About Project Diktuon
Pulling the Fish Together
Project Diktuon

Project Diktuon is about building unity and community of Christians in Europe.

It is project only in the very loose sense of the word. Rather I use it as a name tag to describe something that happens all the time by people who don’t even know about each other. But want to know. And giving it a name is an attempt to help that goal.

As Christians we are bound to Christ. And in Christ we are bound to one another. Yet we might not even know about each other. There may be people with similar issues on their hearts, who live fairly close by, but of whom we know nothing about. This is what Project Diktuon tries to address – strengthen our unity and improve our chances to meet one another in real life.

Diktuon.net is an Internet service meant to support Project Diktuon.

Community

Project Diktuon is all about “building a community.”

I use both words a bit ambiguously to mean two slightly different things. First, I sometimes refer explicitly to the community of all those people contributing to Project Diktuon, whether they know they do so or not. This community is not very tight, and many people only know a handful of others. Ultimately the aim of Project Diktuon is to build this community. Second, I usually use the word community to refer just a subset of that community: users of Diktuon.net.

By “building the community” within the context of Diktuon.net, I mean “building the bigger community by building the smaller community”.

When building the smaller community, the bigger community is built in two ways:

  1. Directly, as those people are part of the larger community, and building that community is building the bigger community and

  2. Indirectly, as the users and subcommunites in the smaller are built and then they act as parts of the larger community.

There are many ways to build the smaller community. First, sharing from our own hearts so that each of us may grow in knowing God. Second, weaving the networks between people in the smaller community and by encouraging them sharing and co-operating, thereby tightening the community. And third, growing the size of the community by discipling and inviting more people to the smaller community.

When people and communities built around Diktuon.net act in the larger context, they can guide Christians to be disciples of Jesus, build unity among Christians, share the gospel of Christ to unbelievers, and do whatever it is God wants them to do – and use the Diktuon.net resources and strengthened by the community around Diktuon.net.

It is vitally important to to build people and the community primarily in quality and only then in quantity. To reach the goal of gathering people with the right kind of hearts and minds, no-one can just sign up. The community I’m talking about is a network. Someone in the network should already know you and be convinced that you too share these values. Then you can be invited to the network.

This caution for entering the community is especially important, because the community itself is not hierarchically controlled. I want to let the community take shape based on the people belonging to it, and not try to give it form myself. For example, rather than deciding myself how Diktuon.net it should be developed, I’d like to allocate resources and help to people wanting to contribute to it themselves. In general I think we should focus on what people have on their hearts and encourage that rather than seek people to do tasks we think are important.

This kind of freedom is very essential to Project Diktuon. It is about giving up control. Control over of our own lives, and control over any other people or things. The order does not arise from us trying to control one another, but from us submitting to one another freely, as an expression of our love for Christ.

I for one would like to be part of such community.

Why Europe?

First, Europe is what I have on my heart. Some people may have been given concern over their city, country or even the world. I find myself praying for and thinking in terms of Europe.
Naturally my vision for this site is Europe-wide as well.

Second, social networks are essentially social outside the cyberspace, and therefore for effective sociality there has to be proximity. In the Internet there is a problem with “internationality”. While English may be the most international language around, the “international” sites tend to be US centric. Social network for Europeans cannot be US centric, and therefore site supporting that network shouldn’t be either. Besides knowing a priori that people at the same site share the same values – are one in Christ – they should also know that they actually have a realistic chance of meeting them without having to cross an ocean.

Third, Europe is special. At the same time it is a tightly packed large region of people with many things in common, while at the same time these people are divided into several heterogeneous peoples, who have their very own strong identities. One of the things that sets these peoples apart is the multitude of languages they use. This means that not all people belonging to this large community can use their native language. At the same time, most of the people they relate to, belong to the community of their native language.

So, if you live in Europe and want to build the Kingdom anywhere, want to build the Kingdom in Europe or want to be in touch with those, who want to build the Kingdom in Europe, you might be at the right place.

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