Here at HCB, we like to talk about community. We value it. And we encourage our bloggers to cultivate it— not just to bring more traffic to their blogs (which it will) but to lend a central Christian experience to the blogosphere, inasmuch as we can have community over signals and wires.
Several keys to developing a strong community are (and I’m paraphrasing Scott Peck here)…
1. cultivating spaces for silence
2. sharing story
3. celebrating through liturgy and song
4. guiding people back into their own lives
As a group, we might consider how to nurture these possibilities. For instance, our bloggers like Ann Voskamp, who write without comments, provide silent spaces.
Others, like The Unknown Contributor and Billy Coffey tell a great story, which encourages us to respond with our own stories.
Resident poets like Laure and Joelle provide a form of song through their verse.
Commenters like Erin who recently recommended how I could save my memories help lead us out of the larger arena and back into our own lives.
When reading Celebration: The Book of Jewish Festivals this weekend, I noticed several other key elements to community-building, only two of which I’ll mention now:
1. sharing beauty
2. eliciting joy
I love how bloggers like Rebekah share beauty through photography. And then there’s the opportunity to facilitate joy through blogosphere play, as in The Great Poem Caper writing project going on right now at Seedlings in Stone. (Please stop by and consider joining, even if you don’t call yourself a poet.)
Community— this “together road” we travel. Where have you seen it cultivated most powerfully in the blogosphere, especially among HCB’ers? Do you have any other key elements you think are important for creating a strong community? What barriers to community do we face at a place like HCB?
Tell me, as we walk this Together Road.
[UPDATE: As I was closing up shop for the night, tidying, daydreaming, I thought of a prayer to offer in light of all this. It's called Harvest Song.]
Together Road photo by Rebekah Wagner. Used with permission. “Together Road” was written by L.L. Barkat.
{ 23 comments… read them below or add one }
I love the HCB community… feels like family : ) Wonderful blessing to me.
Lorrie, thanks for the kind words.
There’s a lot of talk about online communities these days, but so much of it is coming from marketers and media types.
Not that companies and brands can’t explore what it means to engage a particular community, but I’m skeptical of communities built around consumer values.
I’d like to think we have bigger values here–helping each other glorify God in our daily life and work.
You are too kind, L.L.
I feel as though I’ve truly found an online “home” here. So many wonderful people, and so many inspiring words.
Just what the world needs more of, I think.
Thank you Laura! I am so thankful to be a part of this community. I had no idea that blogging would be the amazing blessing that it has become in my life. I am growing much because of it. I agree with Lorrie; it does feel like family!
Lorrie, so glad you feel this way. iI’s interesting you use the term “family.” I wonder how HCB might resemble and not resemble an actual family (beyond biology of course : ).
Marcus, really? Marketers talking about community? Not consumer groups? I wonder what that’s about. And does the focal point of a community determine whether it is actually a community? (Just thinking out loud here.)
Billy… well, you do tell a great story!
Regarding marketing…
I read a study called the “2008 Tribalization of Business Study” on “how to achieve transformational change through communities and social networks.” Sounds right up our alley, huh?
It’s a survey of 140 companies who use online communities to generate word of mouth, increase customer loyalty, and bring in new ideas.
These marketers are talking about community because they hope it will increase sales–and maybe help them serve the customer better.
Rebekah, and I know I’ve enjoyed meeting you and being blessed by the beauty you bring to the blogosphere.
Marcus, that is really interesting. I like the rhetorical question in your second paragraph: it does sound fitting… and yet, right? So they use the pre-existing communities, I take it. I wonder if the communities feel used or if they welcome this kind of activity. And is it wrong to offer something to a community that might actually benefit the community? (We are back to some of the kinds of concerns you raise from time to time over on Goodword.)
I personally believe the greatest key to community is to pay attention and learn how God who is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are one living in Community.
One of the greatest studies one can make in scripture is that of studying the community within God.
Community itself is therefore birthed from the divine nature of the 3 in 1.
