Glenn on Fellowship

Rather than going to church and building tighter, more accountable relationships where someone actually knows and WALKS with you through things, we can get into what I truly think is a substitute for local church and real safety nets there by just writing on a keyboard. Still the emotional stuff comes up, and where you should be dealing with stuff in a local church and pastoral, etc., context, you substitute those sort of relationships online.

IMHO it's like watching a service on tv, or doing a drive-through church thing as opposed to actually getting the roots planted, and hanging on. That's when deeper issues can not only be discussed but actually monitored. This is largely impossible online. Then a scenario like, "what's bugging you" and it could be simply emotional flip-flops, whatever.

I think that it's more than habit, or as many have said, addictive, it's just the downside of sharing one's deepest thoughts without a deeper and yes, deeply accountable relationship tempered in a local church context. Inordinate affection is the KJV term, and I think it goes to things outside of and beyond direct physical contact. B ut of course, the same things that can happen in other forms of relationships can happen online- in terms of emotional ties going beyond what God would have them go. It can SEEM that being online would provide a safety net for the problem but I just don't one is built-in here anymore than offline.

Often an ongoing counselling thing gets going, and while there are clear benefits to such a relationship, there are problems. If in fact you haven't gotten into solid relationships in a local church and gotten discipled (is getting discipled) as all Christians should unless literally in prison or in a missionfield totally alone, you can get into a "substitute church" online... and be offline with God in terms of practical accountability on a daily basis.

See, that's a deeper issue of the Web that has long concerned me and should concern all Christians. It's too convenient to talk to someone who simply listens, responds, but has no immediate access to your/my/whomever's life on a daily or at least weekly basis. The checks and balances are not included in cyberspace. Now, there's tonnes of good re. communications via the Web, but again, it can end up alot like someone never truly in ongoing relationship at that deeper, local level, and a person thinks they are accountable and getting relationship out of the deal when in fact, it is relationhip- but not as truly intimate as it should be in a local church context.

I am a pastor, but not your pastor. I know a lot of good stuff gets broadcast via television, cable, books, magazines, Websites and email... but a problem I have had forever with these modes, is that after all the communication, people have at times substituted me or others who communicate in various modes, for a solid, local accountability with godly pastors, teachers, leaders and mentors in their own local church and city- who know them- or depending on if you will let them...... SHOULD know them better than I and so have a better chance of truly getting into the heart of a person or families needs, etc..

The Web simply expands and more conveniently allows this to happen for alot of people.