• noun (pl. communities) 1 a group of people living together in one place. 2 (the community) the people of an area or country considered collectively; society. 3 a group of people with a common religion, race, or profession: the scientific community. 4 the holding of certain attitudes and interests in common. 5 a group of interdependent plants or animals growing or living together or occupying a specified habitat.

— ORIGIN Old French comunete, from Latin communis ‘common’.

I think that all 5 of these definitions of community can be useful for informing this discussion. Also informing my side of the discussion are chapter sin the following 3 books:
Postmodern Youth Ministry; Tony Jones
eMinistry; Andrew Carega
rewired; Peggy Kendall
To make things easy, i’ll take each chapter in turn, starting with rewired:
basically, in her section on virtual community, Peggy talks specifically about online community and the issues it raises, there seems to be no discussion or questioning of the presence of online community. her focus is on the lack of ‘responsilbe’ adults within teenage online communities, which could and does then lead to a lack of adult accountability amongst teenagers. no credit is given to peer accountability on the teenagers part, she seems quite resigned to the idea that without adult supervision and authority all teenagers will resort to swearing and sexual innuendo. An idea that may have some basis in reality, but I don’t think is a fair judgement on all teenagers. not that I’m supporting mono-generational communities!

What about Carega?
Carega also seems to go with the assumption that communities do exist online, then spends his chapter wondering why? He asks why more and more people are seeking to experience online community. What does it offer that people aren’t finding in ‘real life’ is his main question. He also spends some time acknowledging and thinking about those that argue point blank against the viability of online community. But ends up concluding that their definition of community is all about geography and physicality. Perhaps they are right? Who’s to say that community can only have one definition?

So what about Jones? i like jones approach, because he isn’t approaching the idea of community from a purely online context he isn’t hampered by what examples and inspirations he can call on. He doesn’t have to trawl the web for examples of online community that works, he just has to call on his and his peers experiences of good and bad community. He talks about community being a place of support and relationship, Jones is more concerned with community being authentic and honest than where it happens and what group of people are involved.

Obviously the 3 ‘reviews’ above are not extensive about the relevant chapters, for a fuller picture of what each says I would recomend looking up the book, i just wanted to give you and idea of what I’ve been reading while pndering this question. As I write this blog, I’ve asked my twitter buddies if the think community can exist online, If there are any responses before I finish this post, I’ll include them at the bottom. if you use twitter and want to follow me search for Chris_Hoskins

what about me? This is my blog, what do i think?
Bascially: yes, I do believe community can exist online. i don’t believe it will be as mutually beneficial as community which exists in the physical locale, but I still belive it can exist. All we need to do is respond to the notion of online community with a re-evaluated notion of what community is and can be. If we revisit the oxford english definitions again; 3/5 definitions rely on locale. 2/5 rely only on holding an attitude/belief/interest in common. And I’m quite happy to hold belief in all 5 definitions of community and accept that no community is likely to ever fit all 5.

I’ve found over the last 3 years that it is those whom I converse with online rather than in person that I’ve found to be most supportive in hard times. Does this count as community? Apart from my wife, most of the people I would consider my closest friends live at least 60 miles away from me, some even on a seperate continent. Yet I would still consider them to be part of my community, why shouldn’t I? how could i recieve support from and give support to my friends in Canada, none of whom I’ve had any physical interaction with for 5 years, and not consider myself in some sort of community with them?
Another case in point would be #twurch. A twitter ‘community’ that I was intorduced to through Stewart Cutler twurch is basically a group on twitter who both twitter and are Christian. I’ll include a twitter quote at this point, from tobite, a fellow twitterer who I’ve started talking to through twurch. He answered this to my twitter question: tobite @Chris_Hoskins yes – #twurch being a good example of this. I have met new people and am forming new bonds and friendships

I’ve just recieved a corker of a tweet from headphonaught, another twurch friend, he says:  headphonaught@Chris_Hoskins community isn’t a physical thing anymore. its a collective ideal. its the sharing of & participating in something beyond us
I love that notion of community. Even more so now that it supports what i said earlier about changing our definition of community in light of new experiences and revelations. It’s also, i think, a pretty good definition of church, no?

I hope this is all fitting together and making sense, I’ve not planned it, just sat down and let it come out!I wasn’t looking to write an academic text, just letting some stuff out of my head!

I think I’ll finish there for the time being, please comment and add to this discussion, i may come back and add more at somepoint.

Peace out

Chris

ps: this post is also available at missional tribe and SYMN

I’m expecting Israel to be awesome. I have no doubts it’ll be a life changing experience. But you’ll plenty about that once I get back!

Got a few things I want to get off ma chest before i head off to Israel on Thursday. Firslty, the observant amongst you will notice the wee RSS feed at the side of this post. This is a link to my new blog , no, I’m not discontinuing this blog. My new blog is dedicated to blogging about ministry, youth ministry in particular. It’ll still come up here, but I’d rather have space dedicated to it rather than have my ministry musings mixed up in amongst everything else. Even though thats the natural state from where they come, it helps me to keep them “clear” of my other muddles.

The second thing is an apology to many of you! Since Linda and I came to Aberdeen we’ve struggled to meet and connect with others our age, maybe even others in general. Linda’s very close to her family and I was very close to many friends. all of whom are in the central belt. this has le to us feeling a wee bit lonely and sorry for ourselves at times. My way of dealing with this has been to bury myself away and as a result i’ve been quite pants at keeping in touch! i’m only realising recently that this has been my reaction. So my profuse apologies to anyone I’ve lessened contact with, it’s really nothing personal, I just haven’t dealt with things the best I could have! I aim to change that now I’ve realised my reactions though!

I’m currently researching my next essay for uni. It’s based around the theme of “groups” or more specifically. “How can blogging and social networking technology such as facebook and twitter aid groups of youth minstry practitioners build a sharing and support network”. i’m quite excited about it, should be fun to research and write!

I took some of the Portlethen Youth group to Souled Out tonight. Was an awesome event. Origin were leading the praise, a mixture of new and old, all with their own individual twist to them. The young folks weren’t crazy about the speakers (a timing issue, not a content one). But they loved the music style. they all said i can quote them as saying that they would much rather that style on a sunday morning!

Reckoned I’ve rambled enough for just now, i’m sure i’ll be back on before thursday though!

Peace Out

Chris