Is Facebook....church?

In my niece Nancy's blog on Wednesday (http://npoj.blogspot.com/) she responds to an article in "The Lutheran" (www.thelutheran.org) entitled "Is Facebook....church?" Nancy and the article both talk about how it is sometimes easier to be totally honest on Facebook than in face-to-face communication. It's hard to make real connections with people at church when you only have five minutes together at coffee hour. It's easy to use Facebook or blogs or, I suppose, Twitter, to get the word out when there is a prayer concern. It's not always easy to get that word out to a congregation. Since my cousins' wife had her horrible car accident almost three weeks ago, her husband's website has received more than 3,000 "hits" and prayers and physical help have come from all over the country. It's powerful!

Coincidentally I am reading a book called "Girl Meets God". It is a memoir of a young woman who was born to a Southern Baptist mother and Jewish father. After being raised with not much religion, she sought out her Jewish heritage while at Columbia University. Not only did she embrace Judaism, she embraced Orthodox Judaism which required her to officially convert - a difficult process in the Orthodox world - since her mother's Christian background made her officially not Jewish. After wearing the conservative clothing and embracing all the Orthodox customs, the author was increasingly drawn to Christianity which she embraced with as much fervor as she had Judaism.

This young convert has more powerful things to say about Christianity than I've heard in a lifetime in the church. In light of the article in "The Lutheran" I am drawn to her comments about not necessarily liking all the people in her congregation.

"The words 'taking communion' remind us that we are not only drawing near to God, but that we are doing that most basic and social thing, we are eating together. This has been a long, slow lesson for me. I am just starting to learn that the people I take Communion with are the people who count. I didn't like most of the people at Clare College chapel. I loved.....but other than those few, the people at chapel weren't people I would have chosen to socialize with. They weren't up to my standards.....in fact, some of the chapel people repelled me." Her pastor didn't "point out the obvious fact that I was, indeed, having a dinner party with them every Sunday morning."
The pastor said, "I realized a while back that if I built a church filled with my friends, it would be a rather small and homogeneous church. Dull really." The author ends this section by talking about the people she works and plays with, saying, "They aren't my brothers and sisters in Christ. They are merely my friends."

I am very blessed that the majority of my friends are also brothers and sisters in Christ--but not necessarily members of my or any church. There are, nonetheless, people at church that I'm not very fond of. I've learned, however, a very powerful lesson from being a communion assistant. I try to use names when people approach. When I say, "The body of Christ given for you, Fred" it's mind-blowing. I may still not like Fred, but it hits me between the eyes that God loves both of us, and though I still may not invite Fred to my home, I find I do look at Fred a bit differently.

So how this fits into Facebook I'm not sure. I guess I'm saying that both the internet and face-to-face are powerful connections. God spoke to the Israelists with fire and manna and stone tablets---things of that time and culture. In our time and culture, why wouldn't he use the Internet?