Viral: How Social Networking Is Poised to Ignite Revival [Kindle Edition]

Leonard Sweet (Author)

Book Description

The gospel is nothing without relationship. And no one gets it like the Google Generation.
 
God came to earth to invite us, personally, into a relationship. And while Christians at times downplay relationships, the social-media generation is completely sold on the idea. In Viral, Leonard Sweet says Christians need to learn about connecting with others from the experts—those who can’t seem to stop texting, IM-ing, tweeting, and updating their Facebook statuses. What would happen, he asks, if Christians devoted less attention to strategies and statistics and paid more attention to pursuing relationships?
 
The current generation is driven by a God-given desire to know others and to be known by others. Most of them, in seeking to connect in meaningful ways, have found a place of belonging that is outside the organized church. Why not bring the two together?
 
Those who are sold out to relationships can teach Christians how to be better friends to people who need God. At the same time, members of the social-media generation can learn how to follow their desire for belonging, straight into the arms of God. It’s time for relationship to be restored to the heart of the gospel. And when that happens, can revival be far behind?
 
End-of-Chapter Interactives Included

Editorial Reviews

Review

Praise for Viral

“There are plenty of books on technology by writers who don’t understand Christianity. And there are plenty of books on Christianity by people who are lost in the world of technology. The genius of Leonard Sweet is that he navigates both worlds, and his insight into living as a believer in today’s media-driven culture is not just helpful, it’s critical.
Viral connects the dots between social media and our witness to the world.”
—Phil Cooke, PhD, filmmaker, media consultant, and author of Jolt! Get the Jump on a World That’s Constantly Changing

“Viral is culturally astute, Christ centered, gospel focused, kingdom oriented. Tweet that! Leonard Sweet captures the zeitgeist of our age in a biblically subversive way that redeems our technoculture for Christ. He explores the promise and the peril of our brave new world of electronic connectivity, while showing Christians how to apply the gospel at the crossroads of modernity and postmodernity, individualism and community, rational and relational faith. If you are skeptical of TGIF (Twitter, Google, iPhone, Facebook) or want to learn more, you must read this book.”
—Brian Godawa, screenwriter of To End All Wars and author of Hollywood Worldviews, Word Pictures, and Noah Primeval

“Leonard Sweet has always been Patient Zero for Spiritually Transmitted Dis-ease, and Viral transmits the pathogen of the Paraclete better than any other work I know. Sweet connects the incarnation to the web, taking readers beyond the vapid and introducing us to the layers of meaning behind the pixels on the screen.”
—David McDonald, author of The Undwellable City

“In Viral, Leonard Sweet paints a fascinating picture of today’s highly creative TGIF culture, while inviting the Gutenberg Generation into a new experience of Jesus’s timeless campfire story. The Googler Generation’s passion for spreading the divine viral epidemic through their passion for social media and narratives, as well as their longing for connectivity and participation, provides fascinating challenges for all followers of Jesus. Christians need to become part of God’s viral revival. Sweet shows us how.”
—Stephan Joubert, extraordinary professor in New Testament studies, University of Pretoria, South Africa; extraordinary professor of contemporary ecclesiology, University of the Free State, South Africa; research fellow at Radboud University, Nijmegen, The Netherlands; and editor of Ekerk /Echurch

“The church has never been more equipped to reach people with the gospel. With that opportunity comes a tremendous responsibility to communicate the unchanging message of the gospel in an ever-changing, hyper-connected culture. Leonard Sweet shares how Christ-followers can spread this life-changing message and bring about a revival unlike any we have seen before. He provides practical ideas and pastoral insight into leveraging the exponential opportunities available to share our faith through social media.”
—Tim Schraeder, co-director of the Center for Church Communication and editor of Outspoken: Conversations on Church Communication

About the Author

LEONARD SWEET, PhD, is founder and president of SpiritVenture Ministries and is a professor at Drew University and a visiting distinguished professor at George Fox University. A leading social critic and cultural observer, Sweet is considered one of the most influential Christians in North America. He is the chief writer for sermons.com and has authored numerous books that have changed Christian thinking, including The Gospel According to Starbucks, Soul Tsunami, and Jesus Manifesto (with Frank Viola). Sweet lives in northern Washington.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• File Size: 1332 KB
• Print Length: 240 pages
• Publisher: WaterBrook Press (March 13, 2012)
• Sold by: Random House Digital, Inc.
• Language: English
• ASIN: B005723LC0
• Text-to-Speech: Enabled
• X-Ray: Not Enabled
• Lending: Not Enabled
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #185,288 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)
  • #83 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Nonfiction > Religion & Spirituality > Christianity > Clergy > Church Growth
  • #100 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Nonfiction > Religion & Spirituality > Christianity > Christian Living > Leadership

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Great concepts March 17, 2012

By J. Johnson

Format:Paperback

There are two disclaimers that I have to put at the beginning of this review.

