Jesse Rice opened MISE2010 with a great story form his book, The Church of Facebook about the Millennium Bridge in London. Get the book to read the story- it’s sweet.

The highlight of this story is this thing called Spontaneous Order (which is talked about at length by Steven Sogratz in his book, SYNC) Essentially spontaneous order is this: that animate and inanimate objects can synchronize together quickly. A flock of birds for example, or a school of fish, or a large group of people dancing at a concert together.

Here’s the thing- we can’t predict spontaneous order. And, this is what we’re observing in this world of social media in the last 5-7 years. It has drawn people en mass into these communities, and we don’t know what this going to do.

We’re having to adapt in real time and think of new ways that we’re going to have to navigate. Even for the experts it’s impossible to keep up with these changes.

Read more after the jump…

Three Unpredicted Outcomes
1- Christin Rosen calls Facebook a culture of status, the more you participate, the more your status goes up.
In this culture self expression is king (and how cleverly at that). The more friends or connections we have the more credible we are- it’s cyber-street-cred.

With Twitter this is a little different in that you only have 140 characters to be clever. It’s hard. You’re pretty much generating headlines.
Essentially this culture is a culture of amplified narcissism.

2- The blurring of boundaries.
What were once clear-cut swaths in our daily lives are now, more or less, the faded lines of the information super highway. Employers are friends with employees and they connect in a virtual way that they wouldn’t have a few years ago.
Employers now go to your Facebook to check you out before they hire you. FACEBOOK ISN’T PRIVATE!.
The public nature of the ways we’re connected changes things.
The parts of our past story are coming back. We have to navigate that. What happens if I don’t add this person?!!!!
God uses this to help put back together parts of our stories that got lost.

3- Presence
It’s becoming increasingly harder to be present to the here and now, as a result of our hyper-connectivity. We’re always connected to the outside.
Linda Stone identifies this as Continuous Partial Attention (CPA). That is, doing a number of different things at once to accomplish a goal. CPA is driven by the desire to NOT miss out, so much so that we really don’t read anymore, we’re just constantly scanning to find out.

Jesse shared a story about running into a friend he hadn’t seen in a while (picture beautiful, slow motion chariots of fire-type-thing across the parking lot). About 20 feet from him, his friend stops and starts texting. His friend explained when he was finished that he was unemployed and was expecting contact from a guy looking for a job. That was great, but it ruined their beautiful cinematic moment.

Another time Jesse was facilitating a breakout session at a conference. In the middle of his talk a guy in the fron row gets phone call. He takes it, and Jesse (and everyone else in the room) thought the guy would just quielty excuse himself from the room. Not so. The guy proceeded to have an entire conversation about his kid needing to be picked up from school- everyone could hear. This was completely strange. The guy was at a conference and was connected somewhere else, instantly.

What we need to realize is that GOD IS ONLY AT WORK IN OUR LIVES IN THE PRESENT MOMENT.
It’s hard to be fully ourselves when we’re this tethered self- connected elsewhere all the time.

What is our response?
Take the story of Jesus meeting the woman at the well in John 4. There’s three things to really take from that story in this context of hyper-connectivity.
1-Jesus is intentional- Jesus goes to the well in the middle of the day. This woman should have normally been there in the morning with the other women. But something is amiss, and Jesus goes there in the middle of her routine. Our intentions make it possible for a new creative thing; they set the stage. Maintain focus. Be intentional.
2-Jesus’ humility- He never has a messiah complex while talking with the woman (even though he knew something of her story). He engages her where she’s at. And it’s his humility that helps her to trust him.
3-Jesus’ authenticity- Jesus doesn’t mince words with her, he actually cuts to the meat of the situation. Authenticity is being who we are with other people. Our authentic self. Let’s talk just where we are. It’s trans-formative.

Inherent Challenges
Naturally there are some obstacles to this.

According to N.T. Stewart we are all made for stewardship, communion, and worship. Or- sex, gardening, and God. (The last part is from Jesse, not N.T. Stewart.)

We long to know and to be known.

Wrap Up
We need to approach our hyper-connected culture through a new set of lenses on how to see more clearly all of this. We must engage our respective communities in really life-giving ways.