Informing Faith

Canadiana Dave: The New Quest for Knowledge

2011-12-03T13:36:00.001-04:00

"Why yes, I use my iPad for data collection." I've had a few people ask me about my use of technology for research. Frankly I have lots to learn yet, but I thought I'd share what I have discovered to date. This is part 1 of 3. Next week: Canadiana Dave, The Apps of the iPad. WARNING: This video contains excessive corny-ness, but also helpful info.

Youtube Link

Bikers, Beer and Church

2011-11-24T10:56:00.001-04:00

Yes, bikers and beer but first Church. When you last went to church, did you feel welcome? Did you think "hey, I think I'll come back" or were you just glad when the Minister said "Amen" and you could exit. In the course of my research I have visited many churches. None were unwelcoming, but some were extra friendly. One mails out Tim Horton's gift cards to first time visitors (Tip: always fill out the visitor's card.) Yes, that got my attention and I don't even drink coffee! Other churches had an excitement about them that attracted me.

Since I am researching how church leaders gather information in order to re-vision their churches, I've gathered many of the books/materials they have referenced. I have read most of them as I try to get a sense of how they are seeking. I am presently finishing "Growing and Engaged Church" by Albert Winseman. Winseman works with the Gallup Organization (the Polling/Survey folks), and draws on that expertise, as well as fifteen years as a Pastor. He spent some time talking about "being welcoming." Why is being welcoming important for Winseman: because people who feel welcomed will feel they are valued by the church. People who feel valued will be engaged people, more inclined to grow, serve, and give. Not just in the church but in their communities as well. If I visited your church next would I feel welcome?

I promised bikers and beer. This is a video Carlsberg made about being welcoming. It has nothing about church but I came across it on the ChurchMag's blog. Here is the scenerio: A couple enters a movie theater that has been completely pre-filled with tough looking biker types, leaving only two seats available. Watch what happens...

Juggling, The Beatles and Intersectionality

2011-11-07T19:37:00.006-04:00

Last week I had the privilege of participating in the 1st Religion & Diversity Project's Doctoral Workshop in Ottawa. Under the direction of Prof. Jim Beckford, nine doctoral students shared their research, discussed theory and plotted dissertation writing. We learned a lot and had fun.

Today's post however is about a theoretical concept we considered in our workshop: intersectionality as demonstrated by juggling to the Beatles. Hey, I'm serious so pay attention as I badly explain (no laughing or eye-rolling allowed.) The theory of Intersectionality (pdf) was coined by Kimberle Crenshaw who was exploring how socially constructed categories of race and gender interact. For instance we can explore what it means to be a women in our society or what it means to be an African-Canadian. But what happens when these two identities intersect? How is their experience of oppression different from either experience? It is an important theory in human rights and discrimination studies.

OK, not my usual research area, and I'll have to think about this more. Prof. Jim used this video to explain the concept; its about juggling but the juggling changes when the music starts. This I get. P.S. Turn up your volume and enjoy.

Digital Religion

2011-10-16T15:49:00.000-03:00

Now I've done it. My paper proposal has been accepted for the 2012 Digital Religion Conference. Held at the Center for Media, Religion and Culture in Boulder, Colorado, the conference will draw together scholars of religion and media with producers of religious media.

Boulder, Colorado...in January. No, I don't ski. I am told there is a great Sherpa restaurant in Boulder so that's on the itinerary.

So my proposal: The Theology of Information Seeking: Understanding Church Leaders’ Source Selectionin a Digital World. I will argue that leaders cite theological orthodoxy as an important criterion for selection of information sources, but will then frequently cite materials outside of their own religious tradition. Baptist might use a Nazarene study guide online, or a Pentecostal a Mennonite video. This is certainly the case with online sources due to their convenience. Is there a contradiction here? And is there also a risk that these theologically diverse online media will undermine traditional authorities and create a hodge-podge stitched together faith? Bapta-costals and Menno-renes?

Perhaps not. When I look at the sources they cite closely, and how they use them, I am seeing a pattern. Leaders may not feel inhibited to "borrow" from those outside their faith community, as long as the borrowed bits still "fit" their church's teaching. So Pentecostals can borrow from Baptists the bits that fit Baptist doctrines, in part because they are both part of the same evangelical theological traditions. What I am not seeing is evangelicals borrowing from mainstream protestant or catholic traditions. These are outside of their theological family. Do those boundaries exist for other traditions? I am also fascinated when diverse religious groups use the same secular materials. Are these safe because they are non-theological?

So things to do: finish the paper, get my air ticket, and buy wooly socks.

Making Leaders

2011-10-10T10:12:00.002-03:00

Who do leaders turn to when they want to grow their leadership?

On September 29-30 I had attended the Global Leadership Summit, a webcast conference on Christian leadership, hosted by the Willowcreek Community Church, an evangelical mega-church of 24,000 attendees. The conference was attended by 165,000 leaders meeting at sites in 70 countries. I met with the several hundred leaders at a Canadian site at Stoneridge Fellowship.

The conference was about Christian leadership, though not necessarily church leadership; many of the speakers and attendees were from the business world; and not all were Christians. One central idea is that wisdom can be found in many places. Consider the panel of speakers:

Bill Hybels, pastor of Willowcreek Church
Dr. Henry Cloud, psychologist and author
Hon. Cory Booker, Mayor of Newark
Seth Godin, author and marketing blogger
Michelle Rhee, CEO, Studentsfirst.org
Erwin McManus, artist and film maker
Mother Maggie Gobran, founder, Stephen's Children Ministry and Nobel Peace prize nominee
Dr. Wesley Stafford, Pres. Compassion International
Patrick Lencioni, author and founder of Table Group management consultants
John Dickson, Director, Centre for Public Christianity
Steven Furtick, Lead Pastor of Elevation Church.
Tim Schroeder, National Pastor, Leadership Centre, Willowcreek Canada
Dr. Reg Bibby, author and Canadian sociologist.

From the boardrooms of Fortune 500 companies to the garbage heaps of Cairo. Pastors and politicians; academics and bloggers. There was such a wealth of knowledge and experience in just two days, that I will take some time to process it all. I found some leaders impacted me emotionally like Mother Maggie, who lives and serves among the poorest peoples. Seth Godin for instance inspired my imagination.

Let's go back to that earlier premise: wisdom can be found in many places, or "all truth is God's truth." The theological foundation is natural theology: we can discern truths about God and human beings through an understanding of the natural created order. Dating back to Thomas Aquinas, this was a fundamental motivation for medieval western science. So we can enrich ministry through insights from psychology, sociology, business, marketing and the arts. But don't think for a minute that this was happening uncritically. Attenders come with theological filters that will determine what information that will take and integrate into their worldview. Bibby's observation that Canadian evangelicals should be engaging with Canadian Catholics might have had sound sociological support, but ran up against deep theological prejudices (enough so that the session chair first warned us that "we might not all agree with everything the next speaker will share.") McManus' plea for the arts and the revival of storytelling would fall flat for those whose theology rejects such things as frivolous. McManus' film group created one of the winning Doritos superbowl ads, but faced criticism for not using the opportunity for a Christian message (McManus' response: "But it was a Doritos commercial!") Some speakers made conscience attempts to correlate their teaching with the Bible like Dr. Cloud, while others like Seth Godin did not, even though the idea of faith was there.

My personal theology allows me to learn from wise leaders inside the church and outside. The Bible will remain my final authority on what I adopt and integrate into my faith. And whether I engage with my Catholic neighbours. But that's next week's post....

P.S. I bought the DVD if you want to borrow it. :-)

Being courageous

2011-10-06T21:32:00.000-03:00

This week I went to see "Courageous", a new movie by Christian filmmaker Sherwood films in association with TriStar. The heroes of the story are a group of cops who are wrestling with a more challenging calling, being fathers. They are faced with both work and life challenges, and the audience gets caught up in their personal tragedies and triumphs. If you go, bring lots of tissues, especially if you are a parent. Yes, I'm serious, the message is heart-rending.

The movie is a challenge to fathers to step up, and take that role seriously. This movie comes from a un-apologetically evangelical Christian worldview, which I think surprised some local reviewers. To be honest I had mixed feelings about going to see this movie. It is not uncommon in evangelical churches to have the annual "Mothers are wonderful!" sermon in May, and the corresponding "Fathers are failing their kids" message in June. Hey pastors, constructive options motivate better than guilt. Thankfully I think this movie did offer more than guilt, and I appreciated that. Our church strongly encouraged its members to attend, and is following up with small groups for couples to talk about their parenting challenge.

Churches are often seen as opponents to popular media including movies. Many people don't realize that North American Christians saw very early the potential of cinema to transform culture and to educate. The Vatican as early as the 1920s believed that film as a means of cultural expression "enriches the church and cultures themselves." Billy Graham was an early adopter of radio, and later television and film as tools for evangelism. The Billy Graham Association's World Wide Pictures produced 38 feature films.

I admit when I go to movies, I go for the escapism: Thor, X-Men, and Despicable Me (Dave is cool.) But sometimes it is good to be challenged.

Amazon and the For-Fee Library

2011-09-23T13:07:00.000-03:00

So the rumour goes that Amazon is trying to convince its publisher friends to allow it to create an e-book rental service. The story is that this service might be like Netflix and offer unlimited (?!) borrowing for a set monthly fee. Amazon has the reader client base already, software/hardware (Kindle) and the publisher relationships. They already have piloted a limited textbook rental service. Not surprisingly the model is difficult for publishers to swallow. Like the music industry pre-iTunes, it seems like publishers don't see that there is money to be made here.

What of brick and mortar libraries? A blogger for The Guardian has suggested "If I were a librarian, I confess, I'd be putting the career-change plan into action just about now." Yes, yes, I know, we have been hearing about the end of libraries for some time. I noted recently a book by the title "The End of Libraries" published in 1982. Thirty years on, still hanging in there.

But let's talk about this. As the blogger noted, "If you can "borrow" the ebook instantly from your living room, why would you bother schlepping into town to pick it up in person?" That was my experience with movie rentals (sorry Blockbuster, but I did pick up a few good movies at the close out sale.) Many public libraries offer e-books but offerings are usually limited to popular leisure reading. Academic libraries also offer some e-books, but with a variety of vendor platforms, and tight use restrictions.

Can these e-book services withstand the competition? Or more specifically, would I pay a fee for access to an online library? Yes, I probably would, even though I could borrow the books for free at my library, and even though I enjoy holding a paper book. The deciding factor for me would be the scope of the collection. At present few of the books I would use for academic research are available in digital format. I would buy a digital copy of the Sage Handbook of Qualitative Research today! (Sad I know.) I would love to have a core research collection on my iPad in the field. Until publishers are prepared to release ALL books in digital formats, libraries as book lenders will continue.

Here is the great mystery: in a time when library budgets are under attack, Amazon believes people will pay to borrow books. If they make it convenient and simple. That begs the question, what of libraries?

The Journey Online

2011-09-12T11:42:00.000-03:00

The challenge of any helping role is that most of the work you do is invisible. This is the case for pastors, whose jobs involve confidential counselling, mentoring, and simply coming alongside. I remember in my early days as a student pastor having to put up with comments like "nice job, only having to work one day a week." I kept thinking that a regular 9-5 job sounded so nice! So how does one share the fullness of pastoral life without appearing to be an attention seeker?

A friend at the Archdiocese of Ottawa office recently told me about Archbishop Terrence Prendergast's blog "the Journey of a Bishop." Posting nearly everyday, he chronicles events in the life of the church, both local and international. He shares prayers, pastoral thoughts and photos of special events. I understand that even the office staff find it a great source of information about the goings on of the church and the Archbishop. It the counter is accurate, he has had nearly 300,000 visits to his blog since January 2009.

The first thing that strikes me is the man is busy! Obviously there is much more he does than is depicted here, but this is a good outline of public activities. The next thing that strikes me is that this opens a window to the life of the church. This isn't text written by a PR firm, or photos air brushed by marketing. But if I was ever curious what does an Archbishop does, here is a good place to start.

Many pastors have blogs, feeds and websites. Some are current news, some are ancient history. It takes time and effort to blog, and I know pastors who feel there time could be better spent. Pastor John Piper has made a strong argument for pastors blogging, among them interacting, and being known. Interacting is important, and perhaps a weakness of "The Journey of a Bishop" is that it remains one way communication, although I have no way of knowing how many comments and questions are sent. I am just not part of the dialogue. Recently ChurchMag had an interesting post about using Church social media. How do you use social media to create conversations? Ask questions. Scary when you are on the web.

Piper's comment about being known also caught my attention. Piper writes,
"Your people hear you teach a lot; it’s probably the main way that most of them know you. You preach on Sundays, teach on Wednesdays, give messages at weddings, funerals, youth events, retreats, etc. This is good—it’s your job. But it’s not all you are....your people need some access to you as a person. A blog is one way to help them."

This is powerful. I find that much of the religious blogging I encounter is, well frankly, evangelistic and somewhat contrived. You rarely meet the person behind the scripture verses or sermon notes.

Lots to chew on. What is your favourite personal blog? What draws you back to it?

Eulogy for a bookstore and a short rant

2011-08-28T08:53:00.005-03:00

On December 31, 2011 the Baptist Bookroom will close after fifty years serving the needs of the Convention of Atlantic Baptist Churches. It was likely inevitable; the brick storefront model is passing away. I have ordered a few items online from them, but as it is a province away I never visited in person. I took a few minutes to write and ask the folks at the Convention office "So what's next?" Yes, this business model has failed, but the need for good Christian educational materials remain. Yes, there are good online sources like CBD or directly from trusted publishers. But do our parishioners know who are the trusted publishers? Are they current with what resources are available to meet their particular need?

That I think is the greatest loss when the local bookstores close; we lose the local expertise. I think most churches hope their clergy can provide those insights but the reality is that these aren't skills they teach you in seminary. Reader's advisory services are also offered in libraries, and if your religious group has a local seminary/college you might be able to get some assistance there. Most parishioners are on their own; my own research suggests that if they have been given enough rooting in their own groups beliefs they will muddle through. Regrettably many have only a passing acquaintance with the beliefs of their religious group.

Though not surprising, another bookstore closing is sad. But what is sadder still is that there seems to be no plan for what's next. The information age is upon; time to have a strategy.

Here comes the bride...and the ipad?

2011-08-24T20:44:00.004-03:00

I've argued that technology is subtly changing how people practice their faith. Even familiar rituals get transformed. Sometime ago I shared an example of a wedding procession that became a viral video hit. OK, that was good but this is better: the Huffington Post posted a story about Renee the bridesmaid who couldn't travel to the wedding so...she joined by ipad via Apple's video app facetime.

Webcams are ok to watch, laptops are bulky, but the ipad was just right. I recently attended a work meeting by ipad. I sat at one side of the table and could see and hear and participate. But is it ok to be part of a wedding virtually? What is it like to be groomsman? Can you actually sign the register as an official witness if you weren't really there? If it is ok for the bridal party, what about the bride and groom? What happens if your battery dies?

Oh well, congratulations Jamie and Jonathon! May you have many happy years together!

When its personal...

2011-07-06T19:50:00.010-03:00

Sometimes research can get personal. It happens when you find yourself joining your subjects under the microscope. At the recent CAIS conference I presented a paper entitled "Beyond Belief: Prayer as Communication in Information Seeking." I'll write about that later this week. It was a positive experience and I received lots of excellent feedback.

