the punters and thereby take the size 11 from off the gas. A lack of self-aware honesty is probably a significant cause of clergy stress and burn-out (aside from poor gin, another cause). August is a gift for stopping, or simply slowing to a less frantic pace. As ever, we measure our ministries in the volume assigned to task and not to the quality of our life's own experience. The other way of putting it is that God probably needs more of me at Christmas and not in August. Even God is telling me to give it a rest - perhaps the Omnipotent One does take a break in Ibiza after all. 

So, I have told the gang this end that during the summer holiday (framed and mitigated by the teaching profession, of which God is surely a member too) I will be less visible even if still available. I need to write, I need to pray, I need to rest and I need to think. For a whole manner of reasons, 2013 has been a shit of a year and I wonder if it isn't time to take ownership and make good. It isn't easy, that said, because this computer is an unforgiving matriarch who has a look - a knowing look - that observes that she has been neglected for too many moments. 

The Parish Facebook Page

After much dithering, the parish Facebook Page. Much to add as time goes on, so if you fancy a look at the first efforts, click the icon!

Hurrah!

How Facebook Damages Lives

I think that blessed Facebook was created as a way of swapping kitten pictures and for students to exchange idle gossip, and in that, it did remarkably well. Even in its later manifestations as SmugBook or the vehicle to declare loss of bodily lard, acquisition of sleep, self-pity or endless complaints about the job, it was not too bad. Tiresome, yes - but not bad. Even recent developments which cause international conglomerations to clamour for Facebook pages next to the spotty, smug or self-deprecating - that isn't too bad, if a bit tedious in the Spam Box. 

There is, I have discovered, a very dark side to Facebook. I would even go so far as to say something far stronger, that it seems to be the place that - if you want to discover evil - you only need log on. 

In my personal and professional life, I am fast gaining insights into the dark phenomena rife on Facebook. I am seeing people meting out such hatred and hurtfulness that I wonder if ever love could have existed between such people. If you want to become unhealthy obsessive about other human, you need only sit in a darkened room way too late and scavenge through their 'facebook' and get all the juicy updates. I have seen such pain and anger, not because people have been assaulted to their faces, but because they have read things on Facebook. 

Once upon a time, relationships would hit the skids and they either ended or mended. Now, this noble vehicle has become the macabre theatre of marital breakdown, bullying, abuse, libel and grotesque accusation. In the midst of Farmville and amusingly doctored imagery, you will now discover the fruits of utter hatred and its yield of despair. In the privacy of your own home, or indeed anywhere on earth as a result of smart-phones, you can say just about anything to or about anyone. The fact is, it seems to be the case that you can do more damage with a smartphone and a Facebook account than you can with a hammer and some measure of malice. 

The world will learn too late that what gets typed gets read and what gets read cannot quickly be forgotten - less so when you would wish it to be. Eventually, my own children will ask if they can have a Facebook account, the panacea of all life - and to be honest, I think I would rather send them unaccompanied to Jim'll Fix it than expose them to such a damaging arena. I thank God that I have never been a Facebook victim, but I know a growing number of those who are. Added to this, if you are not a Facebook victim, you may find that a daft outburst a year ago after a drink with friends will prevent you getting job, or else a careless comment under the wrong settings will cost you the job you do have. 

The solution is unclear, short of making the mistake of parents of teenage boys with certain editions from the printed press and banning it. The Church needs a voice in this dangerous world, a world made more dangerous by people who are not inherently bad or even intentionally malicious, but who simply have an outlet that they don't fully understand. 

Facebook Morality

It was once the case, back in the Presocratic, that if you wanted to be judged well you lived well, acted well and cared for fluffy kittens. If you wanted to be regarded as something of an inveterate scum-bag, you beat up the elderly, robbed the rich and gnawed the noses off of babies. What I am trying to say is that the moral compass of our fine land was formed of action not just words. 

It seems that things are a-changing. One sunny afternoon, a Facebook appeared and a be-spotted lad became so rich he almost qualifies for a ring on his little finger. So rich, in fact, that he could afford to buy a house in Great Britain. In the early days of the Facebook, you simply gathered names in a basket and claimed them as friends. You may have written to them, but more than likely ignored them completely as you had for the previous twenty-odd years. They were safely in the 'friend-basket', no need to bother with them. 

