Enter, Rejoice, Sign In and Commune, by June Herold, Oct. 25, 2009

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Enter, Rejoice, Sign In and Commune

by June Herold, UUCA member and creator of UUCA's website

        I walked into this church last January to re-engage with people of like minds and like hearts. Ten years of working in the thin air of cyberspace had disconnected me from friends and loved ones. The loss created a void. I needed to fill it – but offline with a flesh and blood community.

         I turned to you - in covenant groups, circle dinners and in one-on-ones. The last place I thought to look was at www.uucava.org.

         I landed there anyway five months later. I realized that social networking could encourage a relational culture. I felt I had to step up and offer my expertise if I was truly serious about living our principles. So I did.

         Building digital communities is what I do. At AOL and elsewhere, my colleagues and I created ways for millions of people to know when friends and family are online. And then to turn that awareness into actions that create shared moments, behaviors, and experiences in cyberspace. The term for this transformation of awareness into action is Online Presence. You know Online Presence as:

• Buddy and Friend lists
• Messaging, Twitter, Skype
• Wikipedia, Blogs
• Flickr, YouTube
• Latest Activity or friend feeds
• And any digital behavior where people are intentionally contributing or collaborating in the creation of knowledge.

        Online Presence is not about Googling God. And it’s not the Sacred Presence that is a manifestation of God, according to many religions.

        Online Presence manifests the spiritual dimensions between us. It mirrors back to us our connectedness when we comment in blogs, or share who or what is in our hearts daily, or when we post photos of vigils, protests, memorial services and rallies for those who couldn’t participate and for those who want to re-live the moments. When we contribute our thoughts, feelings and creative juices online, we collaborate to uphold faith, to uphold our Beloved Community.

        Online Presence was developed primarily to connect people but it grew rapidly to cultivate compassion, kindness, love and to spread them like wildfire.

        I believe that Online Presence makes my work a form of ministry.

        At a minimum, Online Presence is pastoral care.

        People who can’t worship with us in the pews can now sign in to church life. We can hold them by being present with them, they can do the same for us.

        Online Presence initiates acts of kindness.

        Many of us already use social networks to donate money to victims of disasters, wars and poverty. And now through our own site we can spontaneously send prayers when they are needed.

        We can also leverage Online Presence to start and run social actions – often faster than we can in person.

        Online, people who have “no extraordinary power” can bypass governments and powerful institutions that hide information or lie. Eyewitnesses shoot photos and videos with their phones and upload them. They also twitter updates to keep people informed and to record the truth spoken in political protest and civil unrest. You too can upload from your phones to our new site.

        Being online, however, is not a substitute for sweat and tears. It’s not an alternative to Sunday service attendance either.

        Listening to a recorded sermon isn’t the same as watching Rev. Linda tap a rose on a baby’s forehead.

        If you missed the service based on Leonard Cohen’s song, Anthem, you missed sublime moments created by Rev. Mary perched atop a barstool and by Bob Kline’s emotional rendition of the song. They had us riveted in our seats. We connected with them. That doesn’t happen watching an online video of a sermon.

        And neither does dancing in the pews.

        Online, Rev. Michael can’t grab an arm and waltz one of us around the sanctuary as he did in the laughter service.

        All of these in the flesh moments were magical and life affirming.

        There’s still value, however, in recording the sermons in audio and video. They introduce newcomers to our worship. In fact, our online sanctuary shows us living our religion of deeds.

        Especially that of radical hospitality: Newcomers can learn about us from profile pages, videos, photos and calendar events. They’ll know us before they walk in the door.

        Of course, there are risks to being present online. And we have to intentionally manage our privacy and behavior to mitigate them. They seem tiny compared to the challenges and threats our UU ancestors faced to practice their beliefs.

        I’m thankful to this church for taking a risk and leaping forward online. We’ll see more of the interconnected web of life because of it. We’ll reinforce democratic process in our congregation. We’ll support each other’s spiritual growth.

        Cyberspace is a universe of our imagining. It’s multicultural, multigenerational. It’s egalitarian. There are no walls. It’s infinite. It has no past; only a collective future. It’s where we fall into communion together anytime, anywhere.

        And yet, I do believe that younger generations will turn to each other offline in real-world communities as I did.

        Like me, they’ll recognize a void that can’t be filled online. And may never be because the human heart can’t keep up with the Internet.

        I do think that what is sacred about our physical presence applies to Online Presence as well.

        Our presence is prayer.

        Our actions are connections and expressions of the sacred.

        UUCA’s Church Without Walls is a prayer. It’s also a poem, waiting for you to perform it and re-create it repeatedly. If you participate, we’ll make a little piece of heaven online as well as on Earth.

        Please, enter, rejoice, sign In and…commune.

• The Sound of Not Quite Speaking, by Rev. Mary McKinnon Ganz

• See the presentation given at JPD Web Conference, Church Without Walls.