The wonder of search engines...

One of the great things about typepad is it allows you to check out the entry site of people who have visitted headwayyouth.blogs.com. Over recent days i've been getting a lot of visitors via search engines, last night someone typed in 'tallskinnykiwi' and found me, last week i got loads of hits because of 'emerging church' and most bizarrely of all yesterday someone typed 'inerracy' in a search engine and was directed here... how bizarre?

My Pocket PC is truly battered and looks nothing like the one to the left anymore (new one arrives tonight hopefully!!) which means i'm unlikely to get hold of my notes from last night... on e thing i do remember is the analogies that andrew made about emerging culture. I have to admit i was a bit dubious about some of them, in particular he talked about reimburcement vs. reputation and that emerging culture is more interested in reputation, whereas previously there has been a focus on reimburcement.

One example of this that Andrew gave was cyberspace where there is a quest to get a better rating with Google and you do so by getting more hits and spreading your web by linking to others.

This imagery was then applied to the emerging church and Andrew talked about its giving nature but i have difficulties with that because that andrew had previosuly made suggested that we give with a belief that there will be some benefit to our reputation: I link to Barky's wonderful blog because i know he'll give me a plug in return, I mention that I saw Joe Bloggs last night because then people might think more of me, I am part of this community because it's cool and i want to be cool...

Zoe read a book ealier this year, which i'm sure she will comment on called the Selfish Gene. As far as i could understand, which isn't very far at all, the central theme of the book was the selfish motivation which leads to selfish activity in all organisms. I have really difficulty relating that psychology and Andrew's illustration to my theology of worship; having been very much blessed by the charismatic movement I have now come to the understanding that aim of my conduct and especially my worship should not improve my Google  rating or my reputation but to honour the big guy. Any secondary benefit must be disregarded otherwise what was a holy act becomes kinda earthly. I recognise that that is difficult, because if zoe's book is correct it's our nature to look after ourselves and want to build our reputation, but that is what we're called to, especially in the emerging church. The ego must be cast aside authentic selfless worship must be the goal... the only goal

anyone who was there, please correct me where i've grabbed completely the wrong end of the stick, anyone who wasn't feel free to chip in also!

Comments

[Ben]

I'm not so sure that it is selfish.
Yes, our worship and life is "to the audience of one" as it were but I think Andrew was talking more about the way we communicate with others.

In a commerce society the main way connections are made is through buying and selling. When the Europeans arrived in the new world they started links (that led to control) through trade with the indegenous peoples. In the mondern/contemporary church we often do the same. Our the sermon, music or whatever is for sale at the shop.

Andrew's point was (I think) that much of the new media world is based on gift rather than commerce. Certainly this is how share-ware and open source software operates. Google honours those who give cool stuff because their reputation grows.

This is selfish if reputation and status are the end, but in many gift societies they aret. As status grows it enables us to give more gifts, to be more generous. The gift relationship is more messy than the trade one, we don't neccacerily see an immediate return for our efforts, but I wonder if, in the long run, it will draw us into deeper levels of engagement than a commerce model.

Sorry Phil, long comment.

[Wolfie]

Hi I've just come accross this site by pure chance but happen to be studying biology and reading the selfish gene. The important part in understanding the selfish gene is that it is our basic nature to be selfish because our genes wish to preserve themselves. This does not mean by any means that we should allow ourselves to be consciously selfish! Hope I've been some help! if not the book is a good read and explains it a lot better, even if it does rquire some attention to the details.