Getting Connected: Some Thoughts on Online Church Presence, Part Two

To recap, we're looking at Myers' 4 spaces in a sort of preliminary way to see how online churches might help people make connections and form relationships. Personal Space: This is where I really want to see some fact to face contact. In personal space, we begin to share more deeply than the "what you see is what you get" public level, or the "personality snapshot" of social spaces. For me to do that with a high level of comfort, I like to be able to see the person I'm sharing with, although I have developed a fair degree of comfort with some of my fellow RevGalBlogPal bloggers. One interesting aspect of these digital relationships is that we have tremendous control over what we share, and so I've shared many personal thoughts with people I may never see, and yet we've begun to count ourselves as friends. I'm still reconciling my feelings about having friends whose voices I've never heard. On a website, here is where I'd expect to see some kind of small group offering (voluntary, of course): moderated chats, threaded discussions, and invitations to particular activities. I would think some online support groups could be very helpful at this level; in the brick and mortar church I serve, we've had requests recently for groups for cancer patients, adult children caring for elderly parents, Parkinson's sufferers and families, parenting, etc. Personal space is a place for people to have these kinds of relationships. Another way an online ministry might help relationships happen and move into personal space is to allow some activities to come together online and take place in real time, such as an outing for caregivers with respite care provided for their patients/loved ones, retreat time, interest groups such as knitting or sports fans, and Bible study groups to meet in local coffee shops. Intimate space: Intimate space, in Myers' parlance, is the space with share with very few other people, in which we can be (physically or spiritually) naked and not ashamed. There is a conundrum here. Many people would profess to have intimate relationships with online partners whom they have never met in "real life." This is an area of great concern for me, as it is so easy to present an incomplete or false image of oneself. The rise of Internet predators and scam artists also makes this level of relationship a risky one to have online. Here again is an area in which I would be most comfortable knowing that there was some "real time" contact, and some type of brick and mortar or at least staff presence to ensure people's safety in this very vulnerable space for relationships.