★ Internet based spiritual formation

Hey there dear reader –

I'm thinking a lot these days about how social networks and social software can be used for spiritual formation.

If you have a twitter account, I'd love to hear your thoughts on how Twitter could be used for spiritual formation. Some examples:

Would you use twitter to remind you of a Bible reading pattern?
Would you use it to remind you of a prayer topic, or communicate prayer needs?
Would you use twitter to remind you to pray at fixed hours?

If you have a Facebook account, do you use it for spiritual formation?

Would you use Facebook for similar things to the above?
Would you use a Facebook group for prayer support?
Do you have Facebook Apps already which help you in this area?

Do you visit prayer sites like the Northumbria Community's, or Sacred Space, or the Ann Arbor Vineyard's site for Phyllis Tickle's fixed hour prayers?

Do you participate in chat rooms for spiritual formation?

I think you see the theme here.

11 responses to “★ Internet based spiritual formation”

Jeff

December 27, 2008

I don't instinctively think of socnets as tools for personally-focused things like reminders for oneself or reinforcing personal patterns of worship.

Rather, I look at how those communities can benefit some or all of the contributing members. I've already seen examples of this for things like prayer needs – e.g. "Someone we know is in hard times and would appreciate everyone's prayers for…" type of stuff.

But leaving those reactive modes, I can see different types of benefits that come specifically from the presence of a community:

Interpretation of scripture: this has always felt to me like a category of spirituality that benefits from differing opinions and backgrounds. When reading the scripture of one's faith and questioning an interpretation, the community can often be the source of other interpretations, different opinions, or critical feedback.
Topic-specific research. I have a hunch that you're in the thick of this right now, Pat, in your studies. The communities that you form in circles of religious contacts can provide area expertise.
Faith-based support in daily challenges. Seems like when people are trying to rise to meet important life challenges, their faith is one of the principal instruments that they leverage. The community around one in their faith can serve as a backdrop. It's beyond prayer requests, and more in line with peer support through conversation.

Now where things are going to get interesting is when social networks begin to serve to purpose of the classic Catholic confessionals. I may find myself dropping out of some socnet communities if that start to happen! 🙂 Or things might just get really entertaining?!

Jeff

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Jeff

December 27, 2008

Also stating the obvious here: My second bullet about topic-specific research is substantiated by your use of this blog and a comments log for this very query, Pat. If we consider blogs to be microcommunities, you are leveraging one right here for your graduate thesis in some meaningful way.

You know I just enjoy pointing out when I'm right by stating the obvious.

Jeff

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Pat

December 27, 2008

Yep, Jeff! That's why I'm asking the question here and not some random forum 🙂 – and also twitter doesn't allow for deep conversation.

We're definitely in the mode of fact-gathering right now. This may turn into something fruitful for my grad work, or it may just be interesting but not something I can do much with. We'll see!

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Tess

December 28, 2008

This is an interesting question, and like Jeff I don't instinctively think of Twitter and Facebook in this way. But then I'm very new to both.
I have certainly found many fellow bloggers incredibly helpful in terms of the reinterpretation or question of my own assumption both in their comments and in what they write on their own blogs.
I wonder whether media like Digg or (more likely) Stumbleupon might be more relevant than T and F?

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Mattie

December 28, 2008

Social networks seem pretty shallow. We live in a secular world of the internet. Spiritual formation takes a bit of work. Not a few minutes. There has to be an attraction in a relationship. So how can a social network helpt to develop something that is mising in about 40% of the populace? Social networks seem based on entertainment.

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Jeff

December 28, 2008

"Social networks seem based on entertainment."

Social networks are incredibly diverse in their nature, and I wouldn't agree with the generalization that they're based upon entertainment. I have social networks that are topic specific, like technology. While the nature of socnet engagement may be brief, some of the activities endure over longer durations (lots of little interactions can add up to something meaningful if taken in the aggregate.

In today's generations, social networks provide incredible reach to youth and no matter what people's opinions of them are, they ARE the way that a generation is communicating (I include SMS here btw; people do have SMS networks). If a mode of communication IS the way that people are influenced, then it is the way that the populace will find what they are looking for (intentionally not using the word "missing" because I think it's a presumptive term wrt faith).

Jeff

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December 28, 2008

All of these things can be used as tools or venerated as idols. If you want social media to be about entertainment, distraction, and noise or if you just want to see that as its only use, it can be so.

