cluetrain

The future of Christian (and religious) thought and practice is rapidly moving from orthodoxy to heterodoxy. In the same way that markets for everything from books, to music and movies, to news and opinion (blogging), erupts from mainstream to broad-stream, religious thought and practice will continue to grow increasingly diverse. From hierarchical to network to complexity, our social structures—including those of markets as well as spirituality—are breaking free of their moorings to scatter, emerge, cluster and re-form more to the real world and less to the arbitrary structures designed and defined by the experts and brokers of mass marketing and orthodoxy. Reido's Church Without Walls has a lot in common with Chris Anderson's The Long Tail.

continue reading "Heterodoxy and The Long Tail"

Unless otherwise noted, quotes are taken from Chapter 4 of Cluetrain Manifesto: Markets Are Conversations

As I continue blogging through Cluetrain, I'm struck by the title of the 4th chapter: “Markets Are Conversations.” Well, so are relationships. And if you want a Biblical example of relating people to God in the market place, just check out Paul at Mars Hill or Jesus at Jacob's well. But my point is not that we should be conversing with people in the market place but that we must be conversing – period. Sitting up straight in a pew looking into the the well kempt head in front of us, is not conversation. Conversation is messy. Conversation takes time.

continue reading "The Conversation"

Unless otherwise noted, quotes are taken from Chapter 2 of the cluetrain manifesto

Modernity peaked during the twentieth century. This peak brought maximum centralization and control of communication. Communication had decreasing “co” in it as mass media came to rule the airwaves, wirelines and the post. Although we have 2-way communication by telephone, this marvel of the nineteenth century became a leash allowing anybody to yank anybody anytime they wanted. As for airwaves, even if you do have 500 channels of programming you can't choose when to watch and the programs look increasingly alike because they are developed for – you guessed it – a mass audience. Now the daily postal delivery brings far more unwanted than wanted mail. There's communication everywhere but not a conversation in sight.

continue reading "Longing for Conversation"

I've decided to blog through the clutrain manifesto. Although this book is old by Internet standards (5 years) it's still highly relevant. The main point of the book – rewritten by me to imitate the unofficial slogan of the 1992 Clinton presidential campaign – is: “It's the conversation, stupid.”

Recently, I posted a reworked quote from the introduction to this seminal book to show how its main point about connection and conversation applies not only to business but to church. Now I intend to take that point further.

continue reading "Blogging the cluetrain"

In 1999, Chris Locke, Doc Searls and David Weinberger launched the book, “Cluetrain Manifesto”, that would describe the new internetworked world in which companies (Churches) must now operate but are woefully unprepared to. The introduction on their web page, ClueTrain struck me as very apropos to the similar situation that Christianity now finds itself in but fails to recognize. So I included a quote from their front page and changed the original reading from “company” or “corporation” to “church”, and “employee” to “Christian” or “member” to drive home the point that the new interconnected world changes everything and that few old assumptions about leadership in the church are still valid.

The following is quoted from the Cluetrain Manifesto web site with word substitutions made by me:

continue reading "The Cluetrain for Churches"