The first is an official one. I received this book free for review from Blogging for Books by WaterBrook Multnomah. This does not mean that the review has to be favorable, so the review is my honest opinion, but I do have to notify that it was a review copy. Consider yourself notified.

The second is unofficial. I am a huge fan of Leonard Sweet's books. I have read almost every single one of his books, so the fact that this one came up for review was awesome! The fact that two came out in one month is even better (the second Sweet book is I Am a Follower which I am also reading for fun). So, I am a little biased when it comes to Sweet's stuff.

With both of those disclaimers typed, onto the review. In Viral, Sweet introduces two concepts namely the Gutenberger culture and the Googlers culture. The Gutenberger culture is defined by Sweet as those who were raised with type and paper while the Googlers are defined by Sweet as those who were raised in the computer age. I am going to stop there before going on since this was one of the sticking points that kept nagging at me as I was reading this book. Dividing people into two groups is going to be problematic since people tend not to fit neatly into categories. I understood what Sweet was doing and even he acknowledges the difficulty of dividing at the very end of the book, but there are whole groups of Gutenbergers who are very comfortable in the Googler world. As I wrote, that was just a sticking point, but throughout the book his point isn't to divide the groups to define them, but rather to talk about how each group views God, Jesus, the church, etc. His point is that both groups come to know Jesus in very different ways and the church will need to embrace both ways eventually moving to the Googler world, but tends to reside in the Gutenberger world.

Since the Googler world is the main focus of the book, Sweet goes deeper into the world by calling them TGIF Christians. The TGIF Christian is the second concept and takes up the end of the book. TGIF stands for-Twitter, Google, iPhone, and Facebook. Googlers are comfortable in these social worlds. He uses each social network to not only show how the church should address the Googlers, but also how they see God. He uses each Social network to name to define certain views. For example, he uses Twitter to talk about Following and following Christ, iPhones for connectedness, etc. He not only shows the pluses of these, but also some of the difficulties that the Googlers will have with each of these especially around the idea of false communities.

Overall, I enjoyed the book. As I wrote, I had a stumbling block with the division in the beginning and I could not get "Thank God It's Friday" out of my head while reading the acronym in the beginning of the book. I will also say that on some points I felt that Sweet was trying to wedge Jesus into a great concept and Jesus could have been left out of that concept and it would still have been valid. Other times I think he pulled back too quickly when he could have connected the concept to Jesus easily. For example, during the Facebook discussion, he talks about the desire of Googlers to be face to face with people. I felt that he could have talked about the connectedness that Jesus had to people, but the concept never made it. I would say the book is worth reading though and it has some absolutely wonderful concepts.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Finally! Someone who critically engages digital culture rather than just loving or loathing it. March 13, 2012

By david mcdonald

Format:Paperback

Typically those who write on the digital intersection between gospel + culture want to either abandon everything prior to the apple IIC or decry everything since the death of Billy Sunday.

But not Sweet - he may be the one honest participant observer left within the confines of Western Christianity. He knows his gospel, and he knows his google, and he knows how the two can be made to play well together.

Viral teaches us how to incarnate the gospel in the digital era. Sweet doesn't just tell us we should (though, we should), he also tells us the "rules of enagement." And it's not all theoretical; he's a guy who practices what he tweets.

This book will stretch your thinking in two directions: first, you'll have a new appreciation for the movement of God's Spirit within our contemporary world; second, you'll feel prompted to follow suite, to continue the incarnation as part of the body.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Viral is excellent February 20, 2013

By KevanDuke

Format:Paperback

Viral offers a unique perspective on what the changes in media mean for the world of Christianity. It is one of the only resources I have seen that deals with digital media on a philosophical level while simultaneously viewing it through a spiritual lens. It speaks considerably into the world of communication. It is not a light read as Sweet offers an opportunity for high level readers to engage with the subject on a deep, profound level. Rather than considering this a "read once and conquer" type of book, Viral is a book I will reference over and over again when contemplating the art of effective communication and the history of it.

Overall, it was a great read. Readers with a high proficiency will enjoy the book more.

More About the Author

Len Sweet (www.leonardsweet.com) was born of a mixed marriage: his mother was a fiery Pilgrim Holiness-ordained preacher from the mountains of West Virginia and his quiet father a Free Methodist lay leader from the Adirondack mountains of upstate New York. After a deconversion at 17, when Len set about less sowing wild oats than planting prairies, he became an atheist intellectual and scholar dedicated to exposing the nincompoopery and poppycockery, if not tomfoolery and skullduggery of all religions. After this seven-year period of liminality, Len came back to the faith of his ancestors, where he has been ever since, exploring the "insterstices" and "semiotics" of religion, culture and history. He uses two words to describe himself: semiotician and interstitial. In other words, he is obsessed with two questions: "Where have you been?" and "Where are you going?"