When you study peoples' lives, it is difficult to remain detached. The researcher balances the objective ("etic") viewpoint, and the "insider's" ("emic") perspective. When I study another culture, it is easier to keep my distance; when I study my own, I bring deeper insight but also my personal beliefs. In this paper I examined prayer as an information scientist. But I am a scientist who prays, and believes in prayer. I am prepared to accept critique of my research; my methods and my conclusions. But when someone questions my research subjects' belief in the reality of prayer it unsettles me. I share many of their beliefs. My faith is part of my identity.

I thought more about the challenges that some researchers face; those who regularly engage topics related to identity such as ethnicity, gender and belief. Engaging with your research; engaging with yourself. In public, and under the microscope. CAIS is a safe venue; I've been to conferences that weren't as civil. Yet some researchers regularly place themselves out there.

There is a balance to find here. I cannot become self-indulgent, lest my research really become only about me. I know researchers who have fallen into that trap. But we cannot be afraid to be personally engaged in our research either. There are of course safer topics to study.

In honour of the end of the Harry Potter franchise, here is a good professor scrap.

SciFi and Human Nature

2011-06-19T07:59:00.007-03:00

Outcasts is a new miniseries on the Space Channel, a post-apocalyptic storyline developed by the BBC. The premise is that we have devastated the planet earth and in 2040 we must leave to start over on another planet. Our new home is called Carpathia, named after the ship that rescued survivors of the Titanic disaster. Most evacuees don't survive the trip but a colony is established, and the story begins ten years after the initial landing. Can we really start over?

We discover quickly that the colonists have personal baggage, some from earth, but also guilty decisions made since planetfall. The spacecast blog notes: "The characters are presented with the failings of the human race - will knowing what went wrong on Earth really force us to change our ways, or will "human nature" turn out to be the deciding factor?" At one point in the pilot episode the leader of the expeditionary teams concludes, "You start all over again, you mess things up again. That's just how it has to be."

Religion and media researchers have argued that channels "narrowcasting" to specific audiences have the opportunity to explore issues that the major broadcasters wouldn't consider. As yet, religious themes in Outcasts have not been raised, but the question of human nature looms large. From a religious perspective, I understand this as a fundamental question. Any social movement, secular philosophy or religious dogma that doesn't seriously address human nature misses the rescue boat.

The Judeo-Christian tradition does, though with varying interpretations. In the archtypical start-over story from the Bible, Noah and the flood, we read:

" ⁵ The LORD saw how great the wickedness of the human race had become on the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of the human heart was only evil all the time. ⁶ The LORD regretted that he had made human beings on the earth, and his heart was deeply troubled."

Ouch. One significant counter theme in this tradition is there remains hope that God provides start-overs, heaven sent Carpathias.

I'm intrigued to see where this series is heading, and to answer the question: "who are the outcasts?"

Healthy in Body and Spirit

2011-06-13T18:42:00.004-03:00

So I'm sitting in a session on Health information seeking in everyday life at the Canadian Association for Information Science conference. Not my usual topic, but I was interested in how the presenters, Jennie Abrahamson & Victoria Rubin and Shelagh Genuis were approaching their research. Abrahamson & Rubin's paper was "'Your Doctor Won’t Tell You This ...': Expert and Lay Perspectives in Health Communication Discourse," and Genuis' was "Constructing sense from uncertain and evolving health information."

Suddenly my ears perked up; I was hearing familiar themes. People are wrestling with health challenges, and are seeking information. They talk to health professionals, but also friends, neighbours, and "experts" on television and increasingly the internet. Seekers attribute authority to these non-professional sources (the "Oprah factor"), and that concerns health professionals. Tami Oliphant addressed related issues in her paper on alternative medicine at last year's conference.

More than a few pastors have expressed their views on Oprah's "theology", and their concerns about where their parishioners are looking for spiritual information. Whether health professionals or pastoral professionals, they are concerned for the well-being of those in their care. They want them to get "good" information. People are more open to considering different kinds of expertise. Whether doctor or minister, you are no longer the only source in town. Time to get past that and focus on the next task, equipping discerning information users. The information world is a big place.

I guess I need to talk to more health information researchers; I have much to learn from them! And now for something completely different: Trust me, I'm the Doctor.

"Do I mow the lawn today?" and other theological questions...

2011-05-21T11:11:00.008-03:00

Judgement Day. May 21, 2011. 6:00pm.

So says the Harold Camping of Family Radio ministries, a Conservative Christian evangelistic ministry. Important to Christian theology is the idea of the end things ("eschatology"), whether it be "what happens when I die?", "what happens to the world?", "is there a heaven?", or "is there a hell?" The Bible says alot about end things. These are important faith questions. The danger arises when answering those questions becomes the consuming passion, and not living out our faith. Perhaps Harold Camping is sincere and convinced. Tomorrow he will be a very disappointed man.

Judgment Day prophets have been around for a very long time. In fact, the Gospel of John records that end time speculation started even before Jesus' death! There have been lots of end time predictions through history, and many times people have climbed mountains to wait...and wait...and wait. I'm amazed by how the media has picked this up. Why the fascination with this End Times prophet? Is it just a warmup for the Mayan/Nostradamus 2012 End-of-the-World prophecies? There is certainly a public taste for this coverage, and it is interesting to watch the twitter posts as people confidently (?) proclaim that the world isn't ending. MTV is suggesting top five movies for end of the world, the Washington Post is predicting good weather for the end of days, and CNN suggests a last meal at your favourite restaurant. A little bit of a circus, but it is a fascinating religious phenomenon (sorry, had to!)

I'm an evangelical Christian, and I believe in Judgment Day. I believe a time will come when God will say "Enough!" "Enough cruelty. Enough killing. Enough destroying this creation I once called 'very good'." I need to believe in a God who will one day bring justice to an injustice world, re-make the world as it was to be in the beginning. I think that is the point of Biblical prophecy; not to provide a road-map/checklist for the end times, but to give struggling people hope that even when if seems darkest, God is still there, and one day He will say enough.

So I will mow my lawn today, and get groceries. Maybe new sneakers. Or I guess I could wait til tomorrow. ;-)

Reports of the Church's demise are exaggerated.

2011-05-16T20:04:00.005-03:00

CNN's Belief Blog recently posted an entry entitled "My Take: How technology could bring down the Church." Lisa Miller argued new technologies like Bible apps, podcasts and streaming video will undermine the need to actually attend church. She wrote "With Scripture on iPhones and iPads, believers can bypass constraining religious structures - otherwise known as “church” - in favor of a more individual connection with God." She recalled how the printing press democratized the interpretation of the Bible furthering the growth of the protestant movement.

I'll admit that I also had concerns about the negative impact of new technologies on the Church. First, lets clarify something: the European/North American church may be in decline, but not so in Asia, Africa or South America. Many Christian groups (e.g. Catholic, Lutheran, Methodists) are reporting great growth! So at present this is a western church concern.

Second, research is simply not bearing that out that new technologies are bringing down the church. There have been other prophets of doom: van der Laan has argued that the "Internet shapes and alters how pastors and parishioners practice their religion" and he concludes that the use of online sources would undermine pulpit ministry. I rejected that argument because it assumes online resources are used uncritically by preachers and accepted uncritically by parishioners. I find those assumptions unsupported.

Heidi Campbell as discovered that blogs, rather than challenging traditional religious authority, may help solidify them. “Many Christian bloggers use their blogs to affirm traditional religious authorities that are in line with the religious beliefs and identities they seek to present online authority rather than simply using it to challenge....”

Chris Helland has explored how online worship can reconnect members of diaspora groups to their religious homelands and practices. Whether ritual by webcam or in virtual spaces, people are practicing their beliefs and connecting.

Paul Teusner has done interesting work on the Emerging Church movement in the blogosphere, a group that challenges traditional religious authorities and structures, yet then appears to create its own doctrinal authorities.

I could go on but you get the point. Is it Religion 2.0 or simply faith in a new wired context? Something new is happening, but to paraphrase Mark Twain the reports of the church's death are greatly exaggerated. Just sayin'.

Easter: a website

2011-04-10T17:48:00.003-03:00

ChurchCrunch blog posted a cool Easter website (remember to scroll down.) The splash page is interactive and offers a linear narration. It is an invitation to a Easter Celebration. Obviously they put a lot of resources into this web ad. After a viewed their presentation I began to wonder who these folks were. Hmm. Not much on the website. Oh, a facebook page...ok, not much here but there is a link to another facebook page, Rock Harbour Church...and a link to the church website. I had to wander about the social media a bit but I did find out what they believe.

They have carefully considered and well articulated teachings. So why hide them? Are they trying to focus on the central message? Avoid distracting debates? Last August I posted about a conference paper the focused on the United Church of Canada's WonderCafe web campaign. Despite the size and expense of the campaign, the researchers questioned its impact. People came, looked around and wandered off. Visitors liked the openness and willingness to dialogue but in the end couldn't figure out what the church actually believed. Dudes, they want to get to know you; don't be so cagey! Tell the people what you believe!

I've re-posted the paper abstract below from the conference website (pdf) for your interest.

7th International Conference on Media Religion and Culture, Aug. 9-13, 2010, Ryerson University, Toronto.

David Haskell (Wilfrid Laurier University) Kevin Flatt (Redeemer University College) and Robin Lathangue (Trent University) Measuring the Effectiveness of a Church’s Off-line and On-line Marketing Campaign: The Case of the United Church of Canada’s “WonderCafe”

In November 2006, in the context of declining membership, the United Church of Canada (UCC) launched an advertising campaign. At a cost of approximately 10.5 million dollars it was hailed as the most expensive marketing strategy ever employed by a Canadian church.

The campaign featured a set of provocative ads that ran nationally in popular, high-profile print publications; it also featured an interactive web site called The WonderCafe. Each of the ads posed a challenging spiritual or moral question then asked readers to go online and discuss the issue at the web site. The leaders within the UCC said the goal of the nationally-publicized WonderCafe print ads and the associated WonderCafe web site was two-fold. They were created to project a positive, public image of the United Church (as the “home of open-minded conversation”) and to ultimately convince members of the Canadian population to attend/join local congregations of the denomination.

The purpose of this study was to qualitatively gauge the effectiveness of the WonderCafe ads and web site as a means of promoting the UCC by probing the cognitive processing of viewers of those media artefacts. Through a series of focus groups, a total of 62 religious seekers were asked to view the ads and then the web site. After viewing the ads the participants were asked a series of open-ended questions to determine 1) how the respective artefacts affected their perceptions of the United Church and 2) whether the respective artefacts inspired them to possible action (e.g., attend a United Church service). Similar questions were asked after perusing the web site.
Forty percent of participants described themselves as “no religion”; 40% described their faith as Catholic and 20% described themselves as Protestant (two attending the UCC). Almost three-quarters stated they knew nothing about, and had no opinion on, the UCC.

Qualitative analysis of participant responses determined the following: Over 40% of participants, suggested that the ads got them thinking about the UCC; however, for more than half of those, their perceptions were slightly negative. Further, no ad viewer mentioned a desire to learn more about the United Church and only 8% voiced an interest in perusing the WonderCafe web site now or at some point in the future.

Post web site viewing, almost 80% of participants had positive perceptions of the UCC as an open and accepting denomination in terms of social and religious issues. However, in half of responses and often alongside positive comments about the church’s openness were remarks expressing confusion or frustration over the web site’s lack of doctrinal information on the UCC. Discounting two participants who regularly attended the UCC, about 15% of participants acknowledged some interest in attending a UCC church service. However, their attendance was always expressed in highly tentative terms (e.g., “If I ever go to a church…”) and was never shown to be a pressing desire.

With reference to the results of the analysis, the efficacy and limitations of religious marketing, especially religious marketing that employs the internet, are discussed.

Our (Virtual) Siberian Visitors

2011-04-03T14:23:00.006-03:00

I shot an arrow into the air,
It fell to earth, I knew not where;
For, so swiftly it flew, the sight
Could not follow it in its flight.
H. W. Longfellow

As many of you know I run the video camera during our church's services. The services are streamed live using a service called LiveStream and archived for later viewing. Usually we have only a few viewers for the live stream, and a number more who watch later in the week.

I remember when my siblings and I were young and we were snow bound on Sunday, Dad would sit us down in front of the TV for Rex Humbard or a similar preacher in lieu of church. The streaming service is a different experience; not Rex and the folks in far off Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio. The stream is our folks worshiping together. I've been home myself with ailing kids or bad weather and we have joined the service online, and even said "Hi!" via chat. There is a personal connection.

A streaming service is also like Longfellow's arrow, who knows where it will land. A few Sunday's ago we had online viewers during the service from a church in Tyumen, Russia. Like ourselves they also stream their services online and popped in for a visit. Two small churches on different sides of the planet stopping by for a friendly visit. (No, I don't understand a word of Russian.) Kinda cool but makes you think.

On rare occasions I still fill the pulpit when the pastor is away. I preached two Sundays ago and the service was streamed as usual. I recalled our Siberian visitors when I was preaching and wondered who else might stop by. Where will my words end up? Preaching is always a serious matter, and the Bible has warnings for those who would be religious teachers. But now in the digital age "i shot a sermon into the air, it fell to earth, I knew not where."

On that note Christianity Today magazine has an article on theological debate in the digital age entitled "Not many of you should presume to be bloggers." Hmm.

"My Confession..." Part 2

2011-03-05T19:11:00.008-04:00

So here is the test! As I discussed in my last post, I've downloaded the iPad Confession app, and I am going to give it a whirl. No, I'm not Catholic so this is new territory. I am hoping to discover how intuitive this is, so my apologies to my Catholic friends if I appear clueless...(more so than usual.)

Step 1: Add new user - Name, Sex, Birthday, Vocation, Last Confession (umm...), Password.
(Apparently vocation means: single, married, priest or religious [order]. ) Here goes...am I going to get Vatican spam now?

Step 2: Select 'Act of Contrition'???? ummm, ok 'default act of contrition.' I'm not sure what I just agreed to here, but I'll go with this.

Step 3: Examination of Conscience - Here I have a list of the Ten Commandments, Responsibilities to God and Responsibilities to Other.

Oops, it logged me out, and won't let me back in... I had to recreate my profile. It seems to bump you out from time to time.

Step 3 (second try): Ok, I've selected the 10th commandment "You shall not covet your neighbor's goods." The Lotto is $50,000,000 this week; so coveting is realistic. Now there is a set of five questions, from the generic: "Am I jealous of what other people have?" to the more pointed "do I not trust God to provide for my material needs?" I like that; it is thought provoking. I also have space to add my own reflective questions. What should I ask myself? Hmmm....

Step 4: Begin confession "In the name...." There is a warning here "This app is intended to be used during the Sacrament of Penance with a Catholic priest only. This is not a substitute for a valid confession." I wonder if this notice was a later addition? Click next...

Step 5: My list of sins.... (general categories not specifics...that would be a security nightmare!)

Step 6: Act of Contrition; the prayer of confession. Next.

Step 7: A text box: "Receive absolution and respond 'Amen'. If the Priest says, 'Give thanks to the Lord for He is good.' answer 'His mercy endures forever.'"

All done. It will remember my last confession next time I log in.

