spirituality & social media : the internet is our parish

spirituality & social media : the internet is our parish
by gavin richardson
website : www.gavoweb.com
email : [email protected]
twitter : gavoweb

talk given at : http://www.podcampnashville.com
slide 1-2 : intro of self. this presentation is a quick exploration of how people have been living out and shaping their spiritual lives through the various social media tools. this is important to explore so that we can see how we are being shaped by these culture tools & come to understand how to use them to reflect who we are, not to be consumed by them.

the flow of the presentation is, looking at how this is an excellent partnership, sharing some stories of faith in the social media spectrum, where faith goes wrong, suggestions that are just my humble opinion, and a little joke

slide 3 : the printing press as far as faith goes, has & continues to have the most profound impact on people living out their faith.

up until that point scripture readings and community theological conversation happened at the temple, the well, the home. you had to go where people were gathered

only in the creation of the printing press did scripture become accessible to the common person. you also see a further excentuating of a linear teaching

but in the core, ministry is relational & creation of social media relationship is sought out by participants..

the church needs to break away from its hang ups on what ‘its always done’ because it hasn’t always done this. its actually a quite modern experience’

slide 4 : real live preacher was one of the first bloggers to take on a large following.

1. early adopter to the medium
2. there is something brilliant & counter to what people have experienced with pastors and he is expressing.. authenticity, availability, and pastor

before you might have only had the stoic pastor who’s secrets, failures, struggles as a practicer of faith were kept out of sight and not talked about because that would ruin the integrity of the pastor.

pastors were perfect, on a pedestal to be marveled at, but here, is another way

slide 5 : the emerging church movement was a grassroots shift in the evangelical church that brought a postive (as i see it) conversation to the church.

blogging was their primary platform for the exchange of ideas and cultivating conversations and relationships.

because we are faddish emergent can be taboo, emerging means something different, and ‘missional’ seems to be the new adjunct buzz word from the whole 6-7 year era.

the wikipedia page was great, at one time it had in its links some 200 blog listings as ‘authoritative emergent blogs’

slide 6-9 : as with any faith the prophets are those people who are so extremely close to God that they can't help but to share what messages they are receiving.

unlike our own time of logical reasoning prophets usually speak in poetry, lyric, dreams, etc. with the new mediums we might have to expand how some of or prophetic messages, which are generally hard messages to take, come to us..

slide 10-12 : i am a sucker for religious satire.

the brilliance of satire is that, just like people people who watch the fake news, you actually have to know what the news is about.

tweetjeebus, who went silent right before christmas day was one of my favorites. if anyone knows the some quick history of the great schism one of the big lines in the sand was an 'and' in the nicene creed

one of my favorite twitter days was after charