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The Tipping Point of Faith 2.0
By Jesse Carey
CBN.com Interactive Media Producer
CBN.com – You may not have realized it, but last week was a groundbreaking time for the Church — a week that was just the lastest in a culmination of technological developments and social trends that hold immeasurable significance with potentially world-changing consequences. And the most exciting part about it was that anyone with an Internet connection could see what God was doing.
In his bestselling book The Tipping Point, Malcolm Gladwell explains how seemingly average social trends can go on to have world-changing implications. In explaining the concept of his book on his blog he said, “It's that ideas and behavior and messages and products sometimes behave just like outbreaks of infectious disease. They are social epidemics.”
The “tipping point” is the event that turns a social fad into a cultural phenomenon. Gladwell barrows the actual term from people who study diseases and their spread, and he applies it to cultural behavior. “It's the name given to that moment in an epidemic when a virus reaches critical mass,” he said. “It's the boiling point. It's the moment on the graph when the line starts to shoot straight upwards."
You could argue that last week, we hit that tipping point.
For technology-watchers, but more specifically, the Church, last week may have been the beginning of the tipping point for the convergence of Web 2.0 technology and faith. (“Web 2.0” is the term that describes user interaction on the Internet—the ability for everyone to take part in what is going on online at the same time.)
On Friday, CBN hosted an event that I think was groundbreaking in several ways. Some of you may have tuned in for our “Spiritual Gifts Seminar” about the Word of Knowledge. On Friday’s 700 Club, ministers from around the world (including places like India, Israel and Toronto) used Skype (an online teleconferencing software) to join the show live and share their thoughts and prayers with Gordon about the Word of Knowledge. When the broadcast ended at its normal time (10 a.m. EDT), we continued to webcast live for an extra hour where the ministry continued. Users could go to a special web page we created, watch the show and interact through message boards.
For two hours on Friday, hundreds of people from around world were joined together to receive and conduct ministry in a way that has never been done before. It was a big day for us, but it was just an indication of what is happening to the Church as a whole. (You can go here to see an archive of the event and participate in the conversation. You can also watch Tuesday's follow-up Spiritual Gifts online seminar and post your feeback here.)
Last week new numbers came out that showed that for the first time, the online social networking site Facebook caught up to MySpace with global unique visitors going to the site. ("Unique visitor" is a term that describes individuals visiting a web site.) This is significant because it shows that, more than just popularity (115 million people visited both sites in April), social networking is getting creditability.
MySpace is often seen as a destination for teens and high-schoolers and has even received criticism from tech-watchers who point to online predators, shady advertisements and an overall chaotic look that have prevented MySpace from becoming a mainstream form of professional quality communication.
Facebook on the other hand, was a site started by Harvard students and has blossomed into a place where friends, families and groups can connect online, plan events, chat and even raise money for charitable causes. Not just a hangout for young people and music fans, Facebook has taken the networking element of MySpace and made it into the new online destination for people wanting to communicate. When you log-on to Facebook, the world gets a lot smaller in an instant. That friend you haven’t seen in 10 years or that cousin who now lives on the other side of the world, now, they’re just a click away. But what does the massive popularity and increasing creditability of sites like Facebook tell us about faith?
I once heard a pastor say that if he could condense Christianity into one word it would be “relationships”. God created us to have relationship with Him, and Christ said that greatest commands were to love God and our neighbors—the foundation of any relationship.
If we believe that we were created to fellowship with God, than we must also believe that the desire for relationship is the most innate need that humans have. Developing the ultimate relationship—one with God—is literally the reason why we were created. If anything, the prominence of Web 2.0 serves as a barometer for the level that people want that desire—the desire to connect and be in relationship—to be met. And statics show that the desire is on a drastic rise.
According to research, the deeper desire, the one to find our true purpose, is being seen in Internet trends. In this interview (in a story about the surprising popularity of religious discussion on a secular message board) Heidi Campbell, a Texas A&M professor who researches religion on the Internet said, “Almost two-thirds of people that go online at some point have done so … to seek out religious information, or to get involved in a religious conversation or for other [religious] purposes".
Considering that everyday millions of people go online, that static becomes even more staggering. And that’s why Friday was so significant. That’s why I believe we have hit the tipping point.
There are a lot of ministries doing amazing things through online media. Just think about the role GodTV has played in spreading the gospel by broadcasting the Lakeland Revival for the last three months. Or look at the impact the guys at 24/7prayer.com are having by connecting prayer rooms around the globe. A church out of Oklahoma called LifeChurch.TV is breaking new ground by webcasting its Sunday morning services to congregations around the globe, reaching thousands every week. Even the dorm-room Internet user who logs-in to Facebook everyday and tells his friends about his faith has a role.
But last week CBN got to play its part by helping to bridge the gap between a classic media outlet (good ‘ole fashion TV) and new media—Web 2.0 technology. And now, anyone with an Internet connection can be part of what God is doing.
Check out Jesse's Blog, The Morning Five
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More Spiritual Life articles on CBN.com
 Jesse Carey is the Interactive Media Producer for CBN.com. With a background in entertainment and pop-culture writing, he offers his insight on music, movies, TV, trends and current events from a unique perspective that examines what implications the latest news has on Christians.
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