Virtual Community

Guest blogger Sammy Frame shares some exciting news about a new way to connect.

How busy are you? If you’re like the vast majority of Americans, the answer to this question is “extremely.” Yet, “the average American actually has more leisure time today than thirty years ago.”1 In fact, recent research suggests that Americans have five hours more a week than they did 50 years ago!2 So, what are you doing with your extra five hours?

In truth, our sense of ‘busyness’ has never been more real and while we do have more discretionary time, we tend to use it more in volunteerism and community participation. For example, how many hours a week do you spend carting your kids all over the Richmond area for their respective activities? Nonetheless, our need for connection and community has never been more real. To whom are you connected?

In our lives it can seem daunting and exhausting to ‘find’ an extra night of the week to connect with our church family. When you only have one free night, do you really want to spend it out on the roads again? At PCC we make no apologies for asking you to connect to community life here. We believe it’s important for you and we believe it’s part of what it means to be ‘church’. Yet, we want to facilitate that, not overload anyone.

So, for the first time ever, we’re going to try starting groups online. We would like to launch our first ever virtual small group and for those of you who can’t drive out another night, if you have internet access, we’d like to invite you to be involved. Your connection to a community that loves you and wants to see you grow in your knowledge of, faith in, and relationship to Jesus is incredibly important. Perhaps this will provide you with a way to do that. If you live too far away to be involved in a standard small group, then maybe this will give you a chance to connect. If you work weird shifts and can’t find a good time slot for a standard small group, then perhaps this will work for you.

Currently, we’re soliciting interest in such a group. If you have an interest in becoming involved with a virtual small group that you can participate in from the comfort of your own living room, office, bedroom, or wherever you keep your computer, then please email me, Sammy Frame, at sammy{at}powhatancommunitychurch{dot}org or Tina Grinolds at knit4h1m{at}comcast{dot}net. We’ll look forward to hearing from you.

1 Miller, Will and Glenn Sparks. Refrigerator Rights. (Barrington, IL: Willow Creek Resources, 2008), 168.
2 Ibid.