Interesting experience; it is not a replacement for confession, but it does lead one to reflect and prepare. It is not entirely intuitive; it assumes you have gone through Catechism classes and been Confirmed. I can see why many would download it, but will many actually use it. I doubt it. But it is an interesting reflective tool, in an age when moral self-reflection is out of vogue.

It seemed appropriate to end on a worshipful note here with an ancient Irish hymn common to all branches of Christendom: "Be Thou My Vision."

"My confession..." Part 1

2011-02-25T15:21:00.008-04:00

I've been playing with a borrowed Apple ipad and exploring it how it can enhance teaching. I've enjoyed the personal applications as well (book readers, recipe files, games, and educational tools like the NASA app.) Whatever your interest, as the guys from Apple would say "there's an app for that." Yes, I know a few reps and they do say that.

Now as tech blogger EnGadget writes: "Are you a sinner? There is an app for that." You might have seen the news story about the Catholic church's Confession app? For my non-Catholic readers, Confession, or more specifically the Sacrament of Penance, is a ritual of confessing one's sins before God, and seeking forgiveness, pardon and restoration. In the Roman Catholic tradition, the priest hears confessions and grants absolution. Though most protestant Christian groups do not believe in confession to a priest, it is noteworthy that the New Testament does direct believers to "confess your sins to each other and prayer for each other." Confession and restoration are important themes in the Bible so this app might be a natural.

The iTunes blurb: "Designed to be used in the confessional, this app is the perfect aid for every penitent. With a personalized examination of conscience for each user, password protected profiles, and a step-by-step guide to the sacrament, this app invites Catholics to prayerfully prepare for and participate in the Rite of Penance." Whoa there confessors! It is not a short cut out of the confessional. The Vatican stresses it is an aid to confession, and not a substitute for confession. The creators got a little ahead of themselves here, but it has become immensely popular since its debut over a month ago. It is the only religion app in the Top 10 of iTunes. And like all things religious, it has also caused controversy.

What do I think about this? Is this just another depersonalizing of faith? The creators argue that it is helping people reconnect with the church. Is it making practicing your faith easy? Should it be easy? Is it another manifestation of worship online.

Well, one way to find out: tomorrow I taking this app for a test run, and you can join me in the cyber confessional....

Before the Internet?

2011-02-05T17:39:00.013-04:00

It wasn't so long ago I using telnet on dialup to access the library catalogue. Can you remember back pre-internet? We phoned people, even wrote letters...on paper...with stamps! No email. No Youtube. Not even google. This week Egypt went back to the pre-Internet days when the government pulled the plug of internet and cell networks to quell protests. In Canada we have the CRTC decision which might mean the end of unlimited internet downloads. Just when iTunes and Netflix started having more to watch than cable. Coincidence?

Life is become entangled with the internet these days. I've been thinking of the churches that have enthusiastically adopted technology. New forms of church have been created that exist because of the internet. What would happen if the internet went away?

It would hard to go back, but as the people of Egypt quickly discovered there are other ways to spread the message. And churches have been very adept at using media to communicate long before the internet. Back in the 1940s Billy Graham's radio program "Hour of Decision", in the 1950s he moved to television and film. Film has long been important to communicate faith. In Mediating Religion there is an interesting essay that described the Roman Catholic church's congress on film in 1928, and notes the first papal encyclical Vigilanti Cura on cinema and social communication was issued in 1936! Though email is supplanting it, many churches still have the phone prayer chain to spread announcements to their members faster than any shampoo commercial! It never ceased to amaze me how fast news spread in my country pastorates; we'd have a church meeting in one village, and before I arrived in the next village everyone seemed to know what happened at the meeting. Beat that twitter!

I wouldn't want to give up the internet; but the world wouldn't end either.

Enjoy this Today show clip from 1994: "What is the internet anyway?"

Dream, dream, dream...(What I want to be when I grow up.)

2011-01-27T18:28:00.004-04:00

Let's face it, we all have to pay the bills (bobs, visas and BMOs). But what would I do if I was free of that obligation. What would a theologian / librarian / sociologist of religion do if he could do anything? I think I would build a Christian Resource Centre. Say what?! What the heck is that?

Well let's build one together.

I envision it has part of a local church, but open to the wider community: individuals, churches and organizations.

It will have a library with resources for faith building, and christian living: books and DVDs on topics like ethics, parenting, dealing with divorce and grief; materials for theological and Bible study, for personal growth and for small groups.
It will have a reference desk where visitors can get knowledgeable assistance to find resources to meet their spiritual information needs.
It will have meeting space where workshops and seminars are held. Places for learning and teaching, directed by qualified instructors.
The resource centre will use current technologies to reach out to its clients. People can browse the collection online, access full text christian literature and resources, and engage in online courses.
The resource centre staff will guide you in finding the book, video, website that meets your need. We can even help you order than book online, if you'd like.

Sometimes churches need to do original research. They need to do locate community demographics, design and assess programs, or create and analyze surveys or focus groups. I see a resource centre offering those kinds of information skills.

Also a comfy chair to curl up in, and a rocker for someone else...that sounds familiar! So there is one of my dreams. Until then, time to get back to work.

Beyond Belief: Prayer as Communication

2010-12-22T19:56:00.008-04:00

It is -12 degrees celsius outside, but I'm already planning for the summer. Conference season is coming soon and I have a few choices to make: CSIR conference at Kent State, CAIS at the Learneds in Freddie, or CLA in Halifax. I did send off one conference paper proposal; a paper on prayer as communication in information seeking. Prayer in the Christian tradition (Catholic and Protestant) is personal and relational; God hears our prayers and He responds.

So what does this have to do with information seeking? Canadian sociologist Reg Bibby has proposed that “…many Canadians…in the course of coping with life and death, reach out to a higher power – because it seems like the appropriate thing to do. Prayer seems to be our default mode.” (2002, Restless God, 158) We seek solace, encouragement, forgiveness and answers. So how does an information scientist investigate prayer? He cannot listen it on prayer's answer. She cannot empirically verify divine leading. Yet prayer is real to those praying. As real as reading books. As real as searching the internet. As real as talking to friends. Praying can be information seeking.

How then do we investigate prayer? By taking a sociological viewpoint; listening to our informants, and taking their experiences at face value. It doesn't mean that the researcher has to believe in prayer (I personally do). It means I will respect the beliefs of those who pray, and the answers they receive. Lots and lots of interesting information to consider! In the meantime I did discover the researcher's prayer. ;-)

This Very Night!

2010-12-11T17:32:00.007-04:00

Christmas Concerts...Holiday Events...Seasonal Band Performances. Our gifted children have been busy over the past two weeks, and by extension their parents. For our second event today however we were just spectators for Stoneridge Fellowship Church's annual performance of their Christmas Musical "This Very Night!" As the title suggests, this is the Christmas story from the perspective of Mary and Joseph. The acting and singing was wonderful. My son was particularly impressed with the real farm animals.

Mounting a production like this is no small feat. Six performances. 3000 spectators. 240 cast and performers (many of whom were children. Baby "Jesus", no crying he made!) 7500 hours of practice. Did I mention the sheep and chickens? It was also a highly technical performance, with complex lighting and video production. There were three large screen monitors in the sanctuary, so we wouldn't miss an angle. We are very much a media generation, and people expect that kind of technical wizardry.

What touched me though wasn't the sophisticated performance. It was the timeless story; part of my faith and upbringing. I sang in a few Sunday School Christmas concerts myself; and like thousands of others, I've been the shepherd (and probably even the sheep though I can't remember.) Years ago I spent a Christmas in Kenya. I was visiting a small church near Kisumu on Lake Victoria. I didn't speak Luo, I was hot, and I didn't feel Christmasy. Then the children came in and processed to the front. They wore bathrobes, with towels on their heads. A young lady with a baby doll. A boy watching over her. Shepherds and kings. I didn't understand one word; yet I knew them all: "In those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus...." This is the power of storytelling at its finest.

I appreciated the polish and professionalism of Stoneridge's "This Very Night." But the power remains in the storytelling: “Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace to those on whom his favor rests.”

Learning Zone- A way cool job!

2010-11-14T09:00:00.002-04:00

OCAD recently posted an ad for a Learning Zone Librarian. The Learning Zone appears to be a collaborative workspace that integrates a variety of services, including library support. The focus is on creating learning space that is driven by student needs. The job ad stresses the importance of student input in the design of the space and its services. I wonder what a school of design students might come up with given the opportunity. Or any student groups, if we really listened.

OCAD isn't the first place to try something like this; Guelph has had its own intriguing ideas. Most attempts however remind me of cube farms without the walls, straight out of Dilbert. Maybe because the focus is on the space (i.e. number of computer connections we have), and not on the services that transform the space into an engaging place, where learning happens. OCAD's Learning Zone is offering a workshop on CREATive Fund$: Develop a Positive Relationship with Money. So what does that have to do with libraries? Nothing. But it has everything to do with students. Dalhousie's Killam Library recently launched a multifunctional space for graduate students. It is a great space, but unfortunately, it is disengaged from the services graduates need.

The Learning Zone (though not by this title) is one I've advocated for our library; a place with project rooms, writing and research support, and web and video conference facilities. A place where students meet, and work and learn. But creating a place like this takes an unconventional vision.

OCAD's ad reminds me of what I am yearning; to be part of something audacious, risky, and unconventional. We don't need to rethink libraries any more; we know what is wrong with them. But change only comes with changing; and if we are changing for our students, we may make mistakes, but we won't be wrong. Hmm...when was OCAD's submission date.

Back to the Sanctuary...

2010-09-26T21:37:00.010-03:00

The problem with research is that it can be addictive. One project suggests another, and soon, its data, data, data.

I'm still working on my dissertation research on information seeking by church leaders, and some interesting religion and media research with my supervisor. I was also recently invited to contribute a chapter to a book on Ecclesiastic Sanctuary. This will be a fascinating international study of how churches have responded to the plight of refugees. The proposed chapter will explore the ways churches justify their acts of civil disobedience.

How does this fit into my other research? Actually, this is where it all began. Back in time, 4 years ago, I was invited to coauthor a paper with David Blaikie for the SoDRUS conference at the University of Sherbrooke, QC. We explored one of the theological claims around Sanctuary in Canada/United States. The SoDRUS paper (.doc preprint) was eventually published as conference proceedings. Through this study I became fascinated by how these church leaders made their decisions to offer sanctuary. It was a faith matter, but also an information seeking activity. What information did they access, how did they interpret it and then how did they apply it? Whether one likes it or not, church decisions play a role in shaping our communities, and have a voice in the public square. Perhaps not to the same degree as in the past, but more than many realize. That is just asking to be investigated.

So here I am, four years later exploring church leaders' information seeking as they seek God's will for their churches. No I'm not just exploring sanctuary (but if your church decides to shelter refugees illegally, I would like the opportunity to take notes.)

I've come full circle perhaps, and I'm excited to be working on this chapter. David Blaikie will be joining me as we explore more legal as well as theological questions. It is due next October; so if any of you remember, you might want to give me a poke, maybe next June, and say "So David, got that sanctuary chapter done yet?"

CMRC - Warrior Nuns in Spandex

2010-09-06T09:44:00.002-03:00

Comic books have come a long way since I read Batman and Green Lantern. Today's graphic novels are, as Stephen Garner writes, "rich in imagery and characters drawn heavily from existing religious and spiritual traditions." Now religion has always been present in comics, from allusions in mainstream comics (Batman was Episcopalian and Green Lantern was Jewish Catholic) to explicitly religious publications. Some of today's superheroes are much more explicit about their religious beliefs.

In Garner's "Symbols, swords and spandex" he explored comics where the supernatural (angels, demons) mixes freely with fictional characters such as Superman. Sometimes religious issues such as judgment, and suffering are explored. He considered the idea of the "warrior nun" (Warrior Nun Areala, The Magdalena, and The Sisterhood.) These characters grapple with their religious callings, as well as various evil villains. The imagery and "theology" is drawn from Catholic traditions. They both challenge and claim faith.

Other religious traditions have found their own superheros. Pax Avalon is a heroine who defends the city of Avalon. She has the ability to absorb others injuries, and has rejected weapons as a means to bring peace to the troubled city. Steven Reece Friesen comes from the Mennonite Christian tradition. He wrestled with his love for comics and his own personal faith. Pax is his attempt the work this out; embodying his Christian values and our love for the crime fighting hero. Pax prays "Guide my aim, Lord...that there be no injuries or property damage by my hand." OK she is not always successful but she tries.

Islam also has its comic book superheroes ("The 99"). Naif Al-Mutawa, a clinical Psychologist, was concerned about the kinds of role models his children would have. He writes "Today, through THE 99, this proud Muslim is using the lead of his pencil to take a stand. For all our sakes, I hope the pencil really is mightier than the sword."

Some would find this a trivializing of faith; others a contextualized theological discussion. I guess in the end most people just want to enjoy a good comic book. But I think I'll skip the Warrior Nuns; back to Looney Tunes for me.

CMRC - Faith on TV

2010-08-28T18:30:00.003-03:00

TV. Nothing on, but I am watching it. Again. At least it is educational this time.

I'm not going to get into a Marshall McLuhan discussion, but TV is a mirror of our society. It shows us something about our society, even as it shapes us, and is shaped by us (that I like Cake Boss has the potential to shape me literally!)

There were a number of papers on religion and TV at the Media, Religion and Culture conference, but I'll just share a couple. Faiza Hirji examined whether the portrayal of Muslim women was changing on TV. She looked at shows like 24, Lost, The Border and Little Mosque on the Prairie. She found that there were more Muslim women portrayed in these programs, but moving from the stereotype of oppressed / exploited, to now frequently associated with terror. Not exactly progress. Little Mosque had better roles, but still presented a monolithic image of Islam (there is only one type of Islam, and by extension, one type of Muslim woman.) Faiza is correct: Islam is not the unified religion often portrayed in the media, anymore than Christianity is one group. Islam has both Sunni and Shi'a, and then each of these has divisions. Not all Muslims live out their faith in the same way, male or female. Do these programs reflect the diversity of Islam, or have they only exchanged one set of stereotypes for a new set?

Jorie Lagerwey's paper "By the Gods of Kobal" began with the premise that "narrowcasting" allows TV to explore religious questions that the broadcasting networks would never attempt. Cable specialty channels like Space and SciFi target specific viewers that might be more open to challenging the traditional ideas about religion. Jorie examined Lost (what is with this show and social scientists?) and Battlestar Galactica (yes, the new one, though the old one did explore religious themes as well). Battlestar certainly engaged religious questions, and generated lots of theological discussion online (e.g. 1, 2, 3). The religious imagery is hardly subtle. But it does suggest that the unlike the baby boomer generations, the younger generations are asking some powerful questions about faith, belief and religion. 1.6 million viewers ages 18-45 tuned in to watch the season finally. Not bad for "narrowcasting." Too bad about the ending.

Whether it is the portrayal of the "other's religion" or asking old questions in new ways, people are wrestling with belief and its implications. Is TV a mirror or manipulator? From a more personal stance, so many Christian churches I know are still working from the belief that "no on cares about religion anymore." Umm, no, just not as keen to go to church anymore; but the religion conversation is in full swing. Maybe its time to join it.

Next time religion and comic books...and no not Archie comics. Not even close.

The taxman has spoken...to be or not to be a church.