Games appeared, and applications galore. Quizzes manifested the fact of your sexual orientation (as distinct from the one you know you have), the fact of your ecclesial leanings (as distinct from those that you actually do have), the kind of politician you would be if life ever really came to a dead end, what you inner sprog might utter and so on. Then Farmville. The world started to take sick-days just to get back home to Farmville, and those who didn't  do Farmville took sick-days from work just to delete the Requests from friends who sought only to advantage themselves by your efforts. 

Of course, in the middle of all of this, the smug posted Statii not actually saying what they really meant, but gave enough away to just avoid plain old boastery. Others would tell you at length the last drink they had, the depilation (or exfoliation, I don' know) of their legs, who they have fallen out with, which plan lay ahead of them in the next thirty minutes and so much other largely pointless and dull material. 

Then it happened. Last week but three. It happened. And you're all at it.

It seems that image is King these days (or should we say 'Monarch' so that the laydees don' t think me sexist and become gusset-rotated, or perhaps 'President' so that the anti-monarchists don't become revolting). I love imagery and it is the case that I 'see' the world rather than 'read' it. But it now that the Facebook is exploiting our visual sense and the output of the PhotoShop Generation [Generation P?]

This is what I mean: If you think this baby is beautiful, press 'Like'. (In short, if you don't press 'like' you think the brat is fetid and the world will suddenly hate you). Or this: Press 'Like' if the person here, who has just died, was the greatest human ever more even than Jesus or even Usain Bolt (In short, if you don't press 'like' the world will think you were guilty of the moidah of said celebrity and will plan to dance on his/her grave). Or this: press 'Like' if you think the platitude herein contained is the truthiest truth in the whole truth-telling world (In short, if you don't press 'like', you disagree with the truth herein contained and support the cannibalism of the over-70s). 

And hundreds of thousands of people press 'like' like drooling lemmings. Which is great, but it puts it is my time-zone and must create some serious traffic in the old Facebook account (in that, anything I have dared to 'like' will then tell me when someone else deigns to do likewise - i.e. the potential for a hundred thousand or more notifications). Lordy!

Facebook is fast become the Law, the Covenant, the Paschal Mystery, Leviticus, Deuteronomy and all the Saints. If you need Facebook to tell the world you are someone who won't stir-fry a gerbil, then you need to have a word with yourself ... and not me!

... just saying!

Rediscovering Facebook

The one thing that is hard about public ministry as a stipendary priest is that, by definition, we work away from where we grew up and away from circles of friends that we have built over time. It is easier for me in some ways because Mrs Acular and I have been relatively nomadic for over the last decade or so, so friends tend always to be at a distance, geographically speaking. 

This is another way of saying that in the wake of priest's lives is a litany of names of friends long neglected and rarely seen. 

Today I sat for half an hour waiting for the fruits of my loins to learn not to drown.They are achieving this well and so I can withdraw from the Pool of Drowning safe in the knowledge that they will once again prevail. However, half an hour is insufficient time for anything other than idle daydreaming over a caffeine infusion of one sort or another.

Today I sat with my Gadget of Choice and pawed over the Facebook thing, and did something that I have never done before. I opened up my 'Friends' page and scanned down the list. On iPad, the pictures are big (rather that diddly little thumbnail shots) so I was able to see faces as opposed to blurry figures of people that looked vaguely familiar. It was a wonderful thing to have done.

The Facebook detractors would say that we gather 'Friends' from among those who we really have no connection, have never met and would never want to. I am one such detractor. I have claimed, on this blog, that we only really know a fraction of the plethora of folk we claim as Friends on Facebook - that the rest are a kind of statistical stocking filler. I think I was wrong in that assertion.

As I looked down the long list, I saw many faces. They are the faces of people I have either grown up with, people I have worked with, people I have sat behind a pint with, people who I love, people who I respect, people who knew me when I was a boy, as a man, as a retailer, as a theological student, as a worshipping Christian, as a blogger, people I have known all of my life and people who (although I may not have met them at all in person) are those with whom I have connected and remain so. In short, everyone on my Friends list is someone significant to me, someone who has a meaning in the context of my unworthy existence.

