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Christ Centered Poly Friendly Chruches/ PeopleWhere are you

Re: Christ Centered Poly Friendly Chruches/ PeopleWhere are

steve said:
I would rather find a fellowship where I fit in than be the tool that the Lord needs to build one. :oops:
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Ha!!!!! Guilty!!!! But I don't want to grow up! I don't want to learn to lead, love and serve people who despise me. That's really hard! And heartbreaking! I don't want to take up my cross daily... :oops:
 
Re: Christ Centered Poly Friendly Chruches/ PeopleWhere are

steve,
Darn it! There you go again with that little truth thing... "I am lazy, I would rather find a fellowship where I fit in than be the tool that the Lord needs to build one" :)
I appreciate it, even though that smarts a little. ;)
thanks brother,
Chris
 
Re: Christ Centered Poly Friendly Chruches/ PeopleWhere are

Ok
I need to expose a possibility here. I have no assurance that this is of the Lord, but I have been doing something that has been working for our family.
As many know, I am an over-the-road truck driver and am gone most of the time including weekends. My wives have no church where they fit in and, of course, I have none on the road.
A little over 6 months ago I decided to try having a family fellowship via conference call. We have been doing it ever since, once a week and lasting somewhere around 2 hours. We really enjoy and are edified by it.
This may be an idea given by the Almighty to be expanded in ways that will benefit others, or it may be just for our family.

If it is to benefit others, the biggest question would be technological. Google friends has been suggested, but they are not presently my favorite company.
We have no Pastor, no Sermon, and no offering! ;) No theological debates, they can happen between individuals at other times.
No music, though :(
Just me as the facilitator, making sure that we are all able to share and that no one filibusters.

If anyone is interested in discussing this further, I will post my phone # in my profile.
 
Re: Christ Centered Poly Friendly Chruches/ PeopleWhere are

I am all about leading my family in fellowship and worship and empowering other men in leading their families in the same.
In fact I failed to mention we are joined by our "adopted" daughter when she is not scheduled to work. That makes it a 4-way call on my iPhone which has worked well. We have also done a 2-way video chat, computer to iPhone, which was a blessing.

I do not see this becoming an actual BibFam thing due to differences in theology. I see it as being left open to individuals and families as they feel drawn.
I also see the groups, or cells, as being kept small enough so that all are free to contribute. In fact, assemblies where the majority of the group are observers is not acceptable to me. Others can embrace that if they so choose.
 
Re: Christ Centered Poly Friendly Chruches/ PeopleWhere are

Very good concept Steve. I agree such groups should be kept small, basically we're talking about the online equivalent of a home group, which is what I also see as a far better model for fellowship than a large church.

Should we be helping people make the contacts to form a small number of such groups for those of different theological positions? I agree that your group wouldn't be for everyone, and I agree this is separate to BF, but we could help people find each other. However if a few such groups were running it would be very beneficial for people to occasionally visit another group to see a different perspective on God's Word.

I'd be keen on such a group, if a time could be found that would work.
 
Re: Christ Centered Poly Friendly Chruches/ PeopleWhere are

JustAGuy said:
As you probably know virtual church (w/local small groups) is gaining some momentum such as http://live.lifechurch.tv/chat and software package (not cheap or easy) at http://churchonlineplatform.com/.
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I'm checking into this because I have been envisioning an online fellowship for awhile and am working on the details. Looking at churchonline was pretty exciting until I realized what the "live streaming" part was going to cost. Now I have a question for this group.

How necessary/desirable is it to have everybody watching a video at the same time? I've noticed two things about lifechurch that make me question the whole live streaming component.

First, there's a chat room facility and a private "need prayer?" chat line that people can and do use during the presentation. I kind of get that, kind of don't. Is the audio/video presentation just background music or talk radio for the chat-fellowship that's going on? I haven't noticed that the chat is particularly focused on the message; the message seems more separate from the chat topics.

