Meet the Author
Leonard Sweet is the E. Stanley Jones professor of evangelism at Drew University and visiting distinguished professor of Evangelism at George Fox University, was voted one of the 50 Most Influential Christians in America, and continues to write and speak prophetically about the church. An ordained United Methodist pastor, Sweet has authored over 20 books and 600 articles, and is perhaps best known for his forward thinking ideas about the church. For more information, check out my reviews of some of his recent books: I Am a Follower: The Way, Truth and Life of Following Jesus (2012), Nudge: Awakening Each Other to the God Who’s Already There (2010), Jesus Manifesto: Restoring the Supremacy and Sovereignty of Jesus Christ – co-authored with Frank Viola (2010), and So Beautiful: Divine Design for Life and the Church (2009).
Book Basics
Viral: How Social Networking is Poised to Ignite Revival stands out from Sweet’s many recent books as the one I readily embrace and endorse. Viral is Sweet at his best, blending his incredible creativity with a firm grasp of the changing ways people connect and a solid understanding of what new ways of connecting means for those who follow the way of Jesus. This text invites readers to enrich their understanding of the world as it truly is, and to leverage the full power of social networking for ministry. In short, the book is a tale of two people and the two worlds they inhabit: Google and Gutenberg.
Western Christianity from the Enlightenment forward has been dominated by Gutenberg Christians: people who sought to order and make sense of all of life, including the life of faith. Gutenberg Christians are big on theology, individualism, and being right. They value rationality, and inhabit a world filled with printed pages. The world of today and that of tomorrow belongs to the Googlers: people who make relationship and connection primary in all of life, including the life of faith. Google Christians are big on Jesus, community, and being in relationship. They value relationality, and inhabit a world of endless data. In recent years the baton has been passed from the Gutenbergers to the Googlers; the future of the church is now firmly in the hands of Googler Christians.
Googlers have crafted a new culture that has displaced many experts, and ensured that everyone has a voice. While we are living in the early years of this new era, it is important to understand this is a TGIF culture: Twitter, Google, iPhone, and Facebook. With this new landscape in mind, Sweet devotes chapters to each area before suggesting that together these new technologies offer previously unimaginable possibilities for the viral expansion of the Christian faith.
So What?
TGIF represents the most “visible and relied-upon tools of relationship and life” (p.15). The Reformation enabled Gutenberg thinking that led most Christians to read the words of the biblical text on printed pages. The digital reformation is enabling Googler thinking that is leading most Christians to see “the Word of God is primarily Jesus Christ, not the Bible. It is Person, not print” (p.196).
- Do you identify more as a Gutenberger or Googler? How well do you understand the other culture?
- What is your reaction to Sweet’s assertion that “the Word of God is primarily Jesus Christ, not the Bible. It is Person, not print”?
- How has the TGIF culture changed the way you understand what it means to be a person who follows the way of Jesus?
Leonard Sweet. Viral: How Social Networking is Poised to Ignite Revival (Waterbrook Press, 2012). ISBN: 9780307459152.