2010-08-21T13:03:00.012-03:00

Group's Internet and Radio Worship does not meet IRS definition of a church.

A friend forwarded this story to me today (thanks Nick). Apparently all the theological debate about virtual church has been for naught; the IRS had a definition of a true church after all. The U.S Appeals Court (pdf) recently upheld a decision of the Federal Circuit Court that determined that The Foundation of Human Understanding's radio and internet ministry did not meet the definition of church. Here are the fourteen criteria of "church" that have been adopted by the IRS and applied in this case (Foundation I, 88 T.C. at 1357):

(1) a distinct legal existence;
(2) a recognized creed and form of worship;
(3) a definite and distinct ecclesiastical government;
(4) a formal code of doctrine and discipline;
(5) a distinct religious history;
(6) a membership not associated with any other church or denomination;
(7) an organization of ordained ministers;
(8) ordained ministers selected after completing prescribed studies;
(9) a literature of its own;
(10) established places of worship;
(11) regular congregations;
(12) regular religious services;
(13) Sunday schools for religious instruction of the young; and
(14) schools for the preparation of its ministers.

The court also applied the "associational test." This test defines a church as "an organization that includes a body of believers who assemble regularly for communal worship." (p. 5) This has been an important test in court cases that have determined that not every organization that is religious constitutes a church. As this decision argues, the religious organization must provide "the opportunity for members to develop a fellowship by worshipping together" and that a "church’s principal means of accomplishing its religious purposes must be to assemble regularly a group of individuals related by common worship and faith." (p. 8).

In this case, the court found that "the Foundation did not provide regular religious services to an established congregation and concluded that "[t]he extent to which [the] Foundation brings people together to worship is incidental to its main function" of spreading its message through publication and broadcasting." Foundation II, 88 Fed. Cl. at 234.

One issue that did arise in this decision is that these definitions implicitly preference certain groups and types of associations, though this appears not to be addressed. In the digital age it does raise questions: How does this impact virtual congregations? What if you meet both on and offline? Do all the meetings need to be face to face? What does it mean to gather? What is a fellowship? Most of us have common sense answers to those questions. But as I have noted before there are those who contest those answers. My grandmother is not able to regularly attend church in person, particularly in the winter, but she watches her church's services televised on local TV with a friend. Did she attend church last Sunday?

For now the tax man has spoken, and although this case is precedent setting, be sure it isn't the last to explore "what is a church?"

Media and Religion and Culture, Oh my!

2010-08-12T11:40:00.001-03:00

Imagine getting paid to watch all the episodes of Battlestar Galactica? Or Lost? Or Little Mosque of the Prairie? Or maybe reading blogs all day long?

So, day four of the 7th International Conference of Media, Religion and Culture. I've so far attended 1 plenary session and 27 papers. My head is getting full!

Did you know that "narrowcasting" (cable/subscription TV) allows issues of religion and faith to be explored in ways that could never happen in broadcast TV. Battlestar Galactica is a good example where the dichotomy between faith/science was played out.

Guess what? If your church puts up a generic website that soft peddles what you believe, in order to not offend potential seekers, they'll only turn off your surfers. A good example is the United Church of Canada's WonderCafe project. People are at your site to find out what you believe, so tell them!

So how do you subscribe to an Orthodox Jewish community website? More than knowing Hebrew, you should also know the neighbourhood.

How about what digital storytelling can tell you about your Church/Synagogue Youth Group's identity? What is their group all about and how is that a part of who they are?

Is there such a distinction between offline and online? Are the boundaries breaking down? What about religion; is the online and offline beginning to share the same space?

These and more questions explored in upcoming blogposts. Now time to take in some of the Toronto sights.

Culture Shock and Community

2010-08-02T11:36:00.005-03:00

Over the long weekend we were camping down near Mahone Bay. On Sunday we set out to find a church to attend, and ended up at New Cornwall United Baptist Church.

A small church, but certainly friendly and full this Sunday. In many respects it is a very traditional evangelical protestant congregation: a one room church, with an electric organ, and a traditional service with familiar doxology and hymns. After the children's story they head down stairs for Junior Church. Likely little has changed in the nature of worship there since its founding in 1898.

For me it was familiar territory; I know the hymns and Scriptures. I can easy navigate that culture. My children however have been raised most of their lives in churches with contemporary worship. Choruses not hymns. Simple orders of service. Video clips and PowerPoint. And doxologies? Not if it bit them on the nose, would they recognize them. Don't even ask about the Apostle's Creed or Lord's Prayer.

The reality is that the majority of evangelical, protestant Christian churches in North America are like New Cornwall. Small rural or semi-rural communities, anchored in centuries old traditions. The kinds of traditions that feel familiar and comfortable when you return to them. Traditions that tether you back to churches of by-gone days.

I do wonder about my children though. Perhaps the contemporary service styles are more appealing and meaningful to them. But as music styles (and gimmicks) change, what legacies will they have to hang onto? Proponents of new worship styles argue that traditional worship is not culturally relevant. But are we raising a generation of new worshipers who are now culturally at odds with the rest (read majority) of protestant Christendom. In twenty years on their own camping trip, will they enter a small rural church like New Cornwall, and feel for a few minutes that they have somehow come home. Or will it be a strange and foreign place.

Religious Reality TV?

2010-07-25T20:44:00.003-03:00

Reality TV or Religious Education? CNN had this story of a Malaysian TV Talent show that has young contestants competing to become a Muslim Imam. At stake is a job, a paid pilgrimage to Mecca, and a scholarship to travel to Saudi Arabia for study.

I'm not sure what to make of it. It is educational in that the show explores what it means to be an Imam. I might be inclined to watch a show like that simply out of curiosity; is being an Imam similar to being a priest, pastor or rabbi, or is it something different? Yes, I know that they are they are different religions, I meant the general job description. What about the use of popular television? Does it cheapen the call to ministry? Or is it clever marketing? How would I feel about "So you think you can preach" or "Baptists have Talent"?

I know what I think, what about you? A good idea or three strikes?

Making Community

2010-07-08T11:31:00.007-03:00

I recently bought a copy of Heidi Campbell's new book When Religion Meets New Media. I've just started reading it, but have also gone back to some of her earlier writings. A writer's ideas develop over time, and I find it helps me understand their ideas if I can "go back" and join them on their journey.

I'm re-reading "The Question of Christian Community Online: The Case of the 'Artist World Network.'" I've blogged about Virtual Church before, but this article describes more generally online religious communities. In her earlier research, she identified six key markers of online religious community: space for personal relationships; ability to give and receive support; they value members; intimate communication within the group; strong connection for members; and shared faith.

The debate rages on whether one can have real community online; I think most people who have been part of virtual communities would argue that they can be as authentic as offline communities. Perhaps the crux of the problem is the lack of authentic communities on or offline. Regrettably, this includes many churches where membership requires only token attendance and support. Building community takes time and effort, and grows organically from the participants. Campbell wrote: "...it was the people not the [discussion] boards' creator who 'makes up the community.'" (p. 265) This is important for offline church leaders to notice as well; they can't create community. They can provide a safe space where community can grow, but it is the members who grow community. Another observation Campbell made was that sometimes the community that forms is very different from the community the administrators imagined. This can be scary for leaders, online or offline.

Is authentic community important enough to take the risk?

Christ in the Cloud?

2010-06-30T05:54:00.012-03:00

Many Christians find the practice of daily devotional reading important for their spiritual development. Since 1956 an evangelical Christian ministry Radio Bible Class has produced a little booklet called "Our Daily Bread" that includes a daily Bible reading and related inspirational thought. Other popular devotional booklets are "The Upper Room" (1935) and the Roman Catholic publication "The Word Among Us" (1981). There have been "Daily Breads" around our house since I was a child, and they remain a helpful tool for worship and reflection.

Media has changed, and I was interested to see that these ministries have enthusiastically adopted new media to communicate their message. You can still get "Our Daily Bread" in booklet form, but also as a streaming audio, podcast, mobile download, RSS or Twitter Feed.

What caught my attention was the tag cloud built of descriptive terms (tags) associated with each devotional and "weighted" based of popularity of that tag. Like the tag list I have on my blog except theirs is much cooler. These tags are actually assigned by the author, and as such aren't really "social tags" where the readers, not the author, decides what the devotional is "about" and tags it accordingly.

It is interesting to see the very different tags in this floating cloud. I was wondering how the tags would be different if I tagged the devotionals or if you did. I was looking at the tags for the devotional on October 22, 2009; I would have chosen some of them, but others seemed too abstract or theological. Who are they for? Faith is very personal; I would think that the tags would tell you as much about me as they likely would about the devotionals. Maybe I'll need to suggest social tagging to the folks at "Our Daily Bread."

What I Learned-ed 3: What are you saying?

2010-06-13T14:22:00.004-03:00

I wanted to tell you about a paper by Cameron Hoffman and Sarah Polkinghorne. The session was entitled “Discourse identity and practice: analyzing librarians’ conversations about information literacy and the social web.”

They analyzed posts to the email list ILI-L (an email discussion list for Information Literacy Instruction Librarians). The idea behind the study was that by examining how we talk about something we can often identify the assumptions and motivations behind the text. Hoffman and Polkinghorne considered what instruction librarians said about the use of the social web (Facebook, MySpace, Youtube etc.) in information literacy instruction.

I wasn’t surprised by their results, though I am certainly concerned. Although librarians are adopting social software for instruction, their concerns, as expressed on the list, aren't always about pedagogy; rather it was often about control. First, librarian posters frequently portrayed their clients as consumers not learners, and then themselves as service providers. (Wait a second, isn’t this list about teaching? Why does it suddenly sound like marketing?)

Hoffman and Polkinghorne then identified four themes in this discourse:

Tips, tricks and techniques – Librarians weren’t really interested in pedagogy (learning theory and practice). They wanted tips on “making them listen” etc.
Moral language – Wikedpedia is pure evil, we are gatekeepers to the good.
Anxiety – There is a lot of anxiety around social web and instruction, and the future role of librarians.
Sensitivity to new technologies – We think we need to be masters of the social web. (I guess the joke is on librarians: no one masters the social web.)

I’m over simplifying their research, but what I began to ask "is it really about the social web or is it whether librarians know how to teach?" Are wikis a tool in your teacher kit or is that the sum of your game? If you don’t understand teaching, then the gimmicks will only take you so far. But if you understand learners and learning, and when the social web can be engaged to foster learning, then you really have little to fear.

We need to talk about this more...

What I Learned-ed 2: Beautiful CHIN

2010-06-09T14:47:00.006-03:00

The plenary session of the CAIS conference was with Danielle Boily, Manager, Portal Management and Design, with the Canadian Heritage Information Network (CHIN). (So if they had their budget cut, would it be “taking one on the chin”?)

This department's mandate is to "allow Canadian museums to engage their audiences through the use of innovative technologies." Started in the 1970s with a mandate to record the collections of Canada's museums, CHIN has substantially increased its size as the organization has matured. (Does that mean they have a middle-aged double chin? :-p ) She spoke about the work they are now doing to publicize Canada’s artifacts and treasures (do you have any Canadian treasures?). One branch of CHIN (cleft chin?) is the Virtual Museum of Canada, and they have engaged in a re-design of the websites. She shared some of the inspiring design principles they were following: (I believe she said that these originated from a presentation at Southwest by Southwest).

Beauty in Design: there is an Aesthetic-Usability effect as beautiful things are easier to use. The tips: get emotional, think bigger, lead, be brave.

The art of persuasion: persuasion versus manipulation. The tips: use curiosity, play hard to get, lighten up, take a chance, and be frisky.(Can you imagine how the “be frisky” went over in a room of librarians and information scientists? Then imagine what happened where they tried to imagine “frisky” web designers.)

Thinking Visually: Solve any problem with a picture (portrait, chart, map, timeline, flowchart.)

I was thinking about these ideas in relation to both church and library websites. Both are information institutions, that rely heavily on text to communicate. I looked at some "best" church websites particularly for their aesthetic qualities. Some are very visual like Watermark or Renaissance. Others are edgy like Red Rocks. I don't know if I saw any site that was particularly beautiful. Suggestions?

Then there are library websites. Many are very functional but are any really beautiful? Or inviting? Something to think about as we re-design our own website. I know I want it to be functional but "a thing of beauty" as well? Can you think of a beautiful library website?

What I learned-ed 1: Peoples' Stories

2010-06-08T13:20:00.006-03:00

So between the CSSR and CAIS society meetings I attended one plenary, one workshop, one banquet, one business meeting and twenty-eight papers, and ate untold number of cinnamon buns over four days. Yeah, I know, brain strained, body tired, belly fat.

So what did I learned-ed at the Learneds Congress?

I was reminded again that in Montreal, traffic lights are mostly decorative.

I learned that there is fascinating research being conducted by scholars and librarians. Inspiring stuff, and I needed the inspiration. I’ll share some of the more personally intriguing papers over the next few blogs. I learned once again that not even brilliant content can overcome a bad powerpoint presentation. I chose to use Prezi software that, incidentally, went over very well. (Thanks again Karen.)

I learned again that behind the research are interesting personal stories. Most research does not pop out of thin air. As I talked to researchers one-on-one, I heard stories about personal struggles, compassion, anger and frustration. These are real people wanting to change their little corner of the world. It is too bad that the academic and publishing structures will strip the personal out of the research. Now some research is strictly an intellectual exercise (“what in the heck was that flow chart??? It even confused you and you made it!!!”)

I can’t share all the private stories, but next time you hear about interesting research, ask about the story behind the story; the passion that gave it life.

It just might surprise you.

Thick with academics!

2010-05-30T19:47:00.005-03:00

I'm off a-conferencing again; this time to Congress 2010 in Montreal. For those unfamiliar with the event (most of the population for instance), this is a gathering of scores of scholarly societies for business meetings, academic presentations and networking. Oh, and food (I've got a banquet to attend, poor me.) As last time, I'll blog the more interesting sessions. I'm presenting a paper on Thursday June 3; it remains to be seen whether it is one of the interesting ones! I'm still undecided on a few sessions; any suggestions?

The plan:

Canadian Society for the Study of Religion - Program
Tuesday, June 1st -

Session 1: Religion and Technologies,
Session 2: Religion and Aging OR Religion and Nature,
Session 3: Graduate Student Luncheon (More free food.)

Canadian Association for Information Science - Program
Wednesday, June 2nd -

Session 1: Information Practices,
Session 2: Information Needs and Knowledge Sharing,
Session 3: Information Behaviour,

Thursday, June 3rd -

Session 1: Management and Role of Information Professionals (hey, the alternative was Indexing and Information Retrieval Systems),
Session 2: Information Seeking Behaviour (eek, this is the session I present in!),
Session 3: Social & Collaborative Tagging OR Infometrics OR Museum of Fine Arts
Session 4: Cataloguing & Social Tagging OR Information Visualization OR Notre-Dame

Friday, June 4th -

Session 1: User Centred Design
Session 2: Information Literacy
Session 3: Information Literacy 2
Session 4: Information Literacy 3 (See a theme here?)

Homeward Bound!

Facebook and Faith

2010-05-22T16:30:00.014-03:00

Lately, privacy concerns around Facebook have somewhat soured my experience. (Don't tell Facebook, but I created a Orkut account behind its back.) I've written about Facebook and faith before, but I've been watching the recent news about Facebook and Youtube being banned by Pakistan.