The other thing is that messages are replayed over and over again to hit different time slots, presumably so people can watch at their convenience, but to me that undercuts the whole live streaming principle of trying to get everybody focused on the same material at the same time. And if they're busy chatting during the event, then how focused are they really?

I have some other questions about this endeavor that I'll be rolling out here eventually, and look for an announcement of some kind at the retreat in July and a launch in August, but as a threshold question I have to settle this live streaming thing. So here's the question:

How important is it really to have streamed events that have to be dialed into at a set time? These are typically pre-recorded videos anyway that are then re-broadcast at different times. What if worship service videos were recorded and posted to a website and then made available to whomever was interested to watch or listen to on the schedule that fits their family's needs? Then, as a separate resource, a facility for small group fellowship (a la ladies chat) that could be a chat room, a conference call, a google hangout, or other.

Even temporarily, that more streamlined approach has a lot to recommend it, but it's pointless if nobody shows up. Is not having some kind of live streaming event capability a deal-breaker, or could you picture a common worship organized around a weekly worship/prayer set that could be watched or listened to whenever, and a facility for real-time fellowship that could include multiple channels of communication? Any thoughts?
 
Re: Christ Centered Poly Friendly Chruches/ PeopleWhere are

Okay, two quick follow-ups....

I had an afterthought re the way meatspace churches reach out to shut-ins through broadcast media, and I want to make explicit that I think part of what would make this work is some kind of publication from week to week of the number of people participating, and in a password-protected part of the site, not open to the public, at least basic information on the families that are participating. In other words, there would be some features in place to help you understand and feel that you are part of a bigger group—a particular group made up of particular people, not an anonymous abstraction.

And this is something I already have in mind and just forgot to mention earlier, but at some point I see a church planting ministry operating alongside the cyber-fellowship. In other words, the cyber-fellowship has its place in connecting like-minded believers across the country/world, but at some point I see circuit riders, so to speak, going around to specific locations to help start up home-based fellowships (that would then continue to be connected to other fellowships and families through the online fellowship).

Lots more ideas where those came from, but I'm still primarily interested in any advice/comments/questions/feedback around the live streaming question so I can start moving forward with something.
 
Re: Christ Centered Poly Friendly Chruches/ PeopleWhere are

I think the unique thing you're trying to provide with an online church is fellowship, with teaching secondary. Not because it is less important, but because there is already tonnes of teaching on the internet, so that's not unique.

The teaching would be videos & articles primarily. I see no reason for live streaming videos. I think this would actually be a hindrance to many people from being involved, particularly those in other time zones. Far better to have them available to view on demand.

Fellowship is the thing to focus on cracking. Live video chat would be the ideal. However we live in a world that is becoming increasingly repressive of Christianity even in Western countries, and a truly Biblical church may end up discussing topics that would push the boundaries of what was considered acceptable by some governments (polygamy for instance). We're also talking about people's private lives, and they may not want them visible to the world. Privacy is therefore an important consideration.

Is it possible to do end-to-end encrypted multiperson live video chat? That would be brilliant, but may be impossible.
 
Re: Christ Centered Poly Friendly Chruches/ PeopleWhere are

One vote for no live streaming! ;)

I agree with everything you said about that and time zones and view-on-demand. I also agree that the role of teaching will decline in the church generally, for reasons that are best discussed in a different thread (someday...), and that's not a bad thing.

I'm also interested in live video conferencing, but have two thoughts about that I'd like your input on. First, it requires a rather hi-speed internet connection that may exclude some that would otherwise participate. Second, it can get rather frenetic and tends to limit commo to one-person-talking-at-a-time just so it doesn't all go to mush. Old-school written/typed chat facilitates a linear stream that can actually accommodate multiple conversations/topics in one stream, with the added benefit of being able to have private side chats alongside the main room.

They say that women are better at multi-tasking; they could be right! :) Reading what I just wrote makes it sound like an awful lot of juggling—maybe that's why the women here do the chat thing and the men don't!

Nevertheless, what do you think about the relative merits of video and type per the above comments?

