Christian Educators' Journal

The reality behind the virtual

by Bill Boerman-Cornell

One of the best things about the net is that it gives people a place to air their views relatively free of preconceptions or judgments. Someone reading my posts on cino doesn't know my age, what I look like, what my job is, my political views, or anything else about me until I decide to tell them. Much has been written about how this contributes to a free flow of ideas, and we have certainly seen that on the cino discussion board, but all this anonymity has some negative effects.

The biggest effect that I can see is that it is possible to visit the site, check out the discussion boards, read the articles, view the galleries, check out the links, and that whole time, never get any sort of sense that who is behind all this professional looking, well-thought out, provocative, consistently well-done visionary stuff are just two people, our friends Kirstin and Rob.

I would like to tell you about how they met in high school, how they were my students, and how I taught them everything they know and inspired them with the courage to begin an endeavor like *cino, but in fact, it is more the other way around. I was never fortunate enough to teach them, though I recall many wonderful discussions after school. And frankly, Rob and Kirstin were more the sorts of students who inspired the teachers. Unfortunately, this is starting to sound like an elegy and right now, somewhere, Rob is looking embarrassed and Kirstin is looking at the floor and turning red, so I'll move on.

Rob is a long-haired thoughtful sort of person admittedly given to dreaming, but also given to tracking those dreams on through. Talking with him tends to cause one to leap into some sort of utopian future. Kirstin has a good-natured, unquestioning commitment to transforming the world. When she points out an injustice or a deficiency in the world, and suggests a solution, it is impossible not to see that it is the only way to respond. When Kirstin thinks about stuff, you can actually see it in her eyes.

And talking with the two of them at once is an exhilarating experience. The conversation tends to gain momentum as it goes, skipping from related topic to related topic, from connection to connection. It is at once reaffirming and challenging.

A couple of years ago, Rob and Kirstin had this crazy idea to develop culture is not optional as a way for Christians to talk about how we are supposed to live in this world. (Actually, the full story is that board member Jason Vande Brake, after discussing some seminal cino ideas with them, suggested they talk to board member Grant and they found out that he was thinking along the same lines. The first ^camping is not optional trip two summers ago gave them an actual experience of community that they hoped the website would mirror.) Most of us have crazy ideas at some point—maybe the notion of starting a garage band flickers across our consciousness, or maybe a get-rich scheme involving buying clothing on sale and selling it on e-bay flares in our mind, or maybe we get an idea for an invention or a novel that could be the hugest new thing and earn us millions of dollars. I have had these daydreams and have also watched them fade back into the fabric of my mind. Rob and Kirstin didn't let their daydream die. They prayed about it, and came to the conclusion that God was calling them to do this.

Somehow, God tends to call most of us to stable jobs and comfortable middle-class existences. I am not sure if Rob and Kirstin's hearing is faulty or (as I suspect) the rest of us may need to get some wax out of our ears, but they went ahead and gave it a shot. Relying on donations from friends and neighbors, living in rent-free housing belonging to relatives, and living an austere existence has all gone hand in hand with their dream. They look to the future and bear it without complaint.

A typical day for Rob and Kirstin starts out with several hours of reading and study (after first checking e-mail and doing a bit of surfing to find stuff for the back page of cino). As Kirstin says, "We figured that if we were going to lead an organization like this, we needed to develop as leaders and become more spiritually mature." At this writing, Rob is reading Reaching out Without Dumbing Down by Marva Dawn, and Kirstin is in the midst of Richard Foster's Celebration of Discipline. They eat lunch together, then approach the afternoon cino tasks as best seems appropriate for that day. Depending on how soon the next issue of catapult is due out, they might work until bedtime or later. The night an issue comes out, they stay up well past midnight to monitor the changeover.

*cino has grown from a website for a handful of people to discuss ideas, to an online community of over 150 register members and 9,000 visits per month. Rob and Kirstin's vision seems to be solidifying, and hopes to soon be gifted with flight.

And I know I shouldn't be doing this in an article that is supposed to be a light profile, but I am going to anyway—I find the life they have chosen to be an inspiration, but also to be a call to the community around them, and that includes you, *cino members, and you, too, casual investigators. It is not right that good work of this sort go unvalued. It is not right that Rob and Kirstin should have to live in a way that they worry about paying bills in order to keep the server up and running. See, if you met them, you would help them out, at least a little.

So here's what I would suggest. Invite them over to dinner. Talk to them for a while. Get some cool ideas out of the deal, about quitting your job and starting a Christian recording studio or an advertising agency for non-profits. Then, while they are clearing your table, quickly go outside and leave some money in their car.