Faith communities are both communities of worship and reverence and communities where we learn how to be faithful people. How do faithful people respond to a family in crisis? How do faithful people welcome strangers? How do faithful people engage respectfully with differences? How do faithful people attend to when we hurt one another, to legacies requiring reconciliation, to bullying and greed when they show up? In our celebrations and in our troubles, faith communities are places where we learn the practices of living faithfully.

 

How our faith communities practicing and teaching living faithfully digitally, as part of living faithfully in our whole lives?

 

Social media offers us the opportunity to have faith communities everywhere, scattered around the globe. Social media gives regular people the tools to be creative, generous change agents locally and globally. Social media gives everyone the tools to thicken and deepen relationships, including, relationships with the sacred.

 

How is your faith community supporting people in being creative, generous change agents for goodness?

 

When we blog as faithful people, are we blogging in a way that tears people and communities down or are we blogging in a way to grow people in spirit, to turn us to living more generously, creatively, and compassionately?

 

Do we attend to our relationships digitally with the same kindness and care we attend to relationships face-to-face? We can have so many more connections with people in our faith communities through each week. Are we treating people with worth and dignity face-to-face and digitally?

 

Are we answering a world filled with fear, anger, isolation, and loathing as people of wisdom and peace? Are we choosing to be contagious with generosity or contagious with bitterness? Both feelings leap quickly heart to heart. But how are we as faithful people called to be?

 

This year, as you and your community faiths together, check in and ask, how are we doing practicing and teaching living faithfully digitally as part of living faithfully in our whole lives.

I’m reblogging this updated piece, once posted on another blog that was archived. The questions and concerns remain relevant for congregations to consider.