The same folks that love to stare at pins as their whole world and imagine them full of angels, can set up blogs to discuss their one true faith, one true cultural interpretation of that faith ad nausea, and then use their facebooks and twitters to underline their perceived importance in time and space.

Agressive souls can use these things as weapons, firing of their bullets in comments and interrupting other communities with their need for agreement on their own certainties. History shows that these things we have always had with us as a part of human behavior whether they are delivered by email or letters on horseback.

And then their are those who set up things with specific intent. I look at all of the things I am involved with as different circles. Some places are more public where I voice only certain things. Some more lighthearted. Some more intense and have levels of privacy.

As someone with no particular local community, many online communities and resources were vital to the beginnings of my exploration of contemplative concerns and continue to be of great help as I continue on.

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john chandler

December 28, 2008

Pat,
I love me some social networks, and they help me feel connected with many who I might not otherwise be engaged with…you, for instance. But, I hope they can never be seen as a replacement for genuine intimacy that comes through face to face community.

Ultimately, I think online networking can serve to enhance interpersonal connection. I do feel more connected to people who I connect with online, and it makes the times we are face to face more meaningful. Perhaps a good analogy might be Joe Myers levels of relational space from The Search to Belong. Social networks might be seen to occupy the two less intimate spaces…but genunine belonging happens in all of the spaces.

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December 28, 2008

Hmmm, I just realized you may be looking for specific examples of how we use social software?

So:

Blog: to record reflections, bear witness, and previously comments were more drive-by then conversation. Public but not promoted in order to keep things more quiet.

Twitter: around same blog. Public but tend to keep audience to folks I know or others know.

Chat: with specific folks

Email: For more thought out chats. I have met lifelong friends in this way. I have never met some of these friends in person. This often leads to phone calls but I am a better email person than a phone person. Email, more than chat etc. tends to lend itself to slower, long drawn out talks. It seems antiquated to those in a hurry but not everything should be shared immediately and quickly. And, surprise, surprise – a lot of email relationships lead to snail mail if we cannot meet in person. We exchange books and cards and art objects as most people like getting small physical objects in their mailbox.

Online groups/forums: I am part of a closed yahoo group that has sent thousands of messages over several years now. We haven't moved to facebook because not all of us want to surrender our privacy to that format. There's only about a dozen of us and we don't talk every day but we are interested in and supportive of one another. Some of us live in the same cities but are only able to keep these relationships online because of time commitments. Others have visited each other. Two people met and married one another. Other relationships faded. It is specifically an online community, a place where we can write things to each other that we might not be able to elsewhere and it works with this specific set of people in this particular format.

Re: the intent of the above groups started with a discussion on faith and arts with about a hundred people and eventually narrowed to a closed group of under 20 that settled on about half of that still. So I guess intent can be flexible. I've also shut down a handful of groups with short and shorter still life cycles so it's good to know when things have served their purpose.

Also, I know a number of people who are itinerant or overseas workers who have spiritual direction by skype or phone. Soulstream.org is who they use.

Online resources – great for those without access to libraries or local communities. I use pray-as-you-go, Insights for the Ages daily readings from the Rule of Benedict, podcasts from Speaking of Faith or CBC's Tapestry, downloadable classics, etc.

Now that's a Canadian nickel, so waayyy more than my last two cents…

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Carole

December 29, 2008

Hi Pat –

If you use Tweetdeck, you can find many people who gather on Twitter for regular prayer, worship, bible study, religious studies, and announcements for religious gatherings. You can start following them or just check out what they're about. You can also get a greater sampling of answers for your dissertation.

Web 2.0 SN's seem like a safe, easy way for people to communicate quickly and with a large group of like minded people to deepen one's spirituality. I know it is not the same as "in person", however, that is limited by geography, and perhaps your spiritual mentors live further away than a few miles, perhaps even in another country. I just feel that connecting through the internet with intelligent, sensitive seekers is a great way to expand one's conscious connection to God, to people and to gain support in a world where you may feel alone, otherwise.

Great question and I know your dissertation will be cutting edge and fascinating! Blessings.

Carole

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Geektronica

December 29, 2008

Others have offered better thoughts on the use of social networks to interact with others, so I'll limit my comments to Twitter reminders.

For a reminder to be useful, it has to remind you to do something you're already committed to doing. If you set up a bunch of subscriptions or reminders without really deciding to do what they will remind you to do, you're setting yourself up to ignore the reminders, which is very easy to do with electronic communications.

So yes, I would use Twitter for the purposes you suggested, but only if it was something I had committed to anyway.

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pat loughery