PASTOR'S LETTER - MAY NEWSLETTER

Dear Friends in Christ,

A recent Alban Institute article discussed Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia, in reference to the church (a “Wikipedia church”) at some length. For those uninitiated in “wiki,” these “wikies” are collaborative online efforts which became a lot more “mainstream” with Wikipedia.
The original Wikipedia is a free, web-based, collaborative, multi-lingual encyclopedia project supported by the non-profit Wikimedia Foundation. Wikipedia has over 3.6 million articles written in English and another 14 million or so articles in other languages.
This online resource has been written collaboratively by volunteers around the world. Wikipedia is a departure from the kind of encyclopedia which was expert-driven. It is, instead, built by both experts and non-experts all over the world, people with expertise represented by their academic degrees and people with expertise represented by their experience.
When the editors of Time magazine recognized “You” as its Person of the Year for 2006, they acknowledged the accelerating success of online collaboration and interaction by millions of users around the world. In so doing, they cited Wikipedia as one of several examples of Web 2.0 services, along with YouTube, MySpace and Facebook.
Back to what Alban says: at some level, the notion of a “Wikipedia church” —or “Wikicclesia”— makes a lot of sense, even if we have never thought of it before. Wikipedia is the encyclopedia that anyone can edit. Wikicclesia is the church that anyone can edit.
This concept touches on a reality facing the church today: the concept of Wikipedia, the collaborative editing process, is now a part of our everyday lives. Given this reality, how do we, as the church, expect to be the least bit appealing to people who increasingly go through their day knowing that they can “wiki” i.e. edit something for themselves?
Further, through this editing process people offer their gifts of knowledge to the world and to generations to come on a daily basis. So how can we expect them to walk into our churches and simply take what is handed to them and do it the way we say they should?
Read a blog post, an article or any number of books on emerging, emergent or emergence Christianity and you are likely to find some reference to Wikipedia in the text. It is increasingly becoming a popular metaphor for the way many would like to see the church structure itself and operate.
Given this, there are two observations I want to make. One is denominational. One is Biblical.
Our denomination is based in and based on the local congregation which is based in and based on each individual. The most important unit in our denominational structure is the local church.
But the most important part of each church is the individual. The way we, in the Congregational tradition, “see church” is, unless each individual both has their say and does their part to make the congregation whole, then the church is less than what it should be, less than what it can be. Please note: participation of the individual on both counts is imperative: having a say and taking action— participating— is crucial in making the church strong.
Second, there is a Biblical aspect to this outlook. The Apostle Paul says this: “I, Paul, handed on to you as of first importance...” (1 Corinthians 15:3a [ILV]). The words “handed on” are significant. We do not have a good way to translate the Greek behind these words. The effect of a more subtle translation might be: “I, Paul, traditioned on to you...”
Needless to say, “traditioned” is not a word in the English language. But what is a tradition? If two people become a couple, it is a guarantee at their first Christmas they need to decide ‘whose traditions will we follow?’ The most likely result is there will be some kind of merger of the two.
Paul is indicating that what is being passed on he has “made his own”— he has traditioned. Did what Paul pass on change? Paul certainly interpreted what Christ meant and did so within the Jewish tradition. He traditioned what was of first importance.
That brings us back to “wiki.” Just like the wiki movement, where people have made something their own, we in the church need to make the church our own. We need to understand the traditions of the church for ourselves. Only then can we be empowered to pass them on.
Note: this does not mean we discard the traditions of the church. Unless we make them our own, we cannot successfully interact with those traditions.
And since, in the Congregational tradition, each of us is important, that is precisely what each of us needs to do: make the traditions of the church our own and pass on the traditions as we understand them so that others may do the same. So, as a colleague of mine often says: “See you in church.”
And it is your church. And each of us needs to make it so by “traditioning.”

In Faith,

Joe