As I fast approach my 40th birthday (noting the many of my school friends who have already passed that great and momentous occasion), I often wonder 'where it all went'. I have a wonderful family, beautiful wife and kids, the work I was born to do, a wonderful context in which to do that work - and a Facebook Friends list. If I wondered 'where it all went', I needn't have worried. It isn't about the moments always, but about those faces and the encounters we have shared. 

Is Social Media a Prawn Cocktail?

This last weekend saw my inaugural voyage in the great ship The Christian New Media Conference. 

Now, you will either fall into two camps: those who went or would have been interested in so doing, or else those who have no idea what sort of conference that may be. If you are of the latter disposition, then think prayers and know that we were described as "geeks" with alarming frequency, added to which we were all sporting a dozen gadgets apiece, and you will get the idea. It was, basically, a gathering of bloggers, Tweeters, Facebookers and those who aspire to such levity.

One of my own concerns with social media as a 'world' is that it connects with tangible reality in the way that Kermit the Frog's legs and arms do - which is to say, they are never in the same shot at the same time. It is, without doubt, a part of reality as real people have real interactions. The matter and the fruits of social media are very real and for that I love it, embrace it and do all I can to compel others to come in.

Then we went and had our "Geeks Gathering" where I met three people (among many others), and to whom this post is warmly dedicated. They are three Christian ministers, who, alarmingly, seemed to be on the wavelength that I seem to exist on. It was the first time I had met them in my life, and I am glad that I did. Through social media, they are gentlemen with whom I had had various quantities of interaction through the gadget-mitigated world - but Saturday was the first time that I had ever actually met them.

And it was good. I venture to say that it was better. We had lunch together and a couple of beers apiece and we sorted out the world. It was a truly wonderful time - so it begs a question. In the great meal of life, is social media a good hearty starter? Nothing beats that 'face to face' stuff for me, the main course - and I doubt I could have engaged with those people from Saturday over a month of Sundays on Twitter and cover the ground that we did in an hour behind a pint! 

Social Media is one tool among many, in the various modes it exists, to bring people into contact with others. To be fair, I may not have been sat anywhere with anyone on Saturday without it, so from that point of view, I am endlessly grateful to my social-media life. I will always wonder though, if in the end, we are always called to move on to the main course and be with people, in proximity, like wot we used to. 

I want to thank the wonderful people with whom I spent time of Saturday, the lads and others who didn't bother joining us for lunch and everyone else who tolerated my tomfoolery, modest rages and all those other little facets of 'me' that emerge in lecture theatres. I was delighted to have met you!

So Your Church Wants Social Media ...

My firm belief is that every church needs to engage with social media and start to use it. To not engage with social media is about the same as not making use of email, telephones or the combustion-engine motor-car simply because they seem to be modern irrelevances. The simple fact is that more and more people in the West are engaging in dialogue moderated and delivered through social media. 

I also acknowledge that it isn't as simple as just wanting to engage with and harness the benefits of social media, because our congregations and parish councils are often populated by those unaccustomed to the electronic, regard their advent as suspect at best and who may in turn become isolated by its introduction. This said, if we took the same view over history, people wouldn't have Bibles in their personal possession and the art of reading would remain the province of the landed gentry. Progress is necessary and indeed vital, so long as it is tailored to bring with it those who are vulnerable to its effects (usually by immediate isolation).

With this in mind, and following on from conversations already had on the subject, I though I would jot down my thoughts as to the process that parishes could use to bring this development to life. I am mindful that parishes already have varying degrees of involvement with social media, though they may not use that label!

What Is It? Social Media is the overarching title for direct communication by way of the internet. Any parish with a website of any capacity or capability is already engaged with social media, albeit passively. The current understanding of social media is more specifically concerned with actions of communication, often in real-time and often solely over the internet - be those actions in the form of 'chat', instant message, blogging or micro-blogging. A parish community unfamiliar with this mode of communicating would need to appreciate the subtleties and drawbacks (as well as the great opportunities) of this form of faceless communication. 