Finally, I'm still looking for some kind of common expression of worship. Do you think recorded worship sets with music, spoken prayers, and spontaneous song would be useful? Or is it just about getting folks to conference together on a regular basis?
 
Re: Christ Centered Poly Friendly Chruches/ PeopleWhere are

I agree with what you said about how small groups of families could interact, and how those groups would form and multiply. I still have some questions about whether live video chat is going to be the best solution, but as I recall I think most of those solutions can also be run "audio only", which would be a solution for someone with less bandwidth. Video would certainly add warmth and human-ness.

BF can certainly host a regular chat or conference of some sort (in addition to the most excellent ladies chat), but it is unlikely to become a church fellowship per se. People come to BF with a variety of faith backgrounds and doctrinal hot buttons, and putting together a BF-branded fellowship that everyone would want to be a part of seems unlikely. Historically, BF has had a problem with well-meaning brothers who try to impose "their version of Christianity" on the larger group, and I don't think anyone wants to go there again, and that's just not what BF is about.

OTOH, it is very much what BF is about to "support local groups" and to "help believers connect with others" that understand and accept plural marriage (straight off the About Us page...). I believe that what I am undertaking is one of what will ultimately be several fellowships that are strategically aligned and allied with BF. That will allow BF to focus on its core mission—of supporting and encouraging all families, teaching the truth of biblical marriage and family, and supporting local groups—without compromise or factionalism, and it will allow individual fellowships to pursue whatever calling of God brought them together without having to negotiate or bicker with another group that is hearing a different call.
 
Re: Christ Centered Poly Friendly Chruches/ PeopleWhere are

Firstly, we already have a chatroom that the ladies use. Do any men use this? We also have a paltalk chatroom here. Does anybody use that?
http://www.paltalk.com/g2/group/1354973 ... etails.wmt
If these are not currently used much, why is that? Is it because there isn't a demand for online fellowship anyway so all this discussion is a waste of time? Or is it because these formats don't suit people, and we can design something that will work?

I agree with Andrew that we need to be thinking of a number of small groups, not a single BF church, because we come from a wide range of denominational backgrounds and will disagree on many matters outside polygamy.

Assuming there is sufficient demand to put this together, as I see it there are four main aspects to "church" as we know it: Teaching, fellowship, worship and communion. How about splitting them out a bit like this, to form small house-church style groups that can have their own individual focus. These groups could be coordinated at a central site, which would help people find a group to join and form new groups.

Teaching:
Via a text or video blog. The message for study this week is posted several days ahead of the meeting (could be by one person, could be turn-about with the men in the group, or could even follow an existing blog or study series).

Fellowship:
Via video chat or conference call, whatever worked for the particular group. If we try to provide the technology for this we'll spend far too much time putting it together and end up with something obsolete the moment we release it. Far better to use existing services and just coordinate it. We can be completely provider agnostic and each group can use whatever suits their budget, internet speed and desire for privacy. Some groups might use a free video chat service, while others might sign up to a service like Silent Circle for encrypted video chat, and the group might even change the service used over time.

Personally I think encryption should become our default choice in the world these days. My major concern with the ladies chat is that it is completely unencrypted. The same goes for this entire website, including private messages. It's pretty likely the American NSA is recording every word we write since we'll be hitting plenty of hot keywords for them, and who knows what other countries get up to. Coordinating fellowship and pointing people towards services that allow them to actually discuss matters openly in private will help people feel free to open up and have beneficial heart-to-heart discussions, even if they are in an oppressive country where being a Christian is dangerous.

Meetings would ideally be scheduled for Saturday US time, which would mean they would be in the weekend for anyone in the world. If they are planned for Sunday it will actually be Monday for anyone in Asia or Australasia, which would limit availability considerably since people will be at work. "Tuesday night" ladies chat is actually Wednesday lunchtime for my wife...

Meeting would be run like a home group. Led by one person, who runs through a quick summary of the message (because someone won't have bothered to actually read it...), reads the key biblical text, chairs a discussion on it making sure that everyone gets a fair chance to speak, sums up, and leads prayer.