It wasn't privacy that raised the ire of the Pakistan court; at the center of the controversy was a "Draw Mohammed Day" page. You'll remember the furor in 2005 when a Danish paper published satirical cartoons of Islam's Prophet, offending many Muslims, both for violating religious teaching on images of the Prophet and for the perceived disrespect. The administrators of this new Facebook page claimed their intent was not to offend Muslims, but to affirm freedom of expression in the face of extremism. From a sociological perspective this is a fascinating example of how religious belief can shape technology use. Young Muslims are also responding both against the ban, and using social media like Facebook to oppose "Draw Mohammed Day." I'm not including links here either to the page or to the many Muslim responses (you can find lots online.) I simply don't believe that needlessly offending others builds any bridges.

I also respond to these events on a personal level. I'm torn on this one. My faith is important to me. I don't like it when people belittle it. The TV comedy South Park's portrayal of Jesus bothers me. Silly books like Dan Brown's are just plain provocative (though ok adventure stories). And no, jokes that start: "Jesus walks into a bar..." do not interest me. So I understand the offense many Muslims feel.

Yet...one of my personal beliefs is that God gives us the freedom to make our own choices about who I will follow and what I will believe. The concept of freedom of conscience and thought finds many of its roots in the Judeo-Christian tradition, though we Christians have too often forgotten that. The Apostle Paul for instance in the Bible wrote "For why should my freedom be limited by what someone else thinks?" Now, I may challenge you if you are unfair in your portrayal of my faith, but you are free to believe as you will. (I might think you are wrong, but you are free to be wrong!) I also believe in your right to express your beliefs (and me mine.) There are obviously limits on what we can say, but those must be few, and government must always tread carefully.

So where does that leave me? The internet is challenging many of the limits to expression, faith and community that we have relied on. As a researcher I'm intrigued; as a Christian I am sometimes unsettled. Personally, I'm not always happy with the outcomes. But to impose my conscience on you would offend the very faith I seek to protect. I can testify, persuade, and cajole, but you must make your own decision. Does that put my faith at a disadvantage to those that seek to respond through force of law and arms? On the contrary, it makes it strong. To paraphrase a very ancient Bible story: God doesn't need me to look out for his interests, and to avenge offenses or slights to him. God can take care of himself.

I'm not afraid of no ghosts!

2010-05-17T19:48:00.005-03:00

I am an information professional. My job title is librarian. I connect people with information. Not just information but the right information. I think I'm rather good at it.

I think libraries will be around for years, but even if they disappeared tomorrow I'd still have a job. Some librarians wouldn't, because they are too entangled in the buildings and processes we constructed to help people find useful information. They forget that the point is the people. I was reminded today of some of the pessimism that has seeped into many libraries, particularly law libraries. Years of budget and staffing cuts have created a kind of fatalism. Someone asked me recently about innovations in Canadian Law Libraries. There are a handful that stand out. But largely we are not a very innovative bunch. I think we rested on our laurels too long. We are now paying the price.

Am I afraid of the future? Not at all. How can an information professional not be optimistic at the dawn of the information age? I was made for this; bring it on. I don't have time to mourn past glories, nor tend the ghosts of libraries past. I have people who need my help.

Now back to religious information....

Making sense...

2010-04-30T21:39:00.012-03:00

On March 15-16, 2010 I interviewed for the position of Chief Librarian at the Sir James Dunn Law Library. As of May 2, 2009 no announcement has been made. Yes, it is stressful but that's Dalhousie.

On a positive note, the six month interview process gave me lots of opportunity to think about academic libraries and their future role. I'm not at all pessimistic about the future of academic libraries. I thought it might be of value to share what I had worked through thus far. Below is a slightly abbreviated version of the formal presentation I made during my interview process. It runs about 17 min. It is entitled "Making Sense: Rediscovering the Role of the Academic Law Library."

Note: The wallpaper used in this prezi is a Creative Commons work and found at http://steampunkwallpaper.com/?p=265.

Annual Progress Report...Yes it's true!

2010-04-17T11:18:00.008-03:00

Guess what? I'm actually making progress on my research! No Really...at least I think I am.

This week:

I submitted my paper for the graduate student competition of the Canadian Association for Information Science . My paper proposal " Seeking God’s will: the experience of information seeking by leaders of a church in transition" already had been accepted for the conference. I was invited to participate in the competition based on my proposal.
I was also notified that another article "Preaching and the Internet: Dipping into a shallow pool or beginning a deeper conversation?" has been accepted for publication with the Journal of Religious & Theological Information vol. 9 (1).
I also found out that my proposal "Little Church on the Internet: a case study of one church's online engagement" has been accepted for the 7th Annual International Conference on Media, Religion and Culture in August. Now I just have to write the paper. :-)

I've enjoyed the research I've done this year, and I have learned a lot. It regrettably has taken a backseat to my daytime librarian job and progress has been too slow! Now I just need to get some more teaching experience. Anyone looking for an Instructor of Librarianship or Sociology of Religion?

Now time to start thinking about that dissertation...

The weight of leadership

2010-04-14T09:54:00.004-03:00

At the end of the day you need to make a decision. You've gathered a lot of information. You've weighed it and sifted it. Now what are you going to do.

Churches and church decision-making are not getting much good press these days. Some church leaders have made very bad decisions and the consequences of these decisions needs to be addressed. There are also those who have axes to grind, like atheist Richard Dawkins, who are delighting in these crises. Quick to condemn, much slower to head to the slums and alleyways to care for the sick and the poor.

In my reading and research thus far, I am finding leaders who are very concerned to do what is right and to do no harm. Their office weighs heavily on them. They think, they pray, and they talk to those they serve. They want to follow God's leading and get it right. Most of the time they do. Sometimes they don't. It is the memories of the times they didn't that motivates them to greater care.

They depend of God's leading. They believe he can and will lead them. They believe he speaks through the Bible. They believe God stirs up their hearts. They believe he speaks through the people and circumstances around them. More than coincidence: it is God at work.

On the face of it, it is a decision making process like any other. Sometimes the church's work looks a lot like the work of the Kiwanas or the Shriners. But Church leaders see it slightly differently: it is God's work, and they hope they are doing it God's way.

Holy Holograms Batman!

2010-03-21T08:48:00.005-03:00

Sorry couldn't resist! I've been busy for a while and have neglected my posting but someone pointed this article out and I just had to share. Increasingly larger churches with satellite campuses are turning to linked video conference to share services. Locally Stoneridge Fellowship Church in Sackville, NS is using this technology with its first satellite church in Hubbards, NS and hopes to plant more of these distance campuses. As I understand it, some aspects of the service like worship are local and other parts like preaching as shared experiences.

But looking at a big screen still seems...um..maybe impersonal. But wait technology to the rescue. A recent article in Out of Ur online mag discusses the use of holographic technology to bring the pastor virtually in your midst. Is it realistic? Check out the pic below; one of these pastors is not really there.

We went to Pier21 immigration museum yesterday. For those of you who haven't been there it chronicles the history of immigration to Canada through the experience of this one entry point. There is a multimedia presentation using holograms that is older technology but is still striking. What if it was realtime? What if it were interactive? What if you could manipulate the image so pastor could drop a few pounds? Sorry...the photoshop possibilities are amazing. :)

Spring is in the air...

2010-03-01T19:35:00.002-04:00

and with it conference registrations! I found out Friday that the proposal I'd submitted for the Canadian Association for Information Science conference has been accepted. This will be part of the Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences held in Montreal this May 28-June 4. The extended abstract I submitted was an overview of the research I have done this far on the information seeking behaviour of leaders seeking the will of God for their churches. It is an ethnographic study which simply means I am creating a description of a particular group of people's way of living and interacting with the world around them. I am trying to understand that world from the perspective of my respondents, the folks I'm interviewing. We do it by talking to people, observing people, and gathering documents and artifacts. Most of the time when people think about ethnography the image is of anthropologists like Malinowski living in remote jungles, writing about the exotic and strange. But ethnography as a research methodology can help us understand ourselves but making us question what we do, why we do it and what does this say about how we understand the world and our place in it.

In my research I am concerned with how my respondents are seeking the will of God for their church. They value the Bible in this process and they believe in prayer. Whether I understand the will of God as they do is not important. It is their world view I'm trying to understand (though it might make me ask important questions about mine.) They believe prayer is important and that it makes a difference. It is important to them so it is important to me as a researcher. Sometimes sharing their beliefs makes the task harder I think. It might be too easy to make assumptions and forget to ask important questions. When it is very different it is easy to come up with lots of questions. So I'll continue to ask questions of my respondents and hopefully of myself. Maybe I'll see my own world a little clearer in the end.

Dipped into a shallow pool?

2010-02-21T09:02:00.006-04:00

So did your pastor download this week's sermon off the internet? J.M. van der Laan seems to be concerned that he might have. He has recently published an article on how the internet shapes religious life. He asks “what happens to churches and pastors and Christian religious life when those involved rely increasingly, maybe soon predominately, on such Internet sources and resources” (p. 275). The answer he seems to conclude is that this food for religious life becomes processed, diluted and artificial; “certainly, the sermon is sullied, and the word becomes wooden” (p. 275). Ouch.

He is correct in pointing out the dangers of relying completely on sites that offer whole sermons sometimes for a fee. Hey, we all know that you can't live on fast food and the same goes for downloaded sermons. That is why many of these sites also include warnings. I have mused about these same issues on this blog. But I think van der Laan has incorrect conceptions of information and the Internet. Information is not a thing to be picked up. It is constructed as we interact with the world around us. The internet is not a pool we dip into searching for a bit of useful information. The Internet shapes us certainly, but we are not done shaping it and particularly in religious contexts.

I've been writing an article in response to van der Laan. I think interaction between the preacher and the Internet is more complex than van der Laan is portraying. In the next few posts I'll share with you how that article is unfolding. I don't think it is about dipping into a shallow pool, rather it is the beginning of a deeper conversation.

Scooped?!

2010-02-01T20:16:00.009-04:00

I had a scare recently: I thought I was scooped. No, not hit by a shovel but it almost felt like it. I thought someone had already published my research. Let me explain. It might seem sometimes that academics spend a lot of time researching stuff topics that are obvious to the rest of us (e.g. "wearing a helmet while skiing or snowboarding reduces the risk of head injuries" - um, ok.) Or some research just seems plain silly (e.g. "pressures produced when penguins poop"- eww.) Good research however is intended to expand our understanding of the world (and its people). It is intended to be original unless it clarifies or confirms earlier research (how about no repeats on the penguin study, please.) Researchers take great care to determine what about their subject area has been researched and to build upon the previous work. No point reinventing a perfectly good wheel. And good researchers give credit where credit is due.

I took great care to review all the literature in my area and was certain that I had done a more than reasonable job of ferreting out anything relevant. So I was submitting and abstract for an upcoming conference and decided to check out last year's abstracts to use as a model. I noted an abstract submitted by an acquaintance of mine, Don Wicks. It wasn't on my topic but it was of interest. As I read the full paper, I discovered that the coauthor, Daniel Roland, like Don had written in the area of pastors' information seeking behaviour. It was his PhD dissertation in 2007. Uh-uh...how did I miss that one. As I read through the abstract I found that he also approached his topic from the same theoretical perspective as I. My heart skips a beat. Did he already do my research?!!

(OK, you are thinking get a grip Michels...research something else then. But this has been a long three years. Back tracking here would not be good.)

I located a copy of the thesis and found that though there were similarities, it was not what I was doing. I did help me in my reading though so in the end I'm glad to have found it. So back to work. Time to pick up the pace on data collecting and writing or maybe next time I really will get scooped!

Making Square Sense

2010-01-28T20:23:00.006-04:00

Did that make any sense? Back about 20 years ago I attended a lecture about the Wesleyan Quadrilateral - don't remember anything about the lecture except for the concept attributed originally to the 18th cent. clergyman John Wesley, founder of the Methodist movement. It suggested that theological decision making relied on four sources: Scripture, tradition, reason and experience. The name quadrilateral was a little misleading since the four sources were not seen as equal. Scripture always had preeminence: the Bible was the highest authority. Tradition referred to both the historical teachings of the church, and contemporary theological thinking. Personal religious experience also plays a role as does God given reason. I did note that one blogger is suggesting changing the name to the Tetrahedron of Authority. Umm...ok, that's not helping much (never did like geometry).

I've been reflecting on church decision making lately. You know Wesley's method wasn't far off how contemporary Christian leaders use various sources to make sense out of their religious worlds. Most would still hold to various degrees the Bible as the authority. Some branches of Christianity might put different weight on tradition (ok I couldn't resist the link); evangelicals might be less inclined to turn to creeds and canons of the church but may be more likely to be influenced by contemporary theological trends and writings. As I listen to church folks wrestling with decision-making, personal histories play a significant role. This usually take the form of storytelling "I remember some years back when...." Then there is reason "well to my mind, it only makes sense...." There is also room here for "secular" information to be introduced (stats, marketing, psychology etc.). But I'm beginning to see another category here and I'm not sure where it fits. When I've figured it out I'll suggest my own geometric shape. In the meantime you can practice your geometry here.

Surprise! It's not the internet's fault!

2010-01-17T21:22:00.013-04:00

The dictionary definition of faith is complete trust or confidence in someone or something. It is also defined as a strong belief in God or in the doctrines of a religion. I like the first definition better because it suggests something more than an intellectual assent. One of the Bible's most notable chapters about faith states "Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see."

But let's go back to the second definition: the belief in the doctrines of the church. Last Thursday I submitted an extended abstract for the Canadian Association for Information Science meetings during the 2010 Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences. When I started my research planning over eighteen months ago, I expected to find that new communication technologies were undermining religious authority and confusing doctrine. The average parishioner doesn't need to turn to the "expert" (pastor or priest) any longer for theological information; they now have access to significant resources online. The question is whether they have the skills to effectively evaluate and integrate what they find. I thought this would be disruptive to the local church's ability to equip their members. Recently however, I've begun to question that assumption in part due to some recent work by Heidi Campbell (2007, 2010 Forthcoming) on authority online, and a rethink of some of Reg Bibby's work on the the endurance of religious traditions in Canada (2002, 2004). I've lots more thinking (and analyzing) to do but here is where I'm at now.

Maybe online seeking isn't really undermining the teachings of your church. People are trying to make sense of their world the best way they can, looking for answers for faith questions that to that point their church hasn't provided them. I've seen evidence that people are open a better answer from their church, if one was offered. But in the meantime they need something to help make sense of a life situation and find it online. So I guess the ball is in the local church's court: who is teaching your parishioners? They need answers and they might not wait for you to get around to it. Just saying. ;-)

Now I'm doing it...

2010-01-01T18:38:00.009-04:00

I wrote recently about the tensions between written religious texts and new media interpretations. Now I'm wrestling with the converse. Part of the data gathering includes audio recordings of interviews. I'm a baaad typist so transcribing takes me a long time. I may resort to hiring someone to assist with some of that work, although there is a benefit to being immersed in the interviews word by word by word.

