In the Coracle

Social Networks and Community

January 3, 2008

Tags: Technology, The Church, You Learn Something New Every Day
Posted in: Uncategorized

In thinking about social networking and social software that I often find myself running into ideas and concepts that I think are worth considering for the church - especially the emergent church. I don’t necessarily mean emergent in the sense of Emergent Village - though I like them - but more in the central meaning of Emergent as a social structure - like wikipedia puts it,

In philosophy, systems theory and the sciences, emergence refers to the way complex systems and patterns arise out of a multiplicity of relatively simple interactions. Emergence is central to the theory of complex systems.

So, complex systems and patterns that start out of simple interactions. Relationships that multiply in complexity.

That’s the topic of a fascinating little web page over at Orgnet.com, which looks at ways to graph social relationships in online communities and social networks.  Consider this intro to the paper, and when you think about how it relates to MySpace and Facebook, think also about how it relates to the church as a social community:

The diagram above shows an actual on-line community [OLC]. Every node in the network represents a person. A link between two nodes reveals a relationship or connection between two people in the community — the social network. Most on-line communities consist of three social rings — a densely connected core in the center, loosely connected fragments in the second ring, and an outer ring of disconnected nodes, commonly known as lurkers. Communities have various levels of belonging. [Again, the source page]

Now, if you’ve read Joe Myers’ excellent book The Search to Belong, you’re nodding your head here.  Same, if you’ve read The Celtic Way of Evangelism (both of which I recommend highly).

There are a couple of pages of excellent summary, and then this in the closing section:

Social network analysts do not focus solely on attributes of individuals. They look at relations and exchanges between people and how these connections influence choices. They examine the affect social networks have on the behavior of individuals — how people influence social structures, and in return, how those structures affect the individuals embedded in them.

Growing a community is not just adding new members. It requires adding both people and relationships — nodes AND links. A community thrives by its connections, not by its collections! It’s the relationships, and the prospect of future relationships, that keep members active and excited.

A few things that I’ve been thinking about this evening after reading this:

• How can the church engage people in its mission by leveraging “the prospect of future relationships”?
• What does this mean for a community that, if truly modeled on Jesus, aggressively welcomes the outsider as much as it challenges the insider to not feel particularly comfortable? (a community with both an inward and an outward impulse)
• Can relational structures be created, or can we only create an atmosphere in which relationships can be created and thrive?
• Can we learn from the online communities who see widely varying levels of engagement and participation?

I hope that if you’re interested in the church and its health and growth, you check out this little paper and join in a discussion here.

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