Who? This may seem an odd consideration for a parish, but this is a decision not to be taken lightly. The one doing the communicating is placed in a position of considerable power, often speaking on behalf of the entire community to a very wide and unpredictable audience. Someone with some experience of social media (and its nuances and its vernacular), supported and moderated by at least one other person would be advisable. This ensures that the 'output' is broad and balanced, and not rooted in the aspirations and 'hobby-horses' of the operator. Needless to day, the person concerned should always hold in their mind that they always speak for their community, and anything that emerges in the social media is hard to remove. 

Planning - If a parish is to engage in social media, it would make all sorts of sense to have the agreement of the parish council (or its equivalent). To do something positive and new can be a risk-laden proposition and it is easy for the operator to be left high-and-dry if any problems arise later. The organisation as a whole should take ownership of the initiative, even if at the hands of one or two specific individuals (operators). They should also be familiar with the output as a matter of course. 

Planning 2 - Boundary setting is very important. What is off-limits to the wider world? What is the core message? How does the community preserve the operator? What happens if things go wrong? Do you discuss services or acts of worship? Do you comment on sermons or talks? What about images? Recordings and audio capture? How is orthodoxy maintained?These are all clear decisions that need to be made and probably a myriad more. 

Accountability - who is accountable - The operator? The council or leadership team? Someone needs to be, after all. If accountability is given, can it be taken back later? Who hold passwords and where? With accountability comes responsibility and the same questions need to be settled.

Document - to my mind, a document stating who does what and under what terms, on what media forum and to what purpose - all need to be documented. I would go so far as to state that they need to be filed with official papers like Minutes and votes taken. They are all layers of protection either for the operator or the organisation. 

Review - the leadership team/council should review the output in conjunction with the appointed operator, and on a regular basis. When someone speaks on their behalf in front of possibly millions of people (in the case of Twitter and blogs), the community needs to be aware of the essence of that commentary and respond accordingly. 

If there are substantial doubts - then don't do it until those doubts are assuaged or gone. Engines such as Facebook has caused concerns for many people, regarding secrecy and the dissemination of information to third parties. Because things cannot be unsaid or easily un-published, it is better to be positive about such a venture before launching forth on it, rather than stepping tentatively into a perceived minefield. One is a pleasure, the other a constant source of stress. 

These are my own thoughts. There is nothing to stop anyone doing anything, but 'in whose name' makes a considerable difference. In simple terms, the greater number of people who are involved in the evolution of such a development the better - given that in the early days, its outworking is in the hands of a small minority. 

Lastly, let social media not become the first word and the last. There are always people in our communities for whom this activity is exclusive and into which they could ever venture. Make social media but one means of communicating with the wider world, and certainly never at the expense of inter-personal or tangible means which grant access to all. 

Facebook and Google+

Once it was Imhotep and Brendan Fraser. Once, it was Ali G and Michael Gambon. Once, it was Lesley and The Welsh Bishop. Now we have a new Head-to-head of global proportions:

Facebook v. Google+

In simple terms, if you are simple, Google+ is like Facebook, only not Facebook because only Facebook is like Facebook and Google+ like Google+. That said, there are striking similarities between Facebook and Google+ which would give rise to you thinking that Facebook was Google+ and that Google+ was in fact Facebook. Once, the market was monopolised by Facebook, but now it sees a mighty challenger - Google+

Get it? Good. 

Some of you may be wondering what the fuss is all about, that surely 'Google' is Ancient Patagonian for Yahweh, hence its presence in just about everything - but no, Google+ is yet another facet in the social meejya scrum which will now mean that I have even less time for my neglected wife and children. I already need two hands to count fellow bloggists who, this day, have frittered a whole day on getting to know the new technological toy. I have dabbled as I lunched, I admit. So far, it feels a little like the same pub but with a new name over the door. Same beer, same seats, same Jukebox - except you can yap to your mates on webcam love-ins and share You Tube clips. And why wouldn't you? 

It's all jolly, and a bit of fun. The serious side of my frontal lobe does worry that this is yet another step in the Googlisation of Plant Earth which to the ether-world is like the Tescofication of all shops here in Britain. There are many criticisms of Facebook as there are with any successful venture, but I wonder if the world needed a replacement held in the hands of The Great Artificer. We will see. 

I now know, though, in absolutely clear and informed terms, what will save the Church of England from itself ...