Why do I think this is important? Because transcribing is an interpretive process: when I convert spoken word to written text I..."flatten it out" in some respect. Verbal communication consists of the words spoken (sounds which placed together have a symbolic meaning for the speakers of that language). It also consists of intonation, and emphasis. I can speak the same words with mirth, disdain or sarcasm and convey very different intents to my hearers. If I speak them loudly or softly, the force might be greatly changed. And there is context to every speech. Imagine the force of Churchill's words "we shall never surrender" as he stood in Parliament on June 4, 1940. Or the power of Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I have a dream." More than just spoken words; words with conviction and words with context. When I read the transcription I might not "hear" that.

There are approaches to analysis, such as conversation analysis, that try to capture as much nuance as possible in transcription with systems of symbols (like Jeffersonian transcription). I'm not concerned with the structure of the conversation so I don't need that level of detail. But I still need to transcribe with great care; I'll listen again and again to the audio tapes until I can almost recite them. Each time I will hear something else I missed before. I want to be fair to my informants.

Listening. More important than asking the right questions. I often tell my kids that: don't ask the question if you aren't going to listen to the answer. But I'm so used to reading, I need to re-learn the art of listening lest I fall back into the comfortable world of the printed page. I'm listening....

"Know thyself" Part 1

2009-12-30T19:04:00.015-04:00

The Greek aphorism gnōthi seauton has been attributed to a number of ancient philosophers but regardless of authorship its call to introspection remains true: know yourself. Were it only so easy.

It s not just individuals that must do this. Churches need to know themselves as well. They need to know what they believe and they need to know their history. I'll come back to beliefs in a later post.

Churches have histories like people. Even in Canada, some churches go back 300 years. That's a lot of ministry. I remember rooting around in the basement of Emerson Baptist Church when I ministered there, the second oldest Baptist church in Western Canada. Like the show Ancestors in the Attic, exploring the old records and artifacts gave me a great sense of why the church (and community) had the character it did. The stories of the first meetings down at the local pub with barrels and planks as seats. I found posters for the church family picnic in the 1920s at Grand Beach, Lake Winnipeg. The whole congregation would jump on the train and ride to the lake for the day. Sounds like it was a lot of fun. I found Temperance movement posters as well; though interestingly, by the time I was there I might be offered either coffee or a beer when I went on a pastoral visit. Not typical Baptists! The baptism and death records traced the waves of immigrants (Mennonite, German, Ukrainian, Russian etc.) and the hardships of families as small pox and influenza struck down scores of members. It testified to the hardiness and perseverance of this congregation. It also hinted at some of the longstanding struggles and weaknesses they faced as a congregation. It helped me understand today.

I've been on the lookout for church historical documents. Because of my previous pastoral experiences, I think the history of a congregation is an important source of information for present day decision makers. I enjoy hearing the church stories of days gone bye. Sometimes when change is needed it can be frustrating to hear "but we tried that 27 years ago, and it didn't work!" Yet that shared history also seems to give security and a sense of identity to the church. It can highlight problems and needs to be addressed.

So who is the keeper of your church's history? Who gathers together the stories and the legends? How will we decide where we are going if we don't remember where we have been? Hmm.

The Word spoken...

2009-12-28T11:23:00.015-04:00

I went to see Jim Carey's "A Christmas Carol" and was inspired to re-read the book. The movie seemed to be undecided whether it was to be a literal interpretation of the original Dickens story or something new (and Jim Carey-ish.) A good movie but not the same as the book. I've been thinking a lot about the debate between the print and new media in religion.

The peoples of the Book (Muslims, Jewish and Christians) have an text centered faith rooted respectively in the Koran, Tanakh, and Christian Bible each sharing significant Torah traditions. I'm interested (at present) in my research with Christian protestant evangelicalism and its use of information. In this theological tradition, there is an idea of a "received text" that is divinely inspired and canonically fixed (the church believes it was now closed and could no longer be edited, or added to.) There is also the belief in the inherent power of the words of scripture. This dominance of the text is strongly evident in the evangelical church where even decorative features in churches tend to be "text heavy." Information = written text. There have been challenges to this idea. I think back to the use of stained glass windows during the middle ages to educate and inspire largely illiterate church goers in the stories of Scripture. I remember reading some years ago (1985, I think) Frankie Schaeffer's book " Addicted to Mediocrity" where he challenged evangelicals to take the creative arts seriously as a form of faith expression capable to educating, inspiring and evangelizing. Time has moved on and we now live in a multi-media rich environment, often amateur driven. Faith is being expressed in these forms. Will spoken word begin to take predominance over the written text? It is happening with other forms of written communication (i.e. newspapers). How will this substitution in form change the evangelical theology around the primacy of the text? What about other forms of visual media? One of the first tasks of Christian missionaries among new people groups was literacy training. Besides aiding community development, teaching literacy also meant people could read the Bible. It was an essential part of faith development. Now one sees the widespread use of video dramatization of the Bible for evangelism.

So my question of the day: if the Bible was being created today, would God have used multimedia or is there something about written text?

Merry Christmas...intentionally!

2009-12-23T15:10:00.006-04:00

I've wished a number of people Merry Christmas this week. I know that Season's Greetings or Happy Holidays is more culturally appropriate but I like Christmas and I want to wish people a Merry Christmas. I'm not trying to be counter-culture or deliberately provocative. Oddly enough no one has reacted negatively to my wish for a Merry Christmas; most returned the wish in kind; a few seemed pleasantly surprised. I recognize that some in my community won't be celebrating Christmas until January 7, 2010 , some will be celebrating Kwaanza, some have already celebrated Hanukkah, and others will commemorate Ashura. For many, it is a time to be with family and friends. I hope each enjoys their holiday.

But for me it is Christmas, the day I remember the Creator became the creature; the All Seeing One opened his eyes for the first time; the Ancient of Days drew his first breath. I do believe God invaded history that day, almost unseen in a cattle shed, vowing that the world did not have to be this way. In a few more months I will also commemorate Christ's death when he would declare of his work "it is finished" and the world would never be the same.

So I wish you a Merry Christmas and my sincerest wish for God's blessing on you and your families.

I'll let this grade 1 Spanish immersion class have the last word with Feliz Navidad (I want to wish you a Merry Christmas.)

Signs and wonders....

2009-12-16T10:56:00.005-04:00

No nothing apocalyptic just...well, signs. Church signs to be exact. Traditionally they were simply names: "St. Alban's Anglican Church" or "First Baptist Church" (and surprise...there are actually a few "Second Baptist Churches out there.) Perhaps the denominational affiliation is also there: "United Church of Canada" or "Pentecostal Assemblies of Canada (PAOC)." Now some will go as far as adding the pastor and service times (if the pastors change too often they might leave it off or just have a secondary sign screwed on - maybe good to watch out for if you are a new potential pastor being interviewed by the church.)

Some church signs feature the "sentence sermons" as one writer called them; as simple as a Bible verse or maybe a provocative thought. Then there are the billboard types of signs that became popular in the sixties and seventies with evangelistic intent. You might remember driving down the highway and seeing those large signs with John 3:16 or Romans 6:23. They would have pictures of the cross, flames, or heavenly sunbeams to emphasize the scriptural point. In the nineties "Seeker sensitive" churches and then the Emerging Church movement began adopting more aggressive marketing tactics. It is not surprising that some billboards have generated considerable controvery.

I assume that the primary purpose of a sign was to communicate who we were and what you were doing to those outside. And provide an invitation. "Our Traditional worship service is at 10:30am. Our contemporary worship service is at 12:00pm." Good to know. The use of "sentence sermons' and Bible Verses seems to make an assumption that the majority of those reading them have enough of a Christian background to understand the context. That might have been the case in 1970; it is not the case in 2009. Here is one I saw: "Plan ahead. It wasn't raining when Noah built the ark." This presupposes that you know who Noah is, what an ark is, and why he needed one. Think most people get it? Maybe not if recent surveys on Biblical Literacy are correct. It seems the most quoted justification for using Bible verses is the idea that God's Word is never read without being used by God for His purposes. I agree with the idea. But does this passage envision the flinging of verses randomly at passerbys (not unlike a drive-by shooting) in the hopes that God will use it on the un-expecting reader?

An article is Christianity Today offers some tips on effective Church signs. My own thought is that the best way to share your faith is in person. Use your sign to invite people in. Use it to tell them about your church. Who knows, they might just stop by.

I had lots to say about church signs, so here is your chance! Make your own church sign here with this church sign generator.

Your Church's Digital Portfolio

2009-12-12T09:45:00.013-04:00

I've been reading Born Digital : Understanding the First Generation of Digital Natives. Palfrey and Gasser are both lawyers and of course are very interested in legal issues such as privacy and copyright. But this isn't a law book but in their words "the aim of the Digital Natives project is to understand and support young people as they grow up in a digital age."

Two interesting concepts they develop are the ideas of your digital portfolio and your digital identity. Your digital identity is the identity you create online through your IM chats, facebook profile, your gaming activities etc. It is malleable; I can experiment with my online identity in different ways as easily as creating a new profile or avatar. The authors however would argue as more and more of ourselves are out there online, the harder it will be to modify that identity. The digital portfolio is all the digital documents and records that exist about you from your first sonogram before you were even born if your are a digital native (and all the other medical records since then), all the bank transactions, library books loaned, and groceries bought with your air miles card! Vast collections of information which we have little control over. Sobering to think about.

I began thinking more about Churches' digital identities and portfolios. More and more Churches are creating online presences and utilizing digital communication. Who manages the digital identity of the Church? Can it be managed? If I did a google search about your church and didn't stop at your manicured website, what identity would the bits and bites create for me? That identity may last long after the present pastor and board have moved along. The enduring power of digital communication. Worth considering.

Preachin' the Net

2009-11-29T20:34:00.005-04:00

It was Marshall McLuhan who wrote that "the medium is the message." It is times like this that I realize I need to read more McLuhan (in my copious free time for sure!) I've been thinking again about preaching and the internet. There is an interactive relationship that needs to be explored; muse with me for a few moments....

Let's go back to the Tuesday before. The preacher took Monday off and is now thinking about the next Sunday's message...hypothetically anyway. ;-) Most preachers I know use the internet as an information gathering tool. Email updates from missionaries or the denomination. Online sermon illustration collections and even Christian news and current events. Occasionally I am still asked to preach and I'll admit I'm somewhat of a dinosaur when it comes to sermon preparation. I still prefer the yellow scratch pad, a pencil and my big pile of books. But...I now usually draft my message on my computer and take advantage of online Bible tools such BibleGateway to look up passages, or Theopedia or Wikipedia for a definition. Many preachers go farther and utilize online media which can be integrated into a message.

It used to be you would drive by the church by Thursday and see the sermon title on the sign outfront. I was a church janitor for a bit and that was my Thursday morning task. (Oops, pastor's preaching' on tithing again, lets visit the Anglicans this week.) With email, twitter, facebook and blogs the sermon title can be broadcast to the membership with online access. And since these are social media, there is room for dialogue and discussion around these announced topics. Discussions that may well make their way back into the sermon preparation before Sunday. Now, this isn't entirely new; I regularly bounced sermon ideas off people over tea back in the day. But the dynamic is different somehow; more public perhaps.

It is now Sunday. Now that the sermon is being broadcast via streaming video, a reality in more and more churches, there are new rules. Whatever happens in the pulpit must be translatable to video. The preacher's body language and range of movement must change. The preacher is now also preaching to the net. With chat capabilities it is now possible for the offsite viewer to ask questions and even converse with other offline viewers during the sermon. Preaching is a unique form of communication as it is usually mono-directional; however hard the preacher might rebuke the congregation, they usually sit there politely and take it (you'll hear about at the door later.) Online messages invite immediate response.

There is an interplay developing between new media and preaching; new media is providing content for preaching, preaching is providing content for new media, preaching leaves its mark on the face of the internet, and yes, internet I think is leaving its mark on the face of preaching.

So what will preaching become (and should I hold onto my yellow scratch pad?) ;-)

I just had dust in my eye...

2009-11-18T21:22:00.011-04:00

I recently attended a presentation by a researcher who works with young people who face significant life challenges as well as a lot of social stigma. For hers and these people's privacy I won't elaborate further except to say they are ordinary people with some very heart moving stories. This researcher is an extraordinary person; she has one of the largest hearts I know (the new Grinch has nothing on her!) It was hard for her at points to share these stories and not be moved by her recollections. She is not alone. I recently spoke with another qualitative researcher who also wrestled with very human responses to the stories that were shared with her. Retelling the stories brings those emotions back but also brings those same stories to life. These are real people not simply research subjects.

The "Rules":

Displays of emotion have no place in academia,
Scholarly presentations are to be objective and detached.,
Showing emotion in an academic presentation makes people uncomfortable.

It is true that excessive emotion may render a person unable to present. But no emotion? Is this interdiction merely a holdover in the academy from quantitative research methods, where the researcher is not personally engaged but maintains an "objective" view of the "experiment?" May it have something to do with the historical demographics of the academy as anglicized and male dominated? Our society still perpetuates the cultural myth that "real men don't cry."

As qualitative researchers explore deeper into the life experiences of real people, it will become harder to avoid the reality of human emotion. These are real people with engaging lives. Real researchers will be moved by them. Maybe it is time to change the academy not the researchers. ;-)

AAR...No pirates to be seen at Law and Religion

2009-11-14T19:40:00.004-04:00

I noted earlier that there were lawyers at AAR as well (to be specific law professors.) Now before anyone makes any lawyers/pirates comparisons please know that many of my friends are lawyers! Scallywags some may be, but thieves and vagabonds they are not. ;-)

The papers in Law, Religion and Culture session considered the Bouchard Taylor Commission, Aboriginal Rights, and Islamic Law in Canada. The first paper and the last caused me the most...well frustration. The Bouchard Taylor commission considered the issue of religious accommodation in Canadian life (how big an issue is the need to accommodate the religious views of minorities in canada.) Lori Beaman was very concerned with the report's suggestion that minorities run too quickly to the courts, and that they should seek to resolve issues of accommodation privately. She felt that minorities are more vulnerable and need the safety of the courts to ensure the rule of law. But do enforced resolutions build community? Do they break down the prejudices or engrain them? Hmmm.

The paper on Islamic Law addressed the issue of arbitration in family matters, but specifically religious arbitration based on religious law. The speaker Sevak Manjiakam was so engaging I forgot to take good notes so I'll work from memory here. He argued that, not surprisingly, minorities are reluctant to go to the courts with religious issues. For much of the world questions of marriage, divorce and family are religious issues. Although anyone can choose to have their dispute settled by an religious arbitrator, that arbitration does not have the force of law. Religious arbitration was used in Ontario by the Catholic and Jewish communities for years prior to requests by Islamic groups for Sharia based arbitration. Ontario banned all religious arbitration in 2005. Mr. Manjiakam eloquently voiced the need for religious arbitration in Canada but to my surprise, challenged the way many in the Muslim community envisioned such arbitration, based solely on Sharia Law, and conducted by local Imams. He argued that there was a substantial tradition of Islamic law, and what was needed were trained legal specialists who understood both Islamic law and arbitration. He made a good case: is, for example, the average Christian church pastor qualified to make legally binding decisions about my marriage and family disputes? Counselling perhaps, depending on the courses they took, but arbitration? No, I don't think so. I also appreciate the concerns of minorities. I heard an excellent paper presented by Pascale Fournier on a similar topic back in May that considered how well meaning judges attempting to be multiculturally sensitive were arriving at very different legal conclusions. So the problem is real and it is growing.

