I’m just going to keep hitting this.  Despite my status as an online “evangelist”,  I am in agreement with Jesse Rice and his thesis in The Church of Facebook.  There is a need for us to engage in battle against those things about a hyperconnected world that would rob us of just a small portion of our humanity and wholeness as a living breathing “contemplative” person as God has both constructed and called us to be. 

Hyperconnection (being always-connected to our technologies, social networks, etc) can make it difficult to be fully present to the moment right in front of us and all that moment contains.  One thing that can help is stopping to remember.

Remember is an interesting word, because it means literally putting one’s self back together: re-membering.

Before Monday Morning Hits, Do This! « THE CHURCH OF FACEBOOK: The Book, the Blog, and the Man Behind Both

Even the evangelist for the gospel is not unaware of the dangers that lurk in our “going out into the world to proclaim the good news and make disciples”.  We do it because we love that world as God does.  We take into it certain tools which we are skilled at using. 

We must always remain willing to observe carefully what threatens to “dismember” us.  As much as technology,  and specifically this “Social Networking/SocialMedia/Web 2.0”  context is opening up for us,  every step along the way it is important ,  IMHO,  to keep a sociologist’s awareness about what could warp the message.  We are way too apt to take the misled approach that it’s not the tools,  but how we use them.  And without too much effort (or lack of it)  we become more like the rest of the world that is utilizing those tools.

Now don’t come back to me and say “But the church has to utilize the tools” and the “The Church become irrelevant if it falls into its old patterns of resisting adoption.  I am one of those early adopters.  I am a geek,  but I also value my role as a theologian,  and I stand here dedicated to helping the church utilize the revolutionary tools at our disposal.  But like any “evangelists” entry into the world,  I do so with the distinctiveness of the church held close to my heart.

So let’s pay close attention to “remembering”.  This remembering that is careful to keep together the elements that make us a community and a body.