...Google. The Church of England must be about the only institution that Google neither owns nor emulates (though Google+ is nearly +Google of the Internet). It is only a matter of time, mark my words

http://gplus.to/FrDavidCloake by the way

Social Media and The Church - A Critique

Hold on a moment Cloakey; what's this? Aren't you an author of the case in favour?

People in my position (which is to say a public minister of religion with a care to express a view to a wider audience) should always know where the failings are with those things that they would otherwise gladly extol. I will always write warmly about social media, especially blogging - but I would be acting in an imbalanced way if I were not to devote some time and effort reflecting on the weaknesses that exist within it, of which there are many. I don't think that there is a more effective way of undermining my own position than to ignore its pitfalls. I believe, too, that I have a basic duty to balance. 

I spoke in a recent post about how social media can work for a church, and how a gulf is broadening between those who are conversant with all of this, and those who are not. To be sure, social media is of profound value in attracting people to our doors and to the Gospel. Of that there is less and less doubt. Attracting people to the doors of our churches only deals with one section of our society however, and is in danger of ignoring that other section - the ones already within them. 

Accessibility - social media attracts and enters many people's lives in the space and time where they are. However, it is also as true to say that social media is a considerable obstacle to the majority of practicing Christians. If everyone reading this now thought honestly about the parish community of which they are part (if they are part), they would not perceive a population well blessed with the gadgets of our age or their means of communicating. Statistically, ours is a community of those of advanced years on average and of that number only single numbers of percents of them would, for example, have a Facebook account, let alone be able to do something with it. What is normal for our 'average' Christians (please forgive the term) are books, penned letters and telephone calls. How so many people can communicate meaningfully in 140 characters or less, Twitter-style, is a mystery to most of humankind, let alone my parish nonagenarians. In our quest to further the cause of social media, we need to be absolutely clear who is included and who is excluded by this development.

Infection - An important thing in my own missiological thinking, it is something with which we need to exercise care. Taking bloggers as an example, and as I have said before, among its joys are the freedom to write ones thoughts, engage in dialogue, and to learn new things through the widely acknowledged 'community' of blogging. That is great in the good times, but perilous in the bad. Blogs have, for many, a kind of mystique which is neither earned nor warranted. That it is written means that it must be true - or so some think. The danger is, that any whacko can write a blog (you are reading the words of one such person now). I am free, in absolute terms, to peddle any twaddle I like - dodgy notions, ropey theology, skewed personal prejudices, plain simple heresies. That I would do so wearing a dog-collar means that some could, and would, be seduced by my words. I see it in other places. Collusion in the blogger-reader-commenter relationship is considerable and in my opinion, dangerous. Infection is great when it the right virus that gets passed on. Social media at its least potent is a happy process of leaning on doors that are already ajar; preaching to the converted. 

Potential for harm - fortunately, in most civilised societies, it is still not acceptable to insult people to their faces simply for having a view different to our own. Name calling is still mostly found on the asphalt of school playgrounds. Invective is typically moderated by being in polite company who can challenge and moderate a good old rant. Except for social media. The playground for the passive-aggressive, the front-row seat for the name caller and the soap-box for the ranter - social media provides the 'behind the glass' phenomenon that allows civilised people to regress to a reduced base place! Only since I have ventured into the world of social media have I been insulted so aggressively, been called names that would shock most people, and witnessed the aggrandising withering of the perpetual victim (none of which would have ever happened had I been standing there with them, all 6' of me). This stuff I can handle. I know people who have also been subject to this stuff who could not, and were hurt by it. Social media allows a freedom that can promote growth and the best of encounters, but is also a gladiator's pit where the lions will, and do, bite hard. 

Community - Church is, and the Body of Christ is - community. Community, until the last two or three years, has been made up of people talking to and with other people, in proximity. Social media allows people at the opposite ends of the world to converse in real-time, and that is where it is at its best - but also friends and even married couples who have begun to rely on social media perhaps more than a chat over breakfast. I can, if I so chose, communicate with an entire world of people over an entire day - without speaking a word or moving from my seat. I have long been a supporter of 'e-churches' and was associated with i-church in its early days - yet I wondered how such a disparate gathering of eclectic folk (all wonderful, some still firm friends) could be regarded as community. It had a sense of the diaspora about it, yes, but also the feeling of a hidy-hole for the disaffected. Anything that stops people being in physical proximity with other people has the potential to erode communities if left unchecked. As a means of communicating with real-people, social media is priceless, but it needs to have a heart to galvanise people in the temporal arena too. In other words, social media should be a means, never the end. 