So where now? Secular courts don't work well and private arbitration is not much better. Are we headed to a mosiac of courts based on religions and culture; not just for Muslims, but Catholics, Jews, Buddhists and Athiests. Wiser heads than I need to resolve this one....

AAR...my candidate to walk the plank!

2009-11-11T18:58:00.007-04:00

The AAR conference brings together a very diverse group of people. There are Christians, Muslims, Buddhists, Pagans and Atheists. There are sociologist, theologians, anthropologists, and (surprise!) lawyers. Oh, and I even met an evolutionary psychologist. Some are regular practitioners of their faith; some are simply fascinated by the social expressions of religion. It is illuminating to interact with such a diverse group around various topics; it also requires a sensitivity to the faith positions of others. As an evangelical Christian I must be prepared to defend my faith, but I am also obligated to live at peace with those around me. I need to treat others with respect even when we disagree. I don't always succeed but I try.

To teach sociology of religion in a religious institution has its advantages I think. You can assume a particular theological position and proceed from there. A university context must be much more challenging. How do you navigate the diversity of opinion and avoid the religious minefields? I like how Chris Helland my doc supervisor handles it. He explains very early in the class the sociological perspective that he adopts: he must "bracket" his own beliefs and choose not to ask the crucial question "is this from God?" As a sociologist he is confined to the natural world. This does not mean he believes that religion is an entirely human phenomenon but that some things are outside his research focus. He must take all religious experiences at face value though he does not believe all religions are universally valid based on their outcomes (e.g. Jonestown or the Branch Davidians). I think he would say he is an observer of religion not its judge.

I attended one paper where the researcher was studying Chick Comics and Tracts. If you grew up in a conservative evangelical church you probably will remember the gospel tract "This was your Life". I appreciate the evangelistic message they tried to make and the zeal behind the attempts. Sometimes however, the message they preached, especially when addressing other groups such as Roman Catholics, was fraught with unproven innuendo and speculation. It was more than the simple gospel message. The truths they communicated were sometimes lost in the bluntness of their presentation. The sociologist who presented the paper obviously did not share Chick's position. His presentation was littered with sarcastic asides and not so subtle mockery. This was more than critique of the content and approach of Chick; this was a rejection of the faith position of this group. He was no longer a sociologist, but assumed the role of arbiter of the truth claims they made. I would hope that Chris' first year undergraduate students would know better than this professor.

So in a not so nonjudgmental fashion I nominate this presenter to "walk the plank!"

AAR...Can pirates dance?

2009-11-10T21:22:00.010-04:00

Religious rituals. There are the big rituals (coronations) and little rituals (like a family Bible reading.) Some are very tightly scripted; you don't have much leeway in a funeral or a remembrance service at a cenotaph. Other rituals are more open to interpretation; I have lots of room for innovation in a wedding ceremony like readings, music etc. as long as certain things occur like vows, pronouncement etc. I remember in my wedding the Minister forgot to say "you may kiss the Bride." Now I did eventually get to kiss her and I'll let you in on a secret: I kissed her before the wedding! ;-) But I'll always remember that omission because...well, you are supposed to say that at weddings, right?! Yet rituals are not static and can change over time.

One session I attended discussed how popular media can transform religious traditions. (I'm separating faith and religion here: I believe that faith transcends culture since it finds its source in God; religion on the other hand is one way in which we live out our faith in community.) The premise is that religion is socially constructed (societies create and recreate religious traditions) and media is also socially constructed (societies create media and use it for their purposes). Both interact in culture and they change each other.

Here is one example that Lynn Schofield Clark presented. This wedding video that has gone viral on YouTube. "J and K's Big Day" was a private choreographed moment as part of a wedding processional. The video was posted on YouTube for family and soon was viewed 31 million times. They were invited onto the Today show and it became a much copied hit creating a new wedding tradition almost over night. Now this is hardly a dramatic change but it would have been impossible before the internet. Ritual and tradition can be shaped by the web.

For your viewing pleasure : the Lego version of "J and K's Big Day."

AAR...Pirates at play

2009-11-10T20:44:00.012-04:00

The Monday's session on Religion Media and Culture focused on ritual in contemporary culture and media. Rituals, sociologically speaking, are sets of action with symbolic meaning that we perform usually prescribed by religion or tradition. A wedding ceremony has its rituals (candle lighting, exchange of rings etc.) and so do funerals. What happens when rituals are played out online?

Rachel Wagner has done a lot of research into video games and the ideas of interactivity, play, rules, narrative and conflict. Even in telling a fixed story, there is room for interactivity and "Play". She urged us to think of Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ. This was a fixed story but viewers gave him room to play with lighting, costuming sets etc. but only to a point. Beyond that we would say "you didn't tell the story." Rachel has been looking at how religion has been brought into video games and the implications of that for storytelling and play. When is the game more than a game? Kerstin Radde-Antweiler spoke about religious rituals played out online. She focused on two stories of a wedding celebrated in SecondLife and a memorial service held online in World of Warcraft (WoW). In the SecondLife story a wedding service was being held with friends online. There are a ton of religious questions here but the focus of the story was that three virtual people (avatars) decided to crash the virtual wedding (flying on brooms). To them it was all a game; but not so for the celebrants. This was important to them and they were upset. Even more so in the WoW story. For those unfamiliar with this, WoW is an online 3D world where players, through their virtual selves (avatars) explore, fight monsters and interact with other players. In the story Kerstin recounted, a member of an online guild (team) had passed away in real life. Her online friends decided to hold a memorial service for her online in WoW, really the only place where most knew her. They advertised the intended service. However, during the service a rival guild attacked the avatars and virtually killed many of the mourners. This initiated a great debate over the appropriateness of the behaviour on both sides. Was it wrong to not respect the memorial service? Was it right to even bring a serious ceremony into a virtual game? When is the game no longer the game and can you draw a line between the two?

I know what pirates would do! What do you think? When is the game no longer the game?

AAR...Pirates and Civil Religion...

2009-11-08T14:52:00.004-04:00

Session two at the AAR conference:Rethinking Civil Religion. No, it has nothing to do with being rude at church, although you should never be rude at church (or really anywhere.)

To sum up: Civil Religion is the sum of religious concepts, rituals and dialogue that are adopted by the state and become part of the fabric of the social consciousness of that state. Robert Bellah coined the concept back in 1967. Think of it this way: the USA has a constitutional separation of church and state. But...the money says in "In God we Trust", political functions start with prayer, and every president has invoked terminology like "sacred trust" and "moral duty", the language of religion to rally the citizenry. The pledge of allegiance and singing of the national anthem at sports events, are two of the rituals and pronouncements like "my country right or wrong" complete the "religious" mythology of the USA. Tied up with this is the idea of being God's chosen people; a nation of destiny; the shining beacon to the world.

So is this a good thing or bad? Well, here is where our speakers were undecided. They all agreed that the recent events have shaken America's self perception. Maybe the USA is not invincible; maybe they won't always prevail. That was an almost unthinkable admission not long ago. But should America, and well all country and even the world have a civil religion?

Can there be a civil religion without God? Well maybe yes the speakers argued, as long as there is some idea of transcedence; something bigger, greater than ourselves. Something to aspire to like universal moral principles. Sound very lofty. But I wonder...do people readily give their lives for abstract concepts? Or do they give their lives for something personally important to themselves: love for family, community and God?

OK, no pirates in this session, but remember the "code of the brethren" from the Pirates of the Caribbean? Sounds like civil religion to me. :)

AAR...Pirates and religious work?

2009-11-08T13:54:00.008-04:00

Here I am at the AAR conference in Montreal. This is a BIG conference and the Palais des Congres is a huge facility. I arrived by train at 7:45am and headed right over to the venue for my first session at 9am. Religion and Social Sciences make much more sense when you're sleep deprived! :-)

This session's theme was Velben's Theory of the Leisure Class: Rethinking Religion and Economy if the Age of Crisis. Yeah, I had to look it up too. In a nut shell, Velben was a foundational economist and sociologist who developed the ideas of conspicuous consumption and the ruler class as "the leisure class" because they really did not contribute economically to the survival of the group. Religion he would argue does not contribute to the economy of the tribe and really was a form of waste. One speaker made much of the image of Pope Benedict signing an Encyclical expressing concern for the poor and downtrodden surrounded by the trappings of wealth and separated from manual labour. I took exception to how he presented this but the point is taken. Those who actually know what they are talking about can critique my cartoonish oversimplification of Veblen.

I went to this session because information science research has payed little attention to religious questions because religion has been relegated to "leisure activities" like hobbies etc. and not been considered important for study. What caught my attention were two ideas. First, one speaker Richard Callahan talked about the idea of the "instinct of workmanship" from Veblen: our meaning, purpose and instinct is to work. Competition through War and Sport detracts from this and replaces the goal of work with the seeking of "booty." (See! I told you it would come back to Pirates in the end.) Most defenses of the Church from Veblenian critiques would point out how the church has acted to redistribute wealth thus serving a beneficial purpose in Veblen's economy. But there is more that that here. I thought about the Biblical idea of man and woman created to "tend the garden" and act as stewards over creation. Theologically we were created to work and to enjoy the fruits of our labour. Maybe Veblen had something here, that the church needs to think more about.

The second idea raised by Joerg Rieger was that in the information age we need to begin to rethink the definition of work. Life isn't so easily subdivided anymore into work/non-work. Technology is changing that. Is white collar work the same as blue collar work? Do they both contribute? what about volunteerism and other forms of unpaid work? Do these contribute to the economy? I think they do and there is a role for religion/community service is that new definition. Hmmm...things to think about.

Off to the next session (watch out for pirates)....

Flu, Faith and Information...

2009-11-02T20:12:00.011-04:00

H1N1. Such a little word but it unsettles people so much. Those of us in the developed world aren't used to this kind of pandemic. We don't daily deal with the risk of Malaria or Tuberculosis which combined annually kill 2.7 million people. We are well fed and affluent. We put much faith in our health care system (though we complain about it a lot.) Now we feel vulnerable and a little scared. Notice how people react now when someone coughs on the bus? The question "have you got your flu shot yet?" is replacing "so how about this weather?" as Canadian small talk.

So how do I respond? I educate myself with sources that I can critically evaluate. That includes government sources, workplace sources, and credible scholarly sources. (If you would like links to good sources try the Kellogg Health Library's page.) I take reasonable precautions. And I critically assess my attitude. Yes, my attitude.

About 13 years ago Nova Scotia was on the verge of a huge health care strike. I was working in a small rural pastorate with a high population of seniors. People were understandably concerned and, well, a little scared. Like they are now. We talked about it as a congregation and considered how our faith should influence our perspective of the impending crisis, our conversation about it, and our behaviours. I personally believe I am in a universe with purpose, designed by a God who cares about me and my family. I believe if I must face sickness and suffering I can turn to God for strength, hope and wisdom. I believe that even death is not the end but only the beginning of eternity. Those beliefs should influence my attitude about H1N1 or really any other personal health crisis. Easy to say...harder to do.

I have good information, both medical and spiritual on which to base my personal health choices. So now what do I do with it? How does my personal faith help me evaluate, interpret and apply non-religious information? Should it? I think so....

The worldview of software...

2009-11-01T13:59:00.011-04:00

Today was my first time operating our church's worship software EasyWorship. This is a presentation software specifically designed for congregational worship in contrast to traditional powerpoint which is business software. Well, I need a lot more practice, but I think we all worshiped despite my miscues. :-) It is a great software application and I think a worthwhile investment for any congregation, with two caveats attached. One, it still needs skilled people to plan the presentation and then execute the plan. Software doesn't enter into worship, it cannot seek the heart of God, and it cannot sense the mood of a congregation (in respect to Asimov I'll say at least not yet.)

The other caveat is that most software is created with a worldview at its heart. I noted above that MS Powerpoint was created as a business presentation application. It is used more broadly than that now but using it in a classroom environment has meant changes in how teaching happens in the classroom. I had an insightful conversation this week with a faculty member who doesn't use powerpoint for a particular class he teaches for very specific pedagogical reasons relating to how he understands legal practice.

Another example might be research software. I am learning a few data analysis software packages like Nvivo and Atlas-Ti to use in analyzing my research data. I took a workshop two years ago that really emphasised the importance of understanding the theoretical assumptions behind the software. The developers believe research should happen in a certain way, and they write software that reflects that approach (in this case Grounded Theory). I need to be aware of those assumptions as I use the software because they will influence my results.

When I use software in worship, the software will have an influence on the form of worship. Simply projecting the lyrics on the wall rather than reading the hymnal changes the tone of worship. A software like EasyWorship can introduce video clips into the worship stream. These mini-movies can add a slick and professional edge to worship. Some of them are kinda cool and I was thinking "hey, this would be good, and this one, and this too...." However, when I introduce this kind of media into worship I adopt certain ideas about worship. I can't do that uncritically. I must ask questions about what we believe about worship and community. I must ask questions about the "sound bite" generation and how church buys into that.

Software has worldviews implicitly embedded into it. Do I see what it is and am I ready to accept it? Hmmm...

AAR...the pirate conference?

2009-10-28T19:56:00.003-03:00

Actually it is the American Academy of Religion conference...though given the range of topics covered I'm sure there is room for something on buccaneer theology or privateer prayers. Groan...I just googled "pirate's prayer" and wouldn't you know it someone "piratized" the 23rd Psalm...will I never learn?

But I digress...the AAR conference is next week and I hope to attend (with a laptop to blog the sessions). There is so many concurrent sessions that I am having a hard time choosing. One session I am interested in is about sacred spaces especially spaces that become politically contentious. The folks at Oxford Press are offering a "how to publish your book" session. Now I just need to write one. Of course I'll be taking in a few sessions on Law and Religion (there is one of blasphemy that is very intriguing) and even Music and Religion. I'm fascinated to see how many sessions revolve around Religion and Obama; both the role of the religious right in the past presidential election, but also I expect the near messianic role Obama was cast in during the campaign. There is a session with William P. Young, the author of The Shack. A number of you know that I am of mixed feelings about this book: on one hand it explores important themes of deep pain and disillusionment that the Church often is afraid to address; but is a fictional work with sometimes problematic theology. I'm still thinking about that session. There are lots more sessions, some way over my head (buddy, if your title itself is five lines long...) and some just seem strange (is "transhuman" like the borg?) If you're interested take a look yourself and let me know if you see any you think I should attend. My schedule is still being drafted. :-)

Does Facebook hurt your faith? What do you think?

2009-10-24T06:31:00.003-03:00

A new study by two Gordon College faculty is making its way around the blogsphere . To sum up: young college students are using social software so much they don't have time for christian disciplines like prayer, Bible study and service. They apparently found:

Thirty-three percent of students surveyed (between the ages of 18 and 27) from four evangelical Christian colleges use Facebook or other social media for as much as two hours every day.
Twelve percent reported using it between 2 and 4 hours.
Another 2.8 percent said they used Facebook between 4 and 7 hours every day.

I do wonder about the cause and effective though; is Facebook keeping young Christians from Biblical priorities or they simply aren't that concerned about Biblical priorities to begin with and this is how they fill the time. In another context would it have been fishing down at the pond, or hanging out at the mall, or a part-time job that keeps young people otherwise occupied? The assumption being made is that teens at Christian colleges should be committed Christians. My experiences as a residence advisor in a christian college many years ago suggest that may not be a valid assumption. :-)

What do you think? Is there another side of the story? How might social software like Facebook actually encourage faith, community and christian development?

