“The World Is Flat: A Brief History Of The Twenty-First Century”

“The World is my Parish”

by Tom Nees

A review of “The World is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century”

by Thomas L Friedman

New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2005

In his report to the Central California district assembly in May 2005, Shawn Siegfried, pastor of the Visalia Church of the Nazarene reported that his congregation has recently purchased land in Thailand to start a church among the Lahu people. I was there was and curious. How and why would a California congregation take the initiative and provide the support needed for such a project?

It began when a local Lahu immigrant congregation asked to hold services at the Visalia church and soon thereafter become a Nazarene congregation. The partnership between the English-speaking Visalia congregation and their new Lahu friends developed into a mission to unreached people in Northern Thailand. Executive pastor Wil Hobbs sent the following email message to me –

On our trip to Thailand we introduced our stateside Lahu pastor Sar See to our Nazarene missionaries and through their conversations and shared vision for reaching tribal peoples we agreed that purchasing land in Northern Thailand would further our vision to reach tribal peoples in the Golden Triangle region.

We believe this will minister to Lahu people in Thailand, open doors for ministry in Lahu people in our country and it will give opportunity to reach people in countries where missionaries are not welcome.

When I heard pastor Siegfried describe this mission partnership I happened to be reading Tom Friedman’s best selling book, The World is Flat. If Friedman had known about this mission partnership he might have included it as another example of 21st Century global collaboration brought on by he describes as the “Ten Forces That Flattened the World.”

As I followed Friedman’s description of the technologies that are moving countries and corporations beyond globalization to remarkable new international partnerships I kept wondering about the implications of all this for the 21st century church and its global mission.

If you’ve talked to a customer service agent from India, downloaded and printed your own boarding pass from Southwest Airlines, purchased anything from Wal-Mart, sent or received a delivery from UPS, used Google to find online information through a web browser you’re in Friedman’s “flat world”, a world where technology has created a level playing field for billions of people who were until recently marginalized by distance and underdevelopment. No longer.

For Friedman the first flattener was the fall of the Berlin wall on “11/9/89.” By the beginning of the 21st century and the opening of Eastern Europe and China the Internet was connecting everyone, anywhere with everything, anytime. The additional nine flatteners are computer applications connected through the Internet, which for better or worse are changing nearly everything we buy, how we communicate, where we go, what we learn – if not who we are. As Friedman points out, 9/11 was a result of this new flat world. The Al Qaeda terrorists are as much the beneficiaries of this flat world as are the billions of people for whom a level playing field means hope for a better life.

In the second half of his book, Friedman addresses the implications of this flat world for society with primary emphasis on international business and education. As I thought about the ten flatteners and his somewhat threatening conclusions I thought too about the implications of the flat world for the church and its global mission.

Some of these reflections are based on information from several meetings of pastors, including two media summits the UCME Department and NCN (Nazarene Communications Network) has hosted. In these meetings we asked pastors to critique our denominational media and Internet resources and to tell us where they go to find preaching, worship and training materials. We have also listened and learned from pastors of large churches in a recent “Partnership in Missions” conference hosted by the UCME and WM Departments.

In no particular order – here are a few observations about the implications of the flat world for the church.

Increasing numbers of people check the Internet for information about churches including their beliefs, programs and resources before visiting or joining. Church websites provide members and friends with announcements creating virtual faith communities online.

Pastors are going to Internet websites for preaching, worship and religious education resources. Video clips and PowerPoint presentations designed to be downloaded and edited are being used for worship, training and education purposes. Worship services using these web resources are then planned and presented with projectors and multiple screens combining music, drama, video clips and sermons aided and illustrated with PowerPoint slides.

Virtual online Christian communities are emerging. George Barna will launch a website this year to connect what he claims to be a growing number of informal groups of believers who are disconnecting from local churches.

Hierarchical styles of leadership are being challenged. Friedman describes a new style of leadership driven by the flat world as “from command and control to collaborate and connect.” Pastors and churches are increasing by the leadership style of mega-church pastors such as Rick Warren and his “Forty-Days of Purpose” and Bill Hybels with his Willow Creek Association.

Theology is developed by open-source networks of volunteer theologians. According to Friedman, “Self-Organizing Collaborative Communities”, are developing cutting-edge technologies making public and free “source-codes” for new software programs such as Linux. In the same way the Internet provides a means for volunteer theologians from around the world to connect and collaborate in peer-reviewed theological reflections.

Congregations are no longer dependent upon missionaries and mission agencies for information about global missions. Local churches have become mission agencies in and of themselves partnering with traditional mission agencies around the world. The Thai members of the Visalia, California church is an example of the church in a flat world in which immigrant congregants remain in direct contact with their home countries and travel frequently back and forth. As a result the Visalia church went directly to Thailand, purchased the property and afterward developed a partnership with the denominational mission infrastructure in the area to sponsor a new church half a world away. We are learning of many variations on this pattern of global mission partnerships.

Denominational centers are not necessarily the sole or even the preferred provider of information and resources. The Internet provides a limitless opportunity for individuals and organizations to market their resources to one another. The general public is more likely to get information about spiritual things from websites, movies and book stores than from local congregations.

The flat-world makes denominational differentiation difficult. If the flat world makes it difficult for corporations to differentiate themselves, the same is true for churches. What difference do unchurched people perceive between a Roman Catholic parish and a Nazarene church both with a “Forty Day of Purpose” sign on the front lawn? The two major resources for reaching unchurched people in the recent past have been Mel Gibson’s movie, “The Passion of the Christ” and Rich Warren’s “Forty Day” program.

John Wesley once said “the world is my parish.” He would have loved the 21st Century flat world. Now every local congregation can be a global church in way that we could never have dreamed of even a decade ago.