These are just some thoughts that, in the spirit of honestly and transparency, I express here. These thoughts have always been there and so you may be reassured that I am not having a change of heart. However, we are in the early days of social media, so it remains deliciously edgy and experimental at times. That is fine, until we use it as a potent tool among those who don't understand it. 

Technology and God

A Liturgical Luddite I may be, but in a wider church context I am the nearest you will find to a techno-geek. I am unusual, as a priest, or indeed as an English Christian, in that I use Twitter, I write a blog and I manage a Facebook page. I know more priests who don't do any of these things than those who do any, let alone all, of them. In the diocese where I minister, I am fortunate that one of our bishops (+Alan, of blogging fame) led the way for Christian bloggers, and was then an early Twit. It made a difference to me about what may be viewed as 'acceptable', and before the example set by Bp Alan, this social media lark would have existed way out of that circle of acceptability in my mind - quite wrongly.

Increasing time is being spent by people interacting with the world around them by way of computer technology. Once, a computer was a Space-Invaders Box or a mainframe in a large building somewhere. Now, we can hold the capacity of those mainframes, hundreds of times multiplied, literally on the tip of our finger. It seems that more and more of the expression of industrialised humanity is to be found through an electronic device of one sort or another. This has to have an impact on all aspects of life, including its spiritual side.

Instinct would lead many Christians to a perceive technology as 'against' God. Technological advance connects people in many ways yet enables that in a profoundly disconnecting way. I can talk (literally or figuratively) to hundreds of people but without leaving the house, if I so chose. This can be viewed favourably or not, though I am now tending towards the positive these days. I am now in touch with a far wider sphere of people than ever before, and people who edify me and improve my life and aid my thinking in many good ways.

I have been musing this for a while now, and with the aid of Twitter and other 'streams of consciousness' have gathered much about the ways that technology and the implicit theologies of our Christian lives are beginning to fuse meaningfully. At a recent gathering called 'Thinking Digital Conference' (not a thing I attended, but followed its Twitter stream, so the next best thing) I saw a great deal about what the possibilities are for that fusion. There will be another gathering, Open Source at Pentecost Festival 2011 that will attend to this very subject. For this blog post, though, a couple of my own thoughts in splendid isolation:

Distinctiveness of Spirituality - A matter that was covered at TDC was, more or less, the possibility of a 'man space' (though not in any religious sense, but it got me thinking). I think that it is possible to talk about distinctiveness of gender spirituality without falling headlong into the debates on ordination and consecration, and to throw the baby out with the bathwater would be sad. The simple fact is, my experience of loving God is rooted entirely and squarely in my own existence as a male of the species. For well over a decade I have felt a very slight need to apologise for being male in the church and whilst I understand why other balances need to made, feel very strongly that our matriarchal church (which it is, at ground level) has left little space for male spirituality. You have Mother's Onion, World Women's Day of Prayer, WATCH - but I cannot name a group purely for men. We just daren't. This is a sad thing, but one that is increasingly superseded by technology where we can 'App' our lives as we wish. Technology allows us such levels of mutual individuality that we can be who we are without impinging on the rights of others to do the same. I love women, women in the church, women running the show if they wish - but I have never once wanted to give up being a man, or to be proud of the spirituality that I have been given. 

Infectiousness of the Gospel - This is very much 'my thing'. I have said here and elsewhere on numerous occasions that Christians are infected with the 'virus' of the Gospel. By any and all means necessary I will communicate that virus as widely as I can, and technology allows that in ways that are still not fully clear. The thing about "mission" that I dislike is how contrived and deliberate it seems to me. It seems, at times, to be exploitative and I don't favour that approach at all. Like a virus, I can no more force a person to become infected of the Gospel that I can of the common cold, with trying among some anti-social behaviours. However, I try to be authentically me (see above for the means), and through blogs, Twitter and Facebook, I seem to attract people to the Gospel without making a specific effort. I yap to all sorts on Twitter under the name @FrDavidCloake, and if I can be normal, fun, humourous, grumpy, angry and all those other things that normal people do under this label, then the world can know that at least this part of the church and its Gospel is not beyond reach in some holy cavern somewhere. 

