In this incredible video Professor Philip Zimbardo shows how our relationship to one of the 6 perspectives on time frames our whole lives.
Among the many interesting quotes are this one:
By the time a boy is 21, he has spent at least 10,000 hours alone playing video games alone, probably more watching pornography alone. And you put that together and it means A) They haven't learnt social skills (emotional and social intelligence) B) But also it means that the live in a world that they create.... Their brains are being digitally rewired. Which means that they will never fit in a traditional classroom that is analogue; somebody talks at you without even the nice pictures, meaning IT'S BORING, meaning you control nothing, you sit there passively.... these kids will never fit into that. They have to be in a situation where they are controlling something...
This is a fascinating thought. I found Zimbardo's research on the relationship between one's perspective of time and one's cognitive processes (such as decision making, meaning making, and identity) extremely interesting, and certainly quite plausible in many instances.
Let me know what you think of the video...
By the way, this video is another exceptional example of how to communicate complex ideas in a memorable and useful manner. In my lectures I often help students to understand that textual communication is a very difficult means with which to share ideas - visual stimulation is a far more direct and emotionally engaging means of sharing an idea.
Last week was an incredible week of blessing, encouragement, discovery, friendship, and learning. We had close to 1000 persons at the Cape Town International Convention centre for the Global Day of Prayer 10th Anniversary Celebration conference. The Global Day of Prayer started at Newlands Rugby stadium in Cape Town in 2001 and this Sunday (23 May 2010) was the 10th anniversary of what God has done in and through the Global Day of Prayer.
As Graham Power, the initiator of the prayer movement, says - the Global Day of Prayer is truly a testimony to God's power and grace. No person or committee or organization could ever have put together such a massive prayer movement. In 2009 and again this year in 2010 every single country on earth registered their participation in the Global Day of Prayer on Pentecost Sunday. From the rising of the Sun in Fiji until it set over the Hawaii Islands there were people in cities, towns, rural areas, schools, stadiums, Churches and homes praying together in repentance and prayer. It truly is the largest recorded prayer gathering in history! The conference was as great a blessing as the day of prayer. Our team started working on putting together the venue, speakers and participant care well over a year ago. I was in charge of setting up the program (simply visit the GDOP 2010 website and click on the list of speakers in each of the 5 streams for details of the speakers in the Church, Transformation, Prayer, Missions and Youth streams).
What struck me most significantly was the fact that God is using 'new', 'fresh' and 'emerging' movements and groups to achieve great things across the earth. The them of the conference was 'His Story, His Glory, His Call' and we emphasised that we wanted to hear from the global South and the emerging world. This was indeed the case as speakers and groups from Asia, Latin America, and Africa shared incredible testimonies of what God is doing to redeem both people and places. There were many stories of salvation coming to individuals and groups, as well as many stories of God's justice and mercy bringing healing and tangible transformation to political, social and economic systems throughout the world. It was such an encouragement.
I spoke in three sessions (a plenary and two track sessions). In the Youth / emerging generation plenary I used a quote from Philip Yancey (that comes from Philip Jenkins' great book The Next Christendom: The coming of Global Christianity (Oxford University Press), 2002):
As I travel, I have observed a pattern, a strange historical phenomenon of God “moving” geographically from the Middle East, to Europe to North America to the developing world. My theory is this: God goes where he’s wanted
Now of course this observation is true (I add a few subtle steps). Christianity began in Israel, then shifted to Asia (and North Africa), from Asia it moved to Europe under the rule of Constantine, then from Europe to England, from England to North America, and from North America the 'weight' of global Christianity has shifted to Africa, Asia and Latin America.
But, where is Christianity shifting to next? I my presentation (entitled 'Shift Happens') I made the conjecture that Christianity's next global shift will not be a geographical shift, rather it will be a shift onto the internet. If you were to take the registered users of facebook as a population group, facebook would be the 3rd largest country on earth (behind China and India). It is a simple fact that most of the emerging generation do not posit their primary identity in their geographical or primary cultural context, rather their identity and sense of being is shaped by global interactions through the internet, television, movies and others forms of rich media!
The title of my presentation 'Shift happens' comes from the incredible video below:
The question is: If this shift is so powerful why are there so few ministry groups and Christians doing strategic work on and through the internet? Most of the Christian groups I know use this 'new media' in an 'old media' manner - i.e., as a broadcast mechanism (posting reports, putting up text that does not allow for interaction, using 'long form' posts (such as this one!) instead of the short form posts like twitter's 140 characters...)
I've made a short video reflection on my thoughts in this regard which you can watch below.
The two persons I mention in this video post are @jaesonma and @olgalvaro - check them out. Of course you can also connect with me on twitter @digitaldion.
Also, consider this. Long after the next Lausanne congress has met, hundreds of thousands of people from all across the earth would have interacted around the issues of bringing the whole Gospel to the whole world. And, after the participants in the third Lausanne Congress have left Cape Town, after the World Cup Soccer has come and gone, the conversation will continue! Rather than a 'static' medium (such as a journal with conference papers) the collective wisdom, and immeasurable wealth of international connections and relationships will be the force that sustains and informs evangelism going forward!
Shift is happening - my prayer is that more Christians will get ahead of this shift. This does not mean an abandonment of the 'established' ways of being faithful in worship, service and community. But, we do need to engage people where they are moving to!