Thomas, that’s a wonderful point. If you had to give three key markers of community (and you don’t, and I realize that is formulaic sounding, but…) what might they be? Do you see any overlap between your key markers and the six aspects mentioned here?
I have to agree that Bloggin has become an unexected blessing as Community in and of itself – It’s funny how the blogging community thing totally surprised me. I didn’t expect it to be so…. real. As I said to someone recently: it’s weird, but real.
So happy to be part of what I consider to be a real vital community of diverse Christians, real friends, who are real people, even though we’ve not yet met.
One thing that strikes me as a community builder is a shared trial or tragedy.
This is probably a little harder to grab a hold of in the blogosphere, but I have seen it on occasion. Things shift from telling jokes or playing word games, philosophizing about life or reviewing books (all great things, edifying things) to the nuts and bolts of what it means to be human and seek meaning in this life.
Once a tragedy strikes, the jokes stop. The movie critiques get put on the shelf. We quit talking about the best restaurants, commenting on politics or the funny things our kids say.
Communally we apply the brakes, gather around one another and say, “I am sorry for your pain. Life can stink sometimes. May I hold your hand?”
Though human nature seeks to avoid pain, and I’m not brave enough to recommend a change in that perspective, I’ve seen few things that bind a community together faster and tighter than nursing each other’s wounds.
erin … you are speaking to my heart, girl! i have come along side those who are living with ouch and share it here in blogland. there is nothing that makes me lean in closer to another than one who is brave and transparent with their humanity and lives to bear witness to it. for me, the body of the beloved is never so glorious as when its members weep with those who weep and rejoice with those who rejoice. when pain and suffering cause sheep to scatter, my heart breaks.
Since I was asked I will give at least three markers/characteristics of community. However they will not be formulaic, because regardless how much authors of “Christian” books, seminar speakers, and religious leaders try to convince people their is there is simply no formula for genuine relationship with anyone and after all what is a community, but a network of relationships.
Now what I am going to give is the greatest characteristics of the community of the Godhead as I believe the community of those who are in Christ should be re-presentation on earth of the devine As I understand them I will attempt to give them in order of importance necessity.
1. The members of the divine community is equal to the other.
2. Each prefers the others above themselves.
3. No one of them has authority over the others and because each prefers the others above themselves they do not have the desire of feel the need to do so. Therefore their is no hierarchy in the Godhead.
4. They have a unity of purpose: that purpose is for the Son to be preeminent in all things and for all things to be summed up in him.
5. Every member has a role and is equally important.
Bradley, Erin, Laure, Thomas, I am just listening to your words. Thank you.
Also, today, I am reading about the place of ceremony in community life and I find myself questioning how a virtual community can provide the aspect of gesture. For, “Ceremonies will use gesture and movement: processions, recessions, comings and goings, dance, hugs, kisses, handshakes, joined hands, clapping, plantings, harvestings, offertories, receivings, denials, blessings, burials, tears, laughter.” (Gertrud Nelson)
Is there any way to do this in a virtual world? I sincerely wonder.
LL,
THAT is an excellent question.
I’m thinking about how to articulate my feeling on that very same thing.
It’s a love-hate relationship with technology and me.
“Gesture” implies physical, visible, tangible, bodily movement toward, away or through something. Can the virtual world deliver?
Blogs like these help me. I don’t get to read every day, but I get to read a couple times a week and it just is so warming to my soul.
Erin, gesture is definitely physical, particularly as it relates to the act of celebration that draws a community together. I’m thinking that the techno-world can’t deliver on this count. Or, only to the extent that it eventually brings people together where gesture can be acted out. (Like when I met Ann Kroeker at Calvin and Charity too, and we were within reach of one another. Or like when I almost met this woman who had tomatoes in the back of her car for me. ; – )
Other challenges are the inability to incorporate three-dimensional objects/artifacts, fragrances, physical space/architecture, and food. These elements are also usually part of successful celebrations (and celebrations are part of successful community building.) I wonder what our techno-substitutes are, if any?