Accessibility -  A little while ago I wrote an essay on a very narrow little topic that means nothing to almost anyone except me and the essay marker. However, I experimented with technology and its preparation. I had no books on the subject at hand, and I had no real idea what I needed to say, but the internet grants us all such considerable access to every conceivable theology and theologian. I could cite Augustine of Hippo, other Early Fathers in their native languages. I could access any number of versions of the Bible and commentaries (from all centuries) to match them all. I could translate into languages long lost or translate from them. I could find scholarly works that were written mere months ago. I did the essay, and only got brought up for not using physical books. Defence rests, m'lud. I know that millions of Christians (and non) are delving into the internet to edify their seeker experience. Technology allows people to learn and therefore to teach things that until recently were lost in books only to be found in libraries or vicarages. We can teach our children the Gospel in ways I wouldn't have been able to dream of even a decade ago. Beyond this, and through social media specifically, we can discuss our thoughts with spheres of people and indeed experts from all over the world. I have never for a moment thought that God had wanted all his God-stuff to be a privileged secret for the practitioner minority - and now it never will be again.

In general, technology and social media grant many people a 'way in' to theology, praxis, dialogue and even belief and discipleship. That a priest of limited education but of all faith can write words that mean something to people in Angola (this I know to be a fact), then God has a use for me I hadn't even predicted at ordination. This is the tip of a very large iceberg and I would welcome opinion. However, without technology and social media, God's plan for me would never have found life. 

Friends and Friendliness and Colleagues

The term 'friend' has taken on a whole new meaning since the emergence into our world of social meejya, most especially Facebook. If you trawl through my Facebook account, you will note two things: the first is that you will feel sullied, the second that I have many hundreds of 'friends'. 

Pish and pother!

It just ain't true, though if you have arrived on this site from Facebook, you are definitely one of my closest muckers. I just love you, man! The thing is this, 'friend' means something different in some circles than it used to. Nowadays, it can include those we loathe and stalk us through our accounts on the internet (but who we 'accepted' carelessly after wine), those we never got on with at work, family so distant that only a surname connects us, people we passed in the street, and people who visit blogs and other things. There are two levels of 'friend' nowadays - those with whom we have an electronic contact or ...

... people we have actually met, know and like - and who have met, know and like us, like in the olden days. I was at a training course for fledgling school governors recently, and in that room there was a woman who was becoming gusset-rotated about the use of the term 'critical friend' when describing the governor's relationship to their school. She thought it wrong, inappropriate. A right old state she was in. She didn't offer an alternative, to the best of my knowledge (though, that said, after she mentioned it a fourth time I lost the will to live). 

I pondered this, as is my wont, and then filed the thought. It emerged yesterday when I baptised two little lads. It is my custom to acknowledge the godparents and thank them for what they have agreed to do and be. I point out that family is not chosen, but godparents are. The same is true of friends (in the real-world sense of the word). 

In ministry, there is a debate that argues whether a priest/minister should have friends from within their parish communities, or whether that is inappropriate. The alternative is that we are required to be friendly with everyone, but friends with no-one. That is a different post. The concern implicit in that debate is that friends take on an enhanced role in the life of their opposite number. In other words, having a friend at church disadvantages those who are not in that circle. 

To me, friends are chosen. They are chosen after a period of learning between two people. Friends are not only chosen but are there by choice. Equality, mutuality, shared interests and values - they are glue in a friendship. To take the argument about governors a step further, were we to be 'critical colleagues' it would infer a financial bond, a care only bound up in the immediate working environment. The term friend in that context refers, I think, to choice and freely given time. Friends do not count the cost, mostly do things for right and good reasons and have the very best of intentions at heart. 'Colleagues' must add the dimension of the 'needs of the business', are largely called to count the cost and make account, and are there because they should be. All this speaks of motivational factors. 

