fishers, surfers and casters

Eric Weaver, jumping on the “let’s make some cool predictions for 2006″ bandwagon, makes some interesting arguments for the future of internet usage. He is a marketer and his blog is all about advertising, yet he makes a couple of remarks that grab my interest.

For example:

BLOG HYPE IS OVER. Too many people blogging with little interesting to say (case in point!). Corporate blogs will continue to grow as companies look for inexpensive, low-effort ways to speak to customers. Bloggers will continue to have a say in politics, news reporting and religious debate, but a huge upsurge in blog growth? I’m thinking not so much.

Well, at least religious blogs will continue, or else I might as well finish my thesis right now.

Other predictions include the effect of anti-spam laws, a refreshing of producer-consumer relations and more brilliant TV advertising coming from Australia (if you live in country Victoria you’d be thinking “Wha…?”).

Our server guy at work said it was a problem with the DNS servers, and I reckon I should win some sort of award (anything but a Golden Globe, please) for utterly convincing him I knew exactly what he was talking about.

Anyway, if you’ve tried to check out the site about my work in the Mind Body Spirit program or anything about the agency Cutting Edge – UnitingCare, and you can’t get to it, take out the www. That seems to solve the issue, though I don’t know why.

Cutting Edge – UnitingCare

Mind Body Spirit at Cutting Edge – UnitingCare

Rabbi Marc Gellman writes a column for Newsweek. On 3 January he wrote an article titled, “The five most important religious trends of 2005, and my hopes for 2006.”

Here’s my summary of those five trends:

1. Pathetic prayer: churches are more concerned with activities that draw membership than activities that fuel prayerful living.
2. Falling membership in black churches: correlating with rising economic conditions for the population.
3. The energising of the evangelicals: their voice and energy in society is way over-represented, not only by their power but by their charity, and fervent critique of contemporary culture.
4. Biblical illiteracy: churches are playing down the importance of teaching Bible to their members.
5. Revolutionaries: more people are seeking faith outside the box.

His hope for 2006 was fairly platitudinous, not much beyond a “God bless us everyone” statement. My gut tells me these trends have been around since at least the 1990s, and will continue and strengthen in 2006.

Here are my predictions for the rest of the decade:

1. Your praying is pathetic? Download some better ones! iTunes and Bigpond will have mp3 files ready for purchase for communities that need a quick thought for inspiration.
2. Revolutionaries establish, and counter-revolutionaries form. The emerging church will slowly turn from a movement to a brand name, owned by certain communities, and people will start looking for new language to describe their outside-the-box faith.
3. Falling concern over membership in mainstream churches. Denominations with rapidly declining membership will realise they still hold power in land and other assets and continue to live out their call by giving it away.
4. The energising of the mythical church. While so few attend church, the romantic notion of small communities of faith living among vast urban populations remain and everyone keeps an eye open out for them. They exist mainly on the internet, which serves only to feed the myth than to make reality.
5. Saturation of Biblical imagery. Following the success of Mel Gibson’s The Passion, so many Biblical stories will appear as film, mini-series or long-running series that everyone will claim to know the Bible without having to read it. Or alternatively, more positively, the shows will tempt people to explore the Bible further. Generation Y will also be so fully ticked of with Christo-Psychology that the demise of Oprah and Dr Phil will give way for more media attention to story-tellers, once they receive more market-share of resources.

Stephen G, after having read my blog article about consumerism and faith, was reminded of a great post on Richard Sudworth’s blog about iPod culture in church.

Sudworth asks the question: “Are we in danger of reflecting society in charging after models of church that do not learn from experience and appeal to potential utility as opposed to worked out authenticity?”

The grade-three student in me is eagerly raising his hand and grunting “Pick me, I know the answer, oh please pick me”. The answer is so obviously yes. No?