Your Church's Digital Portfolio

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.

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Churches of Second Life...

OK, so I need a real vacation...but in the interim enjoy these vacation pics of a few of the churches I recently visited in SecondLife. These virtual churches were created with the intent that they would be used for online worship, mediation, and prayer. Some SecondLife churches are open for virtual weddings, funerals and rituals. Several of these churches offer Bible studies, fellowship and prayer. For the moment lets set aside the debate about the validity of virtual religious spaces. Take a few minutes are just look at the care and craftsmanship here. People are creating beautiful virtual spaces. Are these replications of real life religious spaces or idealizations of worship places?

Yes, my avatar has a facial hair and he is wearing the home soccer jersey of the Netherlands Team.

Inside St. George Orthodox Church


















Outside St. George Orthodox Church


















Outside Vine Community Church


















Inside Vine Community Church


















Outside St. Magnus Kirk


















Inside St. Magnus Kirk


















Outside Calvary Chapel Second Life


















Inside Calvary Chapel Second Life

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Preachin' the Net

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?) ;-)

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I just had dust in my eye...

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":

1. Displays of emotion have no place in academia,
   
2. Scholarly presentations are to be objective and detached.,
   
3. 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. ;-)

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