In an article on social networks in the winter, 2007, issue of Stanford Social Innovation Review, Joel Podolny writes:

Think about the last time a person told you that he or she was going to do some networking. Did you feel slightly repulsed? A little wary? To most, the term “networking” means using other people to get what we want… [and] sociological studies verify that when people attempt to build networks — even for good deeds — they convert relatively few to their cause…. At the same time, sociological studies also show that networks power social change…. If networks are necessary for social change, but netowrking is repugnant, what’s a social crusader to do?

Podolny says that if you’re going to build a network to power social change, you have to treat people both as means (to create social change) and as ends in themselves (to power personal transformation).

Churches are social networks that start out by treating people primarily as ends in themselves. In so doing, churches become robust communities — similar to “voluntary associations” in the theology of James Luther Adams — that create space within mass democracy where individual persons can be treated as individuals.

Church 2.0 takes that a step further. Church 2.0 encourages, trains, and supports individuals to create small groups within the larger congregation — both face-to-face groups, and virtual groups. Church 2.0 also encourages, trains, and supports individuals to create small groups that extend into other congregations via Web-based and other new media — and to create small groups that extend into the wider community. The boundaries of Church 2.0 are more porous than Church 1.0, because attendance at Sunday morning worship services is no longer the primary criterion for participation in the church community.

In a related story titled “Networks Online and On-land,” in the same issue of Stanford Social Innovation Review, Allison Fine reports:

Since 2001, Meetup.com has been working at the intersection of online and on-land activism, connecting more than 2 million people through more than 10,00 local clubs, dedicated to everything from pug dogs to Elvis to libertarianism [and Unitarian Universalism!]. Relationships are started online and then are strengthened and deepend by in-person activities.

Scott Heiferman, a co-founder of MeetUp, sums up the thinking of many connected activists. “How do you start an association today?” he asks. “Do you need a building in Washington? No, you go online.”

Increasingly, as Church 2.0 takes hold, we’ll see new churches start up through online networking, move to face-to-face small groups, and finally to a face-to-face, place-based church. But a Church 2.0 congregation that starts this way will never let themselves be limited to mere place-based networking.

Church 2.0’s combination of networking that treats people as ends in themselves, porous boundaries, and communities that are both place-based and online will be very powerful indeed. Church 2.0 will result both in more personal transformation, and more social change.