TED TALK 4: Brook Warner – Church and the Place of Social Media

Brook suggested that social media is scratching an itch in the 21^st century, and the itch is essentially the desire for authenticity, community and active engagement. People want businesses or institutions to be transparent and personable, we want to move away from staunch individualism and join in bigger stories and causes (seen in the Kony campaign) and we want to participate in making a difference and not just being spectators.

Social media is here to stay. The question then becomes: how do we engage with it well? Brook said that he believes that the Holy Spirit is tickling (yes, tickling… I know…) people to crave authenticity, community, collaboration and participation in something bigger than ourselves. But no one is doing the social media thing well, and the church is playing catch up. Brook ended by challenging us with the question: what does it look like for church to lead this movement of engaging well in the world of social media?

Feedback

People were highly engaged with what Brook presented and were pleased that there was some good understanding of it and deep thinking about the subject that hasn't really been tackled in church.

In terms of ideas and suggestions for engaging well in social media, people suggested that all church events should aim to be made visible to everybody in and outside the church and all of it needs to point to real authenticity and community in church in real life. There was a strong emphasis on not letting it replace any part of vital community life.

There was, however, a fair bit of disagreement with the underlying assumptions of the presentation. There were a few groups of people that argued that social media doesn’t actually scratch an authenticity itch, it just gives the illusion of doing so. People still have the option of creating personas online, putting their best side forward and so authenticity is simply not a requirement in the online world. These people pointed out that the reason they were at this discussion night was because of friends asking them to come, not because of an online invitation.

The question still remains: how do we engage well online? And could it be argued that the itch has been created by social media in order to scratch it in its own way? How do we live out the gospel faithfully online?