About Me
Friday, February 8, 2013
Live blog part 2
Eugene Cho from Quest Church, Seattle, is presenting now. Quest Church, like House for All sinners and Saints, a relatively recent church plant.
He suggests that the front door of churches today is digital. New media can be used as a way to connect people. Might we say build community? He is using the word social capital to describe what new media can bring.
Cho notes the astonishing changes in how people communicate in the last 15 years.
Eric Elnes from Darkwood Brew at Countryside Community Church in Omaha. It is interesting to note that most of these presenters are from urban and relatively new congregations. He shares that he kind of stumbled into using technology for practical reasons. He is not an early adopter, he's just trying to do what works.
He makes the case that we can't rely on mainstream media to get our story out, we have to be out in the digital public square ourselves, and new media makes it possible to do that with relatively few resources.
Elnes finds new media to be a democratizing force in the world an in the church.
One thing that keeps coming back to me here, is the role that social media is playing in pastoral care. Facebook and CaringBridge are tools we are using at College Mennonite to care for each other. What does this mean? How is this changing us?
Tony Lee of Community of Hope African Methodist Episcopal Church, Washington, DC, a 7 yr. old church plant. "How did you get hooked up with social media?" he asks. "it was free!" Again using social media as a tool, not as a conscious effort to be a social media church.
My impression listening to these congregational leaders whose churches are using new media are connecting with those who have lapsed or no church background.
Lee: high tech and high touch. New media allows us to connect with more people.
The structure of this day is that we will hear stories from congregations in the morning, then theological reflection from pastors in the afternoon. For those of you looking for theological reflection it's coming.
Weather update: nothing too impressive yet. Hoping things are up and running in time for my flight late tomorrow afternoon.
He suggests that the front door of churches today is digital. New media can be used as a way to connect people. Might we say build community? He is using the word social capital to describe what new media can bring.
Cho notes the astonishing changes in how people communicate in the last 15 years.
Eric Elnes from Darkwood Brew at Countryside Community Church in Omaha. It is interesting to note that most of these presenters are from urban and relatively new congregations. He shares that he kind of stumbled into using technology for practical reasons. He is not an early adopter, he's just trying to do what works.
He makes the case that we can't rely on mainstream media to get our story out, we have to be out in the digital public square ourselves, and new media makes it possible to do that with relatively few resources.
Elnes finds new media to be a democratizing force in the world an in the church.
One thing that keeps coming back to me here, is the role that social media is playing in pastoral care. Facebook and CaringBridge are tools we are using at College Mennonite to care for each other. What does this mean? How is this changing us?
Tony Lee of Community of Hope African Methodist Episcopal Church, Washington, DC, a 7 yr. old church plant. "How did you get hooked up with social media?" he asks. "it was free!" Again using social media as a tool, not as a conscious effort to be a social media church.
My impression listening to these congregational leaders whose churches are using new media are connecting with those who have lapsed or no church background.
Lee: high tech and high touch. New media allows us to connect with more people.
The structure of this day is that we will hear stories from congregations in the morning, then theological reflection from pastors in the afternoon. For those of you looking for theological reflection it's coming.
Weather update: nothing too impressive yet. Hoping things are up and running in time for my flight late tomorrow afternoon.
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3 comments:
I just now caught up with this. So glad you are there, Phil, and reporting as you are! I look forward to further discussions and developments.
I have especially appreciated CaringBridge--a big improvement over phone-tree style communication. It allows information and support to flow back and forth in unusually direct ways that would be nearly impossible if those "inside" the situation would be attempting individual contacts or those "outside" were trying to gauge whether/when their presence might be desired or intrusive. I also like that CaringBridge doesn't create the kind of leapfrogging/random distributions that Facebook postings may fall victim to. Might we start a generic CMC CaringBridge node as enhancement or replacement for the emailed/weekly CMC Prayers to convey information about situations that are shorter in duration, or where the individual/family involved does not feel able to carry out postings themselves. (Obviously, would have to be designed to function so that not an add-on task for pastors/staff.)
Joe S.
Joe, This is worth thinking about, a great suggestion.
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