03 December 2009

DigiMission: How technology shapes faith, church and mission

Small-world theory, digital connectors, intimate anonymity, blogging in your pyjamas - the digital age has brought with it a new language and new ways of communicating, as well as unique challenges for the church.

These topics and more were discussed at DigiMission, an Evangelical Alliance event on 1^st December in London. The event explored different ways digital technology influences faith and mission - starting with the people attending the event. The 50 people physically present were quadrupled in number by those who logged on to watch the live broadcast online, with an average of 40 viewers at any one time. Many others following along on Twitter as various attendees updated their Twitter pages with soundbites and key ideas from the various talks.

The four physical speakers - Maggi Dawn from Cambridge University, Jonny Baker from Church Mission Society, Mark Meynell from All Souls Church and Krish Kandiah from the Evangelical Alliance - were joined by blogger Adrian Warnock over video in the morning.  In the afternoon, American author Shane Hipps gave a talk over live online video from his home in Arizona, about the ideas behind his recent book, Flickering Pixels, and fielded questions through a chatroom from both attendees in London and those watching online from around the UK.

While each speaker had a different take on how the church should use the digital space, the running theme throughout the day was the importance of both developing Christian community within the new context and using the existing technological structures to "get the message out."

Jonny Baker challenged us to seek out digitally-minded "connectors" in each church to connect up various "small worlds" which otherwise might not be aware of each other's existence. Maggi Dawn spoke powerfully about how she sees her blogging as very relational - as a published author she takes a very different approach to blog-writing than she does to book-writing. She quipped, "I am the vicar of my blog," and noted that people stumble upon her blog when through occasional entries on topics that she doesn't normally cover but are of interest to a wide variety of people.

Both Krish Kandiah and Mark Meynell encouraged us to avoid creating "online Christian ghettos" but to use mediums that already exist to produce really good content and redeem the digital space for the kingdom of God. Adrian Warnock took a similar line and pointed out that there are many ways to communicate online - some will prefer microblogging tools such as Twitter, while others prefer social networking sites like Facebook. He said that it is important for Christians to be present in all those spaces, and that they are also good for bringing together various wings of the church. Krish also pointed to a new Evangelical Alliance initiative called Biblefresh which will be promoting Bible engagement using a variety of creative digital platforms.

One of the highlights of the event was Shane Hipps' online streaming video talk about the various paradoxes of the digital age: both tribal and individualistic, empathetic and distant, intimate and anonymous. Digital media is very useful for creating connections but it cannot replace, and it must work alongside, close physical community - it is not the best medium for that, he argued. The digital age tends to separate those who are close and bring together those who are at a distance. Why does nobody consider online parenting or online marriage? Those relationships require real physical intimacy that the digital world cannot replicate.

No doubt some in the church will be more sympathetic with Shane's emphasis on maintaining authentic physical community and using technology intelligently alongside of it, while others might consider his perspective as too timid and will advocate more for the potential of online communities. Whatever the views, the key lesson coming out of the day is that it is important for the church to be present in the digital world but also to keep up the conversation about the best ways to go about doing just that.

- Anna Moyle, Press and Media

A Slipstream podcast as well as talks coming out of the event will be available on Thursday 3 December on the Slipstream website.

You can find attendees' updates by searching for #digimission on Twitter.

You can watch some clips from the day here: http://www.ustream.tv/channel/digimission