They're Selling Postcards of the Hanging, They're Painting the Passports Brown

Part XIV (My Response)

You're right that community must look different than it did 15, 30, 60 years ago, and your anecdote regarding the hand-written letter to a client is a perfect example. First, yes, you are better than all of us. That is freely acknowledge. Now, please quit rubbing our faces in our inadequacy. Second, the key to community in a "sound-bite community" world is to be intentional about how we interact with others. The likely reason that your letter generated such a reaction from the client is that he perceived that you were very intentional in setting aside time to hand-write a letter to him, and by extension this conveyed to him that you were concerned about the problems and issues he faced as a client. It's likely that this is (at least) partially why you chose to hand-write the letter, but sometimes people perceive motives from our actions simply by the shape those actions take. An email would have had the same content as a handwritten letter, but the handwritten letters conveys a sense of focus and attention to a specific situation that an email might not convey.

My question to you is: if community must look different than it did 15, 30, 60 years ago, how does that affect the most meaningful community in many peoples' lives, the church? I realize that dissertations have been written on such a topic, and it's far too big to answer in one blog post, but I'm very interested to read your thoughts.