The theologian Helmut Thielicke summed it up best when he said:
The Gospel must be constantly forwarded to a new address since its recipient is constantly changing his place of residence.
I'd love to hear your thoughts on this point! Do you think I am missing something?
By the way, I have a more critically researched article on this phenomenon being published in the Lausanne World Pulse in the next month or so. I'll post a link here once it is published. That has both statistical and empirical research as well as clear references.
Have you ever wondered who the biggest twitter users are in South Africa? Who has the most followers, what city has the most twitters posts, and what subjects are most discussed by the South African twitterati!?
I was alerted to a fascinating piece of research by Fuseware yesterday - this would seem to be the first extensive research on the use of social media and twitter in South Africa.
And, you can follow me on twitter here @digitaldion
I'd love to hear how you use twitter - as you may know I have taught numerous classes on the uses of social media for ministry and twitter is a central part of that strategy - particularly if you're trying to communicate some ideas, build a movement, or create a strong community.
Over the last two days I had the joy of attending the Alpha South Africa seminar at Camps Bay United Church.
Today I spoke on the topic 'Forming a Mission shaped Church' at the conference. A number of the people asked me for the powerpoint slides and the video that I used.
The basic line or reasoning that I took was the following.
1. Christianity is shifting from traditional Western Churches (and even in some senses from traditional Western theology) to the South and the East.
2. This shift is both geographical (because of population growth and basic needs such as poverty, health, justice and need), and also theological (from propositions of faith to experiences of faith). Please see the maps and reasoning in my slides. For an explanation of this shift, some projections going forward, and some reasons for this shift, please read Philip Jenkins' great book 'The next Christendom' (you'll see an image of the cover in my slides).
3. The Alpha course is quite well suited to changes in engaging persons with the message of the Gospel since it allows for interaction around the truths (as people engage with the topics, without having to be confronted constantly by 'clear and closed' truths). It also facilitates community and relationships. It is a truly wonderful instrument for the Gospel and the Kingdom of God. I explain how the Church can become more 'missional' by referring to 5 mindset and worldview changes that we shall need to go through in order to engage the world where it is, rather than inviting the world to come to where the Church is.
Here's the video that I used (it highlights how the world is changing, and how we need to find new means with which to communicate and create engagement around the message and person of the Gospel). If you're interested in previous posts that I've made on new media and ministry please see my post here, or please see this post and the video on new media here.
Finally, I would encourage you to consider this great promotional video for the Alpha course (done by Bear Grylls - the ultimate 'survival' expert!)
Have you ever run Alpha in your Church, business, or been part of Alpha in a prison setting? I'd love to hear your feedback! Thanks to all those who prepared the Alpha Conference. You can find out about the Alpha Course here.
One of the tasks that I help with in preparing for the next Lausanne Congress on world evangelization, that is taking place in Cape Town in October 2010, is the social media strategy.
I have a small team with which I work to try and connect people and issues - in particular I try to give a platform to people who are doing stuff, or developing theology, around the concerns of Lausanne. I also try to make sure that some of the great content that is produced by top notch Christian leaders and theologians becomes accessible to as many people as possible.
In order to do this we make use of some of the traditional 'social media' tools. Basically, there is only one tool - create relationships with people! But we use a few platforms to do this.
This is all great, and we get quite a lot of interaction around the issues and the content. At the end of the day I know that we would rather connect people with passion around the stuff they're already doing, than trying to create a passion for some of the stuff we want to do (that they're already doing in their own ministries). Connection is key!
However, ministry and theology (particularly global ministry and global theology) requires a much more significant level of awareness and connection! Some of the great mistakes of ministry organisations and theologians come from not understanding contexts other than their own. In some contexts proclaiming truths about God's love may work, but in other contexts people will not accept such propositions of truth until they have an experience of love. For example it is difficult to say that God is just when you encounter people who have only every experienced injustice - working for justice may be one of the most powerful 'sermons' you could preach without using a single word.
So, here's my problem, as with most of the theology and strategy in the global Church, those who have 'voices' and 'access' are heard most clearly and loudly. How do we connect people from the offline world to people from the online world?
I have an idea that the pervasive nature of cell phones may be a key (see this post from Tony Whittaker, and see this great mobile website platform for ministry and evangelism from Crux).
I know that email is more accessible in some parts of the world than internet access, so that may be another key (i.e., creating a to and fro engagement between the West and the South via email - when I was the Dean of John Wesley College in Pretoria we had quite a bit of success with this when we connected our students in South Africa with students at Duke Divinity school).
Then of course there is real world connection (sending visitors and receiving visitors from various parts of the world). But, this is costly!
Have you got any ideas how one could connect people across the 'digital divide'? It's for the sake of the whole Gospel to the whole World!
After some years of being very well served by my old 'blogger' blog, I have decided to make a move! You're welcome to ask me why! I have moved all of my posts and comments from that blog here.
I will still keep the 'old blog' active for a while since it has quite a bit of Google page ranking. Could I ask that you update your links however?
Here's a short interview that my friend Shane Vermooten from Media Village did with me for their series 'On the Orange Couch' at the School of Video Production in Kalk Bay in Cape Town.
In this video I discuss some of the issues related to how we can harness new media in Christian ministry. I also discuss some theological perspectives in the mission of the Church and of individual Christians in society as they relate to the Kingdom of God.
Tuesday, June 15, 2010 at 7:19AM 