Worship:
I don't think we can replicate church worship music over the internet. People can give it a crack by video link but I think it would probably just feel weird. Probably better to provide resources and encouragement for people to implement family and individual worship. Others may have better ideas here.

Communion:
Could be done over live chat. Could be something families are encouraged to do as part of family worship.

Coordinating all of this:
The website would need to have for each group a public page with basic information, and should also have an encrypted section with members access only for sharing contact details and identities to arrange both the main fellowship meetings and one-on-one discussions between people.

Just throwing some ideas out there to get others thinking further.
 
Re: Christ Centered Poly Friendly Chruches/ PeopleWhere are

I wouldn't see any benefit to having a live stream. Any teaching materials, including video, that would be covered by live streaming could just as well be handled by being available for download. Even the Resources page on this site could use a major overhaul to fix the broken links and addition of updated info.

I believe someone already alluded to it, but the only thing that i can see being similar and beneficial would be a cross between the internet Radio that Doc used to do but with "handouts" made available before hand. Then we can call or chat in while the radio program is in session. Much, much less bandwidth and all recordings and materials would still be available for later use.

Communion would be interesting-only for me but could be a beneficial event for those who have no regular place to do so.

I would have to agree that worship via live-stream seems.... odd to me, at best.

My $0.02
 
Re: Christ Centered Poly Friendly Chruches/ PeopleWhere are

This got deep. I thought we were simply talking about the type of media to use. I digress and make a strategic advancement to the rear.
 
Re: Christ Centered Poly Friendly Chruches/ PeopleWhere are

I agree we need a place that all are welcome to. However the problem is that in getting back to the early church we actually have different views on this site of what really matters. I agree with you that the Sabbath is less important, but for some that is a deal-breaker.

Trying to force everyone into one box won't work, will just push too many people away. However if we can let people have a few boxes that suit where they feel comfortable right now, hopefully over time we can draw closer together.
 
Re: Christ Centered Poly Friendly Chruches/ PeopleWhere are

Forcing everyone into one box is exactly the sort of thing I don't want to have happen here, and is why any church or fellowship that gets started under this umbrella should not be seen as "the one true BF church".

That said, I am aligned with cwcsmc and intend to start something that will be very inclusive. Put another way, if someone doesn't want to be a part of it, it will be because they have some denominational shibboleth that is their hangup, not me or this group. "I thought you were okay, right up until I found out you believed this, or didn't believe that. I guess we can't be friends after all." Not gonna come from me.

I'll confess right now that I am much more interested in how Christ-like a person is and how much they're doing the things Christ said are important than I care about their creedal conformity. What I'm interested in doing will appeal to like-minded people and probably put off people that think that "being a Christian" means signing at the bottom of their doctrinal statement.

Nevertheless, I understand and respect the prerogative of each individual to "work out their salvation with fear and trembling", and take for granted that others will have different approaches and priorities. I don't judge them, and I don't care whether they judge me. That's between them and God.

Re worship: I'm a little confused by the comments that any worship music provided would be odd or weird. My understanding is that before last January, worship at BF retreats was typically to a musical accompaniment provided by a computer playlist (typically Youtube videos - worship band and lyrics projector in one!). And I'm aware of many home groups that have used CDs or playlists for worship in the absence of a resident guitar player or pianist. So I don't see how this would be different from that.

Don't get me wrong: I'm all about live worship and learning to play musical instruments. (We own a music school, for those that don't know that.) But I'm also feeling the importance of a common thread in the praise and worship that would be just as important as a common thread in the teaching or outreach ministry (otherwise, what do we have in common? why bother coordinating our efforts at all?). I think what I'm feeling is that I would want to make a downloadable playlist available for those that want or need to use it, and lead sheets and maybe a demo video available for musicians who could use that, but that it would be desirable for all the households that made up this fellowship to be "singing from the same sheet of music", so to speak. Have I just lost perspective because I'm a worship musician and am looking at this through a particular set of lenses?
 
