By Peter Biggs

Read part 1 of this 3 part series.

The spread of the gospel in the first century was greatly enhanced by the stable, safe and well designed infrastructure that the Roman dominated world enjoyed, referred to as the Pax Romana of its time. The internet despite having a dark, indeed sinful side is a new infrastructure that can carry information, indeed two way communication, in ways unimaginable only a few decades ago.

According to Internet World Stats, with a current world population of around 6.676 billion, nearly 1.5 billion people, (or 21.9 percent) are using the internet. In North America this rises to 73.6 percent of the the population or around 248 million. According to a 2007 report a remarkable 94 percent of Canadian teens have internet in their home. While exact numbers are unavailable it is clear that the vast majority of church members are linked to the internet.

One way communication?

Most churches now have web sites, however although useful in many ways, with the exception of information about service times, staff, history etc along with occasional sermon audio feeds, they are little more than digital billboards.

What is absent in the church is very present in secular media. News and current affairs media outlets invest significant time and energy to elicit FEEDBACK.

"Call out talk back number, we want to hear from you, either email us, phone us or send us a letter." Rex Murphy spends Sunday afternoons on CBC radio one simply receiving people's feedback on issues. I imagine the callers are closely vetted to avoid abuse but people want and need to be heard. Media is moving to be two way. (See our 'Comments' under all articles)

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Kevin Schut - Assistant Professor - Trinity Western University Department of Communications (Media Studies) comments, "In the church I feel like we want to control communication and specifically control interpretation. This is not entirely wrong, it is right to guide people, and guard people from error, but at a certain point there is a degree in which we stop respecting listeners or readers, by not hearing their point of view."

Guests of the hugely popular Alpha Course are encouraged to share thoughts, questions, ideas or any opinion without censure. Alpha Canada National Director Sally Start shares what she believes is one the secrets of its success.

"One of the biggest challenges in Alpha is to train course leaders to not immediately correct and censure people, which has the effect of closing them down." She recalled a Prison Alpha course participant movingly declaring. "Wow, this is the first time in my life anyone has been interested in what I think."

Schut believes the church is actually still deeply rooted in a post reformation, pre 1920s print culture. "Print culture favors the notion of controlling the message, a lot of Christians are afraid of what happens when you open up communication to a dialog of equals." he said. "The church in some ways is now two steps back," as print being the way of thinking and delivering information was replaced by first radio and then TV in the first half of the 20th century. The church with notable exceptions (TV evangelists) was largely unaffected by this new form of information delivery.

In our next section we will examine web users changing expectations, and various "two way" tools available.

December 11/2008