Frank, glad you feel helped. Reading one another’s stories is definitely part of community building.
Seems like technology serves us well as a “matching and screening” service for relationships. (I don’t want to compare it to a dating service, but nothing else comes to mind right now.)
I can choose which communities I want to be a part of, I can seek out folks who have the same world view as myself (or a different one if I’m looking for a tempering, broadening perspective). I can read and interact with other acquaintances while still maintaining a “safe” boundary behind our respective monitors.
Somewhere along the way, something clicks and a very small few of the blogging relationships I enjoy push me over the edge of techno-fellowship and into the realm of gesture. I want to pursue deeper knowing with someone. To send them a gift or card in the mail- in my own handwriting. I desire to hop in the car and drive to meet them. Or I buy a plane ticket expressly to visit them. Maybe we make plans to meet up at a mutually decided location.
Then we turn a relational corner and involvegesturein our community. Sometimes I even want to give someone tomatoes.
I’ve seen a couple of websites that try to overcome the want of 3-D/sensory elements in developing a community… they were interesting websites to peruse and pretty cool from a technological aspect, but in the end there’s just no substitute for the real deal.
“Welcome to the virtual prayer labyrinth. Drop a virtual pebble in the virtual stream and watch the virtual ripples widen as you listen to the virtual running water sounds. Pray to release all your cares as you do this.” (But my cares and prayers are not virtual cares and prayers. Perhaps it’s the naturalist in me, but I’d derive much more meaning performing the same actions with real pebbles and real streams, beneath real trees and real sunlight.)
SoulPerSuit, being the highly sensory project that it is, wrestles with this issue constantly. We do what we can with the limitations inherent to the technology, but in the end we really just cannot substitute for flesh-and-blood fellowship.
Which is why the God of the universe became Emmanuel.
Erin, you make me laugh as usual (I believe THAT is a spiritual gift ; – ) . But really, the whole virtual pebble thing the way you describe it not only makes me laugh but serves to make the point. There is a place we simply cannot go without going there in physical time and space, taking our senses with us.
Someday… tomatoes, eh friend?
Can’t you just see the incarnation described that way? A gardener-God come bearing a bushel of Big Reds, bread and mayonnaise in his backpack, a cutting board and serrated knife and a laugh and a hug.
Some of the best gestures of community in the blogosphere are the expressions of a genuine desire to engage – to encourage, to spur on…to question, to seek clarity. For me, some of the great encouragement i receive from highcalling and other members of my intellectual and spiritual community are when they have reached out to me – to engage, to comment, to cajole!
Thanks for the inspiring post!
Anna, I like the three aspects of community you seamlessly present: interaction, communication, celebration… on both the mind and the spirit levels. Body seems to be the missing piece on-line, as Erin and I were discussing. Do you find this troubling in any way? Curious.
L.L, I think we do have to consider the boundaries of the medium – you may not have physical, side by side, presence – but the body exists in its engagement with the mind, and spirit….that you can be involved in a real time chat or voice over internet (especially using video) is as close to body as you can get without being in the same location. In fact, sometimes i think we think we are present when we are int he same room as someone when actually our minds and hearts are not really focused on being in the moment. Maybe we should think about intergrating more realtime engagement into our blogging lives?
Yet at the same time our online identities need to mesh with who we are the rest of the time – I often call friends (or ask them when i see them), to check in with them following things I have read online, I like the community writing projects, but sometimes those don’t fit within the scope of my blog. I think developing a sense of physical community can also take place in the midst of (not that i have had a chance to go yet…) things like GodBlogcon or Band of Bloggers events…
I like the community writing projects, but sometimes those don’t fit within the scope of my blog.
i’d actually like to think about the latter a little more. I don’t want to add another conference to my schedule or anyone else’s, but how would it works for the HCB community to get together physically in a retreat environment – to think critically about what we write and how we write, and to actually write alongside each other for a couple of days….what would that look like?
A.
I’m sorry if the above comment was a little disjointed – Rule no. 1: Proofread before you hit submit! : BROKEN!