I’ve been learning a lot about wiki’s and their potential to help communities work and create together.  More and more I’m convinced that there is opportunity for God to help his Church find each other and to discern the spirits in mass-editing projects.   Wikis, at their heart, are living documents that are kept fully online and a repository for shared knowledge on something that matters to that online community.

Already I’ve got a beta site up for Pray4Chicago that includes the wiki technology.  This wiki is a space where Pray4Chicago event participants can upload their prayer-walk findings onto a “spiritual map” of sorts, helping the Body of Christ discover what God’s doing in the city, and where the most desperate needs are.  But I see wikis needed in other areas of our mission.  I’ve got some other ideas on the brain…

Private Mission Team Workspace: Wikis like Wikipedia are public, and anyone can read, search through and even create content.  But most wikis are private, inviting only a select few to view and/or edit the pages.  (maybe shared interest groups, peers, or co-workers)

What if a mission team of 10-12 people, spread out across a huge metropolis, could log in to a secure site, and work together in ways previously impossible or extremely cumbersome.  They could share contacts made in the field through a content management system.  They could work on documents and files together without laboriously having to email back and forth the latest copy, trying to keep track of changes.  Shared calendars, prayers, dreams, training curriculum, even team finances could all be kept in this space.

Group Facilitation “Playbook”: Organic churches are constantly morphing and changing to fit the needs of the community.  They are without the luxury of a set “order of worship,” but this means that group facilitators (and really, each member) are asked to bring fresh ideas for how to raise the level of worship, fellowship, and mission in their community.

One of my favorite pastimes (strangely) is going to my family reunion and singing hymns with all my relatives.  We would sit in a circle, each holding hymnbooks, and call out the numbers of songs we wanted to sing.  Also at these reunions, families collected recipes and compiled them into a book for all to use.  What if there was a wiki that was built around the great ideas I’ve heard from house churches in the area – from “ice-breaker” games to prayer litanies for the environment.  This could be a natural hub of information for group leaders who are looking to inject some fresh ideas into a stale format, or specifically address a topic in their church that needs attention.  Groups could find curriculum, worship songs, prayer activities, and more all posted by the ever-expanding network of friends in an organic network.

It is little known that Wikipedia is written and edited almost exclusively by around 3,000 people (with 2.7 million articles!).  The rest of us just go there to learn a bit of history, or grab a technical definition.  The same would certainly be true of this “Group Playbook” or “Spritual Cookbook,” (nicknames ad infinitum).  Those with a passion and gifted as teachers could “equip the body” (Eph 4:11-16) with resources that humbly serve and develop the Church to its fullest capacity.

Wikis are slowly becoming a powerful tool for the Kingdom of God.  What other ideas could be implimented?

This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 3rd, 2009 at 8:11 am and is filed under Christian Leadership, Creativity, Learning, Mass Collaboration, Missions Resource Team, Organic Church, Resources, Wiki, Worship Practices. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.