Wikinomics

The Internet, in addition to enabling me to buy furniture and wedding gifts without leaving my house, has also spawned the age of mass collaboration.  Or so say the authors of a new book deliciously called Wikinomics.  The Human Genome Project, Wikipedia, and Linux are three examples of the fundamental truth that everyone knows more than anyone.

I wonder if we Christians ought to double down on this concept when it comes to our spiritual health and our life mission.  In this day and this country, faith is all too often narrowed down to a personal and private journey.  And it is, in fact, at least that.  But it is so much more; it is also a shared, communal, and public adventure.

I am, by all accounts, a pretty independent and private person.  And yet I am challenged by this notion of mass collaboration, not only in my professional life but in my spiritual life as well.  For did not the apostle Paul describe all believers collectively as like a human body, inter-connected and intertwined?  And will not our purpose here on earth - God's grand purpose for putting us on earth -  be accomplished only by linking together so as to bear one another's burdens and benefit from one another's talents?

The next time you're mass collaborating, whether professionally (project teams, wikis, networking) or personally (YouTube, Flickr, MySpace), think about how the principle that everyone's better than anyone can apply to your spiritual vitality and to your mission on earth.  Because in this wild, wired, wiki world, we need to link up to survive and thrive.

http://www.wikinomics.com/