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A key concept for Castells is the ‘space of flows’, which links up places in real time (Castells, 2000a, pp. 407–59). Whereas for over a century places have been getting better connected, what is new is the integration of distant places so they can function as a coherent unit. Locations geographically far apart are linked together, and information is instantly transferred between them as if they are next door.

Castells argues that this compression of space and time brings into existence a new social space with its own dynamics and characteristics, the space of flows. It consists of the electronic circuits and fast transportation corridors that connect distant locations. It enables the movement of information, materials, money or people. It relies on networks that are tied to a series of points or nodes, such as individuals, organizations, cities and nation states.

This space of flows has several implications for the church. First, individuals increasingly live in the space of flows. They facebook, tweet, swap music files, talk endlessly on their mobile phones, follow sport online and much else. Church life is following suit. Between face-to-face meetings, members use the Internet to share news and prayers and sometimes study together. By downloading podcasts, visiting websites and more, individuals and groups give to and receive from the wider church. Current attempts to serve people online – churches in Second Life for example – will become more sophisticated and, as individuals learn from experience, almost certainly more fruitful.

Pete Ward argues that the church increasingly takes the form of networks. These networks are constantly formed and re-formed through communication outside the gathering, as well as inside (Ward, 2002, p. 38; 2008, p. 137). Graham Ward suggests that his namesake’s vision is nothing new. Church has always been a network (Ward, 2009, pp. 203–4, n. 32). But the ‘talk, talk’ society, in which people spend longer in more varied networks, is bringing the network aspect of church to the fore. As more ecclesial life takes place in networks, the church has an opportunity to redeem the space of flows – to show what this space might be like if it was under the lordship of Christ.8

The space of flows and the networks within it do not reduce the importance of geography. Most people are embedded in the places where they live. Networks actually enhance physical life (Castells, 2001, pp. 207–46). Community groups employ the space of flows on behalf of locally rooted projects; mobile phones are used to arrange meetings in a place; teleworking retains the office, but utilizes it in a different way. Likewise, new network churches often gather people who have a place in common – a sports centre, workplace, school or community centre. ‘Local’ churches have a long-term future because for most people everyday life remains local. Thus, just as society is both online and physical, church too increasingly has a network and geographical existence.

Second, Castells argues that one effect of the space of flows is to fragment localities. Some of the fragments are integrated into new functional units by being connected to complementary nodes elsewhere. The local convenience store is part of a global supply chain. Individuals meet up with their friends from some distance away. But geographical space is fragmented. The convenience store ignores local suppliers. Well-networked individuals may not know each other next door. In particular the elite strata of ‘informational labour’, which inhabits boutique hotels, loft apartments and airport VIP lounges, lacks deep roots in a place. The gated community symbolizes the elite’s presence in a locality, and yet its distance from it.

By contrast, the poor live outside the space of flows in an existence constrained by geography. Here is a key way that power is exercised in this new society. Networks have a binary logic – you are either in or out. Castells writes of ‘networking power’, which is the capacity of a network to include or exclude people (Castells, 2009, pp. 42). Who belongs to society’s dominant networks and does not becomes a major source of exclusion. This is exemplified by the City of London. It is a node in the networks of financial capital but sits alongside areas of great poverty. Networks create geographical rich–poor divides.

This breaking up of place creates a new context in which the church can live out the reconciling power of the kingdom. Dual church membership, mentioned in the last chapter, and networks that link focused churches at local and regional levels can counter the trend toward fragmentation. Individual churches can become nodes within networks that tie people together across a locality. Might focused churches increasingly join the fragments of society, while ecclesial networks join the fragments up?

To be serious about integration, these networks will have to pay close attention to people who risk being excluded. Networks of the like-minded will merely replicate the inclusion/exclusion dynamic of networks in general. To overcome this dynamic, the church must bring something fresh to the network society. Flying in the face of almost everything, from Facebook’s modus operandi to national immigration policies, the church will have to create networks that welcome individuals who are different.

Third, networks enable churches to mobilize and serve the wider society. Networks can address issues that are too large for any one gathering. Martyn Percy is concerned that this will fail to happen. Fresh expressions of church, he fears, will lack ‘thick’ connections to the wider body and to their neighbourhoods. They will be too self-focused to pursue the social good and to build up the whole church (2008; 2010, pp. 67–79). Without discussing alternative views, 9 Percy sides with commentators who believe that personal networks are spreading at the expense of mass membership organizations, such as Scouts and Guides, trade unions and traditional churches, which socialized their members into being civic-minded. Civil and voluntary associations are giving way to inward-looking family and friendship ties.

Others think that new large-scale forms of solidarity are emerging. Mass movements can be organized on the Internet, while local action becomes easier when arranged online. In support of this second view, there is some evidence that the Internet has expanded individuals’ circles of friends and contacts, while the number of close confidants has shrunk.10 It is conceivable that as people live busier lives, they have less time to make intimate friends, but the Internet partly compensates by enabling them to have more acquaintances.

This extension of ‘weak’ ties (as against ‘strong’ ones between close friends) may be good for building social capital and mobilizing people. Information can race along connections to more individuals faster. A number of examples could be cited, such as the ‘Arab spring’ in 2011. A striking one occurred on Monday 27 March 2006 when, after a weekend of immigrant protests, tens of thousands of American teenagers walked out of class for their own protest. Many were responding to messages on Myspace.11

Percy works with a particular assumption about what ‘thick’ church is like. He ignores the potential for church of the network society. If the space of flows makes local and wider collaboration easier than before, the key question becomes: how can the church – inherited as well as emerging – use this new space to promote the well-being of society and strengthen the whole ecclesial body?