"Well, probably because I enjoy..."

2009-10-18T08:51:00.004-03:00

"talking with them." I've been reading the book Information and Emotion this week about the importance of affective aspects in information seeking users studies (i.e. how our emotions influence our seeking of information.) It is an emerging field, although we've known all along that how I feel can radically change how I search for information. Am I frustrated, satisfied, inspired, confused, bored; oh sorry, I'm online: (>_<) :-) :-0 :-\ (-.-) ? I noted in an earlier post that people frequently prefer talking with other people when seeking information. The words in the title were from a study I assisted with some years ago that considered how people selected information sources. Most of the time people talk to people because they need human judgment and opinion around the facts already obtained. Sometimes people are convenient sources. Sometimes they are the least expensive source. But sometimes I'll ask you because I enjoy talking to you. Yes, you may not know a lot about the subject, and yes, you may meander all over with your answer. Yes, maybe there is a website that covers the question is detail. But I don't enjoy AskJeeves's company and the expert dude on the Futureshop search page kinda freaks me out (is he still waiting on the other tab....)

Sometimes I'll stop by to ask you a question because I like your company and if I get info at the same time so much the better. Maybe at the end of the day feeling good about information seeking is just as important to me as good information seeking. Gosh, did a librarian just say that! ;-)

Church as InfoOrg...

2009-10-11T14:23:00.011-03:00

As part of my research, I will be gathering and analyzing church produced information. I would imagine that most people would not consider churches as information organizations. The activities of worship and social outreach would predominate in people's minds. Yet two of the key activities of churches are preaching and teaching; both information intense activities. As a former pastor I know that a significant time investment goes into sermon preparation and presentation. What about preservation? Is that sermon a "one shot deal" or is that information preserved, stored and indexed in a way that it can be accessed by the congregation for future reference. I have benefited from reading some collected sermons from preachers of by gone years (here is one of my favourites). What about our teaching; if we use purchased curriculum, do we have a library where past materials used are archived? Are original class materials preserved? Or do those classes simply disappear as if they were never taught? What about communication, another information intense activity? I travel from time to time and it is my practice to always attend church on Sunday morning. The phone book tells me who is in my neighbourhood and the web tells me who they are. I am amazed sometimes that many church websites are so uninformative (here are one or two I like from smaller churches.) When I do arrive, I spend time looking at bulletin boards and information tables. Sometimes these are a lot like their websites. :-(

Churches produce a lot of information. I wonder how much time congregations spend thinking about how they manage all that information. This is not a new idea. Preserving important information has had a long history in the church: "since I have investigated all the reports in close detail, starting from the story's beginning, I decided to write it all out for you, most honorable Theophilus, so you can know beyond the shadow of a doubt the reliability of what you were taught." The Gospel of Luke chapter 1.

I guess someone thought that information was important. ;-)

Somethin's wrong in my spiritual neighbourhood...

2009-10-11T08:58:00.009-03:00

who am I gonna call? My public librarian! Yes, surprise...not the priest or pastor... and not the local theologian (do you even know who the local theologian is?) Sometimes when people have a spiritual question they turn to the place they go to answer questions like "where do I find information on jobs in Alberta?" or "when was Genghis Khan born?" The local public library.

I had an email from a librarian colleague who is working in the public library. He was asked a Bible question by a regular patron. He is a skilled librarian but not being satisfied with the information sources he had at hand he emailed me to ask for a second opinion. Yes, librarians do network to find the best answer to your question :) .

So why go to the public library to ask a religious/spiritual question?

1) Research has shown that even in the age of the internet, people are still the preferred source for information about personal life questions. Librarians are both accessible and available to answer your questions. They even have desks set up in the lobby just waiting for you to come and ask! If you can't come in person you can phone or email. That is not necessarily the case for churches whose staff may seem too busy or important to bother.
2) Libraries are perceived as community places where churches may be conceived as private places especially if you don't belong to that congregation.
3) Librarians are generally non-threatening. There's a surprise. Asking a religious question might feel safe there because the librarian isn't going to proselytize you. Librarians function under Codes of Intellectual Freedom and Ethics that require us to provide unbiased and complete information in a respectful and safe environment (that raises ethical issues sometime but that is for another post.) You don't have to join us if you ask the question. Though more librarians would be nice.

So why can't churches be more like libraries?

I've seen researchers pray for good data but...

2009-10-04T13:33:00.016-03:00

what happens when prayer is your data? Not all the information used for church decision-making is easily measured or quantified. Take prayer for instance. Many church leaders regularly use prayer as an information seeking tool in determining the will of God for their churches. Is it really information seeking? Well consider this true story I recently heard:

Stoneridge Fellowship Church was faced with a dilemma. They were building a new facility and had already sold their existing property. There were unexpected construction delays and after a couple of extensions, the new owners wanted the keys to their building. Where does a congregation of 500 go to find a room? It sounds like the beginning of a joke but this was serious. They had two options: another area church offered the use of their building on Sunday afternoons, or they could use space in a local shopping mall. Obviously, the church offer had quite a list of pros. It was close to the existing structure and easily accessible. It was fully equipped and...well...it looked like a church! The mall would mean arriving at 6:00am on Sundays, trucking in all the equipment, setting up an auditorium and then taking it all down in time for mall opening at noon. Every week. And it certainly didn't look like a church. The cons greatly outweighed the pros. The leaders went away to think and pray. When they gathered again, they decided that though it didn't make sense, God wanted them to use the mall. What?!! But it doesn't even took like a church! They followed their divine information. It was a lot of early morning work. But they discovered something: Sunday worship was transformed from a spectator event to a community event. Everyone had to chip in. Setup and take-down crews were as essential as preachers and singers if this was going to work. They did it for months and met new people who came out to the church in the mall. It didn't look like church but it felt like it!

How does a researcher account for the impact of divine information; the role of prayer in the information seeking process? Whether you believe in prayer or not, the folks at Stoneridge Fellowship Church do and it is an essential part of their decision making process. Honest, authentic qualitative research must take that at face value. Now how does one put prayer into the data analysis software? ;-)

Bad news from La Bonne Nouvelle

2009-10-04T06:56:00.007-03:00

On June 20, 2009 La Bonne Nouvelle bookstore in Moncton closed after 75 years serving both the French and English evangelical communities. It surprised me; they were such a part of the evangelical community though it shouldn't have been unexpected. Christian bookstores have been closing all over Canada particularly since the collapse of major Canadian distributer R. G. Mitchell last year. They join the ranks of small bookstores of all stripe and persuasion some with even longer history (e.g. The Book Room) who just can't compete in the new economy. When I was a boy there were three evangelical christian bookstores within walking distance; alas now there is one (if I cared to walk that far!). I am left with the big box stores or online shopping. Been to the religion section at Chapters lately? Hey, there are good books there...if you know for what you seek. I think a diversity of viewpoints is healthy in a bookstore. But buddy those books together on the same shelf is like putting Oprah and Kierkengaard together and labelling it "philosophy!" Online shopping: there are good evangelical Christian sellers like CBD if you don't mind paying shipping/duty from the US. I tend to use booksites like CBD to search for titles and then go back to Chapters or Amazon to actually order (Sorry CBD).

In the digital age there is a need for new skills. The days of chatting with the knowledgeable bookseller/local expert between carefully stocked shelves is almost gone. The onus now is on you to find the best book for your needs. So how do you learn to become your own expert? Who teaches you those skills? Your church? Your pastor? Your local library? Oh, well...there is always Oprah's picks. Sigh....

Hey, I knew it was you...

2009-09-30T20:37:00.003-03:00

I recently submitted an article for review with a scholarly journal and part of the process is a double blind peer review. In a nut shell: my article is sent to several reviewers anonymously; I don't know who reviewed it and they don't know who wrote it. No personal biases. That is the theory anyway. In a small field like mine it isn't hard to guess who is reviewing the article. Hints like "the author did not include the essential paper by John Smith." Hi John, is that you? I once reviewed a paper for a journal and could tell you within the first two pages the university and then it is not too hard to guess the author; not many there who could write on that topic. The double blind review worked better for pure science research; the emphasis is objectivity and the researcher is usually invisible. Who needs to know anything about the researcher; anyone who did the same study with the same methods would get the same data and come to the same conclusions right? Much of contemporary social science research doesn't assume this; who I am as researcher matters. I am part of the society I study and my presence influences that which I study. My attitudes, filters, and biases are part of how I see the world. Some research methods make this even more transparent. The research paper I just submitted used autoethnographic methodology: I used my own experiences, feelings, and thoughts as data. So how do I become invisible in my research if I am also one of my research subjects? One of my reviewers actually self-identified; if I was not anonymous to the reviewers then it was only fair that I know who reviewed me.

Social science research is changing as we think more about the influence we have as researchers on the researched, or even more importantly how we ourselves are the researched.

Community Church meets World Wide Web

2009-09-27T16:57:00.005-03:00

This morning Fall River Baptist Church streamed its first service via the internet. This is not a large congregation and it doesn't have a big tech budget. It does have a few skilled people, access to basic web technology and the vision to do something different. I was in the sound booth watching as this internet experiment unfolded. Gradually, people started picking up the feed until by service end there were 9 remote observers. Pretty good for first time out! This included former members moved away and friends of the church. There was a chat feature to allow some limited two way communication. This raises interesting questions about the power of technology to help religious communities keep in touch with those who can't always be there. Research has shown that a number of religious groups have explored this technology on larger scales allowing visitors to login to participate in worship by webcam (e.g. The Temple Wall in Jerusalem for Jewish worshipers.) It is no longer mega churches or major religious groups who have this capacity; now little churches with big vision can potentially reach the world!

Still seeking?

2009-09-22T21:00:00.000-03:00

I think we all want to live significant lives. The question for most of us is how. For people of religious faith they frequently turn to God, seeking his guidance and direction to answer that question. Kovach (1999) in his PhD dissertation proposed that at the deepest level “seeking to know the will of God may reflect a desire to be accountable to Christ with a profound concern to accomplish something significant for Christ and his kingdom” (p. 2). He argued that finding the will of God has been a preoccupation of evangelical Christians since the 1960s and cited a wealth of literature that offered guidance in finding guidance. When I quickly surveyed Bowker’s Global Books in Print (January 15, 2009) I found sixty books published after 1999 for the Canadian market alone on the subject of discerning God’s will. The majority of these works are written for the popular market with titles like Handbook for Discovering God’s Will (Jackson, 2008) and God has a Plan for your Life (Stanley, 2008). The authors include such evangelical heavy-weights as Charles Stanley, J.I. Packer, Elisabeth Elliot, R.C. Sproul, Henry Blackaby, and Tim LaHaye, best known for his apocalyptic fiction series, Left Behind. Best-selling evangelical author Rick Warren’s Purpose Driven Life (2002) and Purpose Driven Church (1995) discuss “what on earth am I here for” (2002, p. 15) and “God’s purpose for your church” (1995, p. 393). A survey of print literature only hints at part of the explosion of interest. A search of the online video sharing site GodTube (now Tangle)(January 17, 2009) offered over eight hundred of videos that discuss the “will of God”, and a search of podcasts on ITunes (January 17, 2009) on the “will of God” found one hundred fifty podcasts submitted by local churches and international organizations like Jimmy Swaggart Ministries. This preoccupation has not yet abated and is taking on new dimensions in the digital age.

So where would you look if you wanted to know the will of God? What would you read? To whom would you talk?

Virtual Church Part II

2009-09-20T08:44:00.000-03:00

Interestingly, the topic of virtual church came up on Dr. Heidi Campbell's blog (see "There is no virtual ekkelsia (?)". Two Pastors associated with the emerging church movement have argued that there can be no virtual community by the very definition of community. I am somewhat inclined to agree except that there are people in cyberspace who are finding their church needs met online. I recommend Campbell's book "Exploring Religious Community Online" (Peter Lang, 2005) if you are curious about some people's online experiences. Does community require a physical presence? Is the growth of online churches a symptom of the failure of many real life churches to build authentic communities? Could you be satisfied with a spiritual home online? Why not?

Religiously Environmental

2009-09-16T18:28:00.000-03:00

The American Academy of Religion conference will be held in Montreal on November 7-10. That it is in Canada is an extreme rarity and I'm registered to attend (I'll blog my sessions). In the course of planning for this conference, I had a discussion with a prof who has given up conference travel for environmental reasons. I've often thought of this over the past few years both from fiscal as well as environmental standpoints. Such conferences are great learning experiences and even greater networking opportunities. But it is a lot of travel and expense for what is usually 3-4 days. As a Christian I need to be concerned with these questions. Sometimes I think Christians get so focused on the future "new heaven and new earth" (Revelation 21) that we neglect this one. Don't get me wrong; the idea of an earth restored into what it should have been in God's original intention is fantastic and I want to live in such a world! But from the very beginning of the Bible there is also the idea that human beings rule the earth only as regents or stewards (Genesis 1). We enjoy its benefits but it is not ours to do as we please. I do believe God will hold us accountable for our poor stewardship. So where does that leave me? I think it is valuable for me as a young scholar to attend this conference, but I need to find ways to reduce my carbon footprint. First, I'm taking the train to Montreal. It is a longer but greener trip. I plan to find other ways to reduce. Anyone know of any good virtual conferences upcoming?

Church in SecondLife?

2009-09-13T19:37:00.001-03:00

SecondLife is an online adult simulation that has existed since 2003. Those who haven't explored this virtual world may not realize how popular it is. Mainstream religion is starting to discover the hundreds of thousands of people who frequent this world, and are creating their own places. As I write this, my avatar is sitting in a service of Calvary Chapel SecondLife, a evangelical Scottish virtual congregation. There are about two dozen other avatars here listening to the sermon. It is an interesting experience to participate in this environment. It is a "come as you are place"; no suits here (in fact not everyone here even looks human.) But it is a form of community made up from people around the globe. Am I at Church? Sounds like church...looks alot like church (except comfy chairs not pews). Religion in the digital age will continue to blur the lines. Oh, there is a round of "Amens" as the sermon ends...gotta go, I like this worship song! ;-)

Religion Online...

2009-09-08T19:23:00.000-03:00

Chris Helland is my PhD supervisor and had an opportunity to participate in the Google Techtalks about religion in cyberspace.

Poetically thinking...

2009-09-04T20:56:00.000-03:00

This is a bit of an aside but I experimented last year with new methodologies for analysis and representation in a study of how people are understood by the library system. I argued that the theories about people and information behaviour implicit in how we construct our services influence how we perceive people. A product of this study was three poems/videos.

http://www.iamproject.ca

The project has become part of a larger research article under review presently but I thought I would share the creative bit here.

Why "informing faith"?

2009-09-02T20:11:00.001-03:00

The nature of information is changing because how we communicate with each other is changing. This is a product of the digital age that we live in; we are discovering new ways to create, store and exchange information, and reinventing older ways. This is highly relevant for churches and people of faith because belief like other ways of knowing is constructed. Our experiences, upbringing, education and our personal encounters with God shape who we are are and how we will relate to the world around us. The digital world is changing information and changing how we construct ourselves. That is worth exploring and thinking about. IMHO. :-)