In real life, I have about 20 friends. They can depend on me and I can depend on them. I trust them and they trust me. If they are critical, they are so that I may end up in a better situation, not to enhance our mutual position. These are just jottings about little semantic touches, but cause me think often about the language that we use. Don't even get me started on 'followers' - I am not your leader. 

Facebook, Twitter and the Church

I have just been caused to consider the appropriateness of the social media in day-to-day church life. In other words, whether it is right or proper for a parish or other church community to have for itself a Twitter account or a Facebook group. My thoughts were as follow (saves me re-typing, for among my many qualities, bone idleness rates highly):

Twitter

In a Midlands diocese, it is now regarded as good practice for curates to Tweet. This and all other things like this speak of marketing, whatever that thing is that you are marketing. Spreading the Good News, perhaps! My own experience is that those who Tweet are only vulnerable from themselves and their own poorly built personal boundaries. I hold an account for my church which I confess I neglect through lack of time, but as fast instant marketing of events and services, nothing rivals it if you use hash tags effectively. With my personal account I have entered into helpful and reciprocal ‘relationships’ with locals, civic community etc. and I know for a fact that one person came to Midnight Mass as a result. ‘Twurch of England’ will then add you to their lists and the scope for spreading the word is limitless, as Christian tweeters often hook up to it fairly quickly. Bp. Alan Wilson  advocates it, and we have used it to good effect between us in the past. See a former post for an example of the good that Twitter can do, in the middle of the many perils! It is a common sense thing, in essence!

Facebook

If it is alright for the Queen ...

Again, the same as above. There is little risk with this, and perhaps less even than typical parish websites as Facebook accounts are administered member-only access Groups. I believe a Facebook account exceeds a parish website for various reasons, partly because of the ability to more freely use imagery as it is restricted access, but also because access and privacy settings can be controlled. Another good marketing tool, especially if anyone in the community blogs – Twitter and Facebook bring more readers to my blog than any other source.

In general, what you are facing are the preconceived ideas of those who are fearful. I face them too, but they are issues I manage to work around easily enough. Most of our older generation do not understand the way that websites work, let alone 140 character exchanges! ... 

The age that we are in demands a higher level of communication if churches are to remain present in the flow of life as lived out electronically by the world at large. I have never had a bad experience Tweeting, blogging or anything else [as it relates to my church life] (though I have yet to enter into a Facebook group – we have a website that takes enough time at the moment)....

These are hastily drawn together thoughts, but address an issue that is perhaps gaining momentum in the present age. I'd value some comments, partly for the person who made the enquiry in the first place, but also for the edification of others perhaps later! 

Am I getting old?

I was looking for an image for an entirely different thought, and discovered this (the site is a scream, do visit it) - and it tapped into a latent grump that I harbour about the world today. 

I open up Facebook from time to time (well, in times when I want to see an entire week of useful time absorbed) and I glance down the Updates. There seem to be specific brands of Status Updates:

• Smug mode (aka 'look at me, look at me')
• Something 'bleeding heart' that I have cut and paste from another, so I can show that I care (aka 'if you want a kitten to live, put this crock of giblets on your page to show you care')
• What I am meant to be doing instead of typing this Update (aka 'I am meant to be ....)
• My last bowel movement / cuppa drunk / shape of the last cloud to pass my window (aka pointless drivel)

• Wit (aka lack of wit, no-one gets it, only you, only you get your own joke, plum!)*

This picture sums up what seems to be a need in so many of us (and I am not ignoring the fact that a Blog is the biggest most grandiose form of Status Updating). So, as a loving Priest, I offer the following pastoral advice:

• If you are that busy, log off of Facebook - your life will not end if you do, it really won't.
• Finish what you are doing before you tell us - we don't  want to know what you might achieve, but rather what you did achieve. ['David Cloake is ... a proud Dad' is so much more savoury than the alternative if we take the model to which I refer] (this is an example, no pregnancies here)
• Yes, we all know that you know what we don't know - so stop telling us what you know, so that we too may know - we don't want to know what you know, and you know it. 
• Kittens will not die if you fail to cut and paste some tosh onto your Status, so get a grip and stop it. 
• Yes, we know you are working towards your PhD in something that no-one has hitherto heard of - you mention it EVERY DAY

Enough said?

* 'Wit aka lack of wit' - scans nicely doesn't it. Like a disco song ....