The Stretching of Social Space

I had already been up this morning, typing on the computer.  My nine year-old son came out from his bedroom and said "I miss Chris." My son rarely expresses this kind of emotion, feelings reserved for cousins and very special friends. "I know, I miss him too. I thought he was really funny."

Doesn't sound that unusual, but the thing is, my son has never met Chris, at least physically. Chris Sligh was just voted off American Idol. We started watching the show a few weeks into the season this year,and we got hooked. In these past few episodes, my son felt connected to him, relating to him in a special way.

One thing I talk about in my classes is how modernity stretches space. Many many years ago, the space we shared with people always meant the sharing of physical space. Over the few hundred year span of modernity, more and more of our social world dealt with those at a distance from us, either across the town or across the world. Moreover, many of these people with whom we connected we did not even know, in the face-to-face conventional sense.

As Christian leaders, we spend the bulk of our time thinking about serving those with whom we share physical space. However, if physically proximate space is the only sphere in which we think missiologically, we might leave much of our social world untouched and 'secular'. Missional thinking, if it is to recognize that 'the earth is the Lord's' and thereby all realms are candidates for redemption, must increasingly focus on faceless relationships as well as the face-to-face, on American Idol as well as the relationships in the home...

Technorati Tags: American Idol, Chris Sligh, everyday life, Social Space

Comments

[RC of strangeculture]

This is really interesting...I would love to hear you talk more about how this might happen or what this might look like...this is a really curious idea you are talking about, and left wanting more.

I found your sight via my friend jonsampson, but in reading about your sons connection to chris, wanted to let you know that Chris Sligh's blog can be found at the link i've left below, and maybe you and your son can reconnect that way. Mr. Sligh can be found here: http://frommymindtoyoureyes.blogspot.com/

[Patrick]

What is interesting is that the Spirit is not limited by physical space or even our conception of time. Yet because of our limitations we always have been. A letter to a dear friend in need across the world might take months and months not too long ago. Now with skype and email and IM it can be just about free and instantaneous. This is is true in all aspects of mission, both outward and towards maturity.

This has hit me this year as I've gotten more involved at shoutlife.com which is a Christian myspace. It sounds like more of a bubble, but it's fascinating to me how it's serving more as a support network. Everyone has their own sphere of activity that is in many cases only partially church oriented yet that forum allows for a building of friendships and prayer groups and other kinds of inner-Christian support so as to better enable the broader mission.

For instance, the depression group there has about 500 members, many of whom have never found any support within Christian circles, and who are extremely gifted at reaching out to those the Church seems to ignore.

I've also had experiences in helping a woman avoid suicide, by joining with someone from Australia and someone from Tennessee, each of us playing a different role of encouragement and support.

With the shrinking of time and space we are able to grasp onto the work of the Holy Spirit in a more holistic, fluid, wide reaching way than ever before. It's really incredible.

God is doing a work, and he's using technology.

[Ryan]

RC, I've written about this more in an article for missiology this year. I'll try to link to it when it can become public.

Thanks for sharing, Patrick -- that is really cool, I hadn't heard of that...