Re: Christ Centered Poly Friendly Chruches/ PeopleWhere are

In terms of theology we're on the exact same page Andrew. I'd be very keen on the sort of group you propose. But the most common criticism I hear of BF is that we don't put effort into ensuring everyone agrees with X aspect of theology that the critic feels is absolutely essential, and reject everyone that fails to follow it. It's an understandable perspective, and may even be correct in some cases (I'm not claiming my view on this is correct). So we need to provide a place for people who are less ecumenical in their outlook or we'll simply shrink ourselves into yet another denominational box, the "happy to not get upset about issues that don't bother Andrew and Samuel" denomination...

On worship I just feel singing into a video camera on a computer sounds odd. But it might be great, I have never tried it! You're the worship expert Andrew.
 
Re: Christ Centered Poly Friendly Chruches/ PeopleWhere are

Isn't that what we already do on this forum? Isn't one point of this online church idea to let us dig deeper in love and fellowship into other matters that are off-topic here? If we keep diverting these discussions we will just become lukewarm. We need to have them, but have them calmly and rationally from scripture rather than from the statement of faith of the denomination we grew up in.
 
Re: Christ Centered Poly Friendly Chruches/ PeopleWhere are

FollowingHim said:
In terms of theology we're on the exact same page Andrew. I'd be very keen on the sort of group you propose.
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Awesomeness abounds! 8-) (Ps 133)

FollowingHim said:
But the most common criticism I hear of BF is that we don't put effort into ensuring everyone agrees with X aspect of theology that the critic feels is absolutely essential, and reject everyone that fails to follow it. It's an understandable perspective, and may even be correct in some cases (I'm not claiming my view on this is correct). So we need to provide a place for people who are less ecumenical in their outlook or we'll simply shrink ourselves into yet another denominational box, the "happy to not get upset about issues that don't bother Andrew and Samuel" denomination...
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Exactly. With the caveat that I don't feel called to "provide a place" for others to flog their denominational distinctives. That may not be what you meant, but I'd like to get a more ecumenical fellowship going without making it "the" BF expression of church, leaving the door open for others who want or need other distinctives to do their own thing. "If you don't like what this fellowship is doing, feel free to start your own" kind of thing. Beyond that, I'd be happy to help others get their own thing going if the timing is such that I have figured out some things that would save them some time, and I'd like to think we'd all see each other as being on the same team and want to help each other forward. Didn't want that to sound all selfish or anything.... :shock:

FollowingHim said:
On worship I just feel singing into a video camera on a computer sounds odd. But it might be great, I have never tried it! You're the worship expert Andrew.
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Well, that explains it, because I wasn't really picturing a two-way communication at this point. That would be a little weird, at least where I am today. Our kids or grandkids will probably think it's all perfectly normal....

I think my working model is my parents, who are shut-ins that watch two church services on TV every Sunday morning. Of course, it's not exactly the same as being in the sanctuary surrounded by others, but at least there's that feeling of being connected to that group.

If we had a live streaming worship service, a la these big Houston churches with big media budgets, then we would have that same feeling of being united in praise and worship—in time if not in space. Trust me, I'm in no hurry to undertake a monumental operational commitment, and I don't have any desire to do anything lame and low-budget and awkward. I'm wondering, though, or hypothesizing, whether we could create a feeling of one-ness simply by all using the same playlist from week-to-week in the knowledge that we are part of a significant larger group.

I'm not trying to dictate anyone's expression of worship, and if someone has a commitment to their own autonomy or just enjoys picking their own songs then fine. Or someone else can pick the songs; I don't lay claim to expert status. :? I just think there's something to be said for a unified expression of worship, if we can figure out how to get there from here.
 
Re: Christ Centered Poly Friendly Chruches/ PeopleWhere are

On providing a place, we've just been looking at a different scale. I have seen a site facilitating different groups, you have seen one group. Which is a better place to start anyway.

I see what you mean with worship now. I would be up to giving that a crack and would appreciate the fact that someone else was leading it and providing direction, as I keep meaning to start formal family worship times and struggle to make it happen
 
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