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Engaging in Discipleship in a Digital Age Dr Bex Lewis, Research Fellow in Social Media and Online Learning, CODEC, Durham University This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License. http://j.mp/disc-digi- age #GNPT13

Engaging in Discipleship in a Digital Age

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Paper given at 'The Word and the World' Consultation, 2013, Chester (Global Network for Public Theology)

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Page 1: Engaging in Discipleship in a Digital Age

Engaging in Discipleship in a Digital AgeDr Bex Lewis, Research Fellow in Social Media and Online Learning, CODEC, Durham University

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.

http://j.mp/disc-digi-age

#GNPT13

Page 2: Engaging in Discipleship in a Digital Age

Overview

The Digital Age/Digital Culture, and the place of the Church within it.

The Voices of the #DigiDisciple(s)

Powered by Humanity or Technology?

The Online/Offline Problematic

Humour, Vulnerability and Sharing

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http://ww2poster.co.uk

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Image Credit: Seed Resources

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Just a big timesuck?

Image Credit: Facebook Meme

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Twitter: The New Poster?

[E]very historical event and social movement sooner or later finds some kind of reflection on the hoardings, and even a trivial and ephemeral poster advertising a play, film or chocolate drink can tell us more about society than volumes of historical analysis.

Hensher, P., ‘The Poster as a Pin-up’, Mail on Sunday April 19 1998, p.40.

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Twitter Spokesperson:

Twitter brings you closer to the things you are passionate about - and for millions of people across the globe that is faith.

http://news.sky.com/story/1022800/senior-bishops-to-tweet-christmas-sermons

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‘Social Media for the Scared’

http://www.churchcommstraining.org/socialmedia.php

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Bad things can happen anywhere

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Coming: February 2014

http://www.lionhudson.com/display.asp?k=9780745956046

The ‘myth’ of the ‘digital native’

The knowledge you have (of parenting, etc.) is still valid

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@6% 360/6636

Persistence

Perpetual Beta

Scalability

Searchability

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Who might read it?

God

Parents

‘The kids’

The newspaper

Your worst enemy

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Rev Prof David Wilkinson

God is a communicating God: “In the beginning was the word, and the word was God…”.

God is extravagant in communication – he is not a silent God who has to be tempted into communicating with people.

Image Credit: Durham University

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The Church Front Door?

For many churchgoing is no longer the ‘cultural norm’. People don’t actively ignore the church: they don’t even think about it. Matthew 5:13-16 calls us to be salt and light in the world, and for thousands in the ‘digital age’, that world includes social networks such Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and Pinterest. With literally billions in the digital spaces, the online social spaces presented by churches need to be appealing, welcoming, and not look like they are just an afterthought: they are now effectively the ‘front door’ to your church for digital users, and you ignore those spaces at your peril.

http://www.churchgrowthrd.org.uk/blog/churchgrowth/growing_churches_in_the_digital_age

Image Credit: Sxc.hu

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We are not selling something to the world that will make more people like us, believe in our story, join our churches. We are trying to be something in the world that invites connection and compassion, encourages comfort and healing for those in need, and challenges those in power to use that power in the service of justice and love

(Drescher, 127)

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Why are we sharing?

Christianity Magazine, May 2012

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Friendship?

“… Out of a commitment to an ideal of Christian relatedness that sees us all as God’s children, each worthy of attention and care.” (p145) Where is the balance between conserving our

sanity/deeper relationships, and ensuring that all feel valued?

What about friendship clearouts?

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Voices: http://bigbible.org.uk

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#DigiDisciple

A Disciple is one who, by following Jesus, grows in their faith in Christ and in so doing models and teaches Christians the precepts of the Bible, prayer, doctrine, relationship, Christian living, service, and worship, to name the main ones.

A ‘digital disciple’, or, as we are calling it, a #digidisciple is someone who seeks to live out their Biblically-informed Christian faith in the digital space, whether they are dipping a toe in, or are fully immersed in the digital worlds.

Image Credit: Seed Resources

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Being Human or Being a Disciple?

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Humanity & Technology?

There were elements of Isaac Asimov’s work and Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go in this tale in relation to the resurrected version of Ash (Domhnall Gleeson) – with the lines between humanity and technology blurring. But the conclusion was that no matter how much technology connects us, it can never replace human interaction and the human experience.

http://blogs.independent.co.uk/2013/02/11/review-of-black-mirror-be-right-back/

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http://liveson.org

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Broadcast Medium?

Image Credit: iStockphoto

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Engagement (Stats)?

https://www.facebook.com/JesusDaily

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Authenticity

Image Credits: iStockPhoto

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Defining “Authentic”

http://www.wordnik.com/words/authentic

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Human Enhancement?

Image Credit: Dr Bex Lewis

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Can we just ‘put a plug on it’?

Image Credit: Stockfresh

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http://youtu.be/8j-Iy8fP0Ek

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The Hyper-Local: who is ‘the audience’?

How might our approach to preaching change if we understand that we have two audiences – the faithful who sit close to us and a broader public, listening-in from a distance?

Image Credit: Stockfresh

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Some ‘Authentic’ Forms of Sharing?

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Tearfund.org/bloggers

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http://www.biblesummary.info

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http://bigbible.tumblr.com

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http://pinterest.com/bigbible/bible-verses/

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Top Men of the Church = Online

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NOT Virtual/Real

Image Credit: iStockPhoto

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Human Beings at Machines, not “are machines” …

Image Credit: iStockPhoto

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Antony Mayfield, digital strategist, offers a really interesting concept – that we often think of the web as a ‘digital Narnia’, a place we don’t all need to engage with, but that we’d be better off thinking of the digital environment more in terms of Harry Potter: There are places that are apart from the world, but mostly it exists

all around us, simply out of sight to the uninitiated. That leaves a lot of people feeling like Muggles, then. Worse, Muggles who get glimpses of what the digerati are up to. What to do? Ignore them? Rally against them? Or pick up a wand and see what happens? The web is increasingly become a layer over our physical world – augmenting our ability to make the most of it.

Mayfield, A. Me and My Web Shadow A&C Black, 2010, pxix

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Broken Binary?

These delineations are increasingly blurry and will become so much so that the ‘on/off’ dualism we use now will be laughable in a few years time. Our technology will become a bigger and bigger part of us, in terms of dependency – and potentially physiology – that to speak of this ‘on/offline’ as a clear divide will not make sense. So I get twitchy when people make a very clear delineation between them as if they were two separate spheres. Where does one start and the other one end?

http://vickybeeching.com/blog/camerons-terrible-advice-on-cyber-bullying/

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Craig von Buseck, Netcasters, 2010

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Craig von Buseck, Netcasters, 2010

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The Church as a Black Hole?

Church: “The Sacred Space”: disrespectful to tweet when someone is giving a sermon?

What if I tweet all other aspects of my life, but as I head into church it’s a black hole?

What can I access Check in on Foursquare Pictures on Instagram Reading the Bible on @Youversion Tweeting elements of the sermon Checking facts on Google Sharing significant thoughts

Image Credit: Stockfresh

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Sacred/Secular Divide?

I do not want to live a split, compartmentalised life. Sometimes, though, I look at the Church (which I love dearly) and I see and dabble in the pull to compartmentalisation. On the one hand there is the world of mincing niceness, all scrubbed up Sunday best image with its faux piety. Those sermons which drone on and the answer is always Jesus or ‘what the Bible says’ no matter what the question. (By the way I am a big fan of real preaching… more of that some other time). Then there is the rest of life – a wonderful, muddled, muddy, joyous, awful, funny, confusing, hideous, delightful ride. This is the world of new born babies, beautiful sunrises, cancer, idiots who should be banned from driving, internet Trolls, deep passionate love, chemical weapons, unspeakable sadness, depression and stand-up comedy – to give a lightning sketch! I want to live a biblically literate life in that world – the world I know. I want a faith that doesn’t ask me to pretend to be someone I am not, or to suppress the difficult edgy questions in order to keep ‘Churchville’ pink, saccharine and safe.

http://bigbible.org.uk/2013/08/bin-your-sunday-best-ipreacher007/

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Who is my neighbour?

What does it mean to ‘love your neighbour’ in a world in which a ‘friend’ might as easily be the kid from down the street you grew up with as a woman in Botswana whom you’ve never seen in person and only know in the context of Facebook status updates, photos, and notes? What is the nature of community at prayer in a compline service tweeted each evening by the cybermonks of a Virtual Abbey? What is the ecclesiological and liturgical significant of worship in various churches across the theological spectrum on the quasi-3D, virtual reality site ‘Second Life’? How can we negotiate spiritual interaction in these contexts without losing sight of basic elements of Christian faith expressed in traditional embodied and geographically located practices of prayer, worship, and compassion towards others?

Tweet if You Heart Jesus, p.xiv

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A Sense of Community

Whilst I cannot conclude my thinking in a wholly positive way, I acknowledge that great use of all of this to my own personal discipleship. I am a broader Christian, a better informed Christian, a more readily supported and sustained Christian and for that I love this digital life. If that makes me a better Christian, then perhaps its purpose is served if a purpose exists and indeed if a purpose is needed. However, I shall continue to pray that someone, somewhere, can say with absolute clarity that because of this digital community, they came to Christ. @FrDavidCloake

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Vulnerability

The social media is a great place. Until you are where I am, and where others are – in a world characterised by depression. Social media largely demands interactions by lone individuals who coincide in a central, digitally enabled place. That place is distinct and detached from anyone partaking of it, but it becomes the realty, the venue, the place. Standing at the centre and looking out, social media is a collective of people, alone.

http://bigbible.org.uk/2013/08/digital-lunacy-and-new-acceptance-frdavidcloake/

Image Credit: SXC.Hu

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A question of ethics & morals?

We want to ensure that the use of images on this site is legally and ethically/morally compliant. Either below an image (using the URL), or at the base of each post, please indicate source images.

http://bigbible.org.uk/about/policies/image-policy/

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BIGBible, all over the web…

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@drbexl @digitalfprint @bigbible

Image Credit: iStockPhoto

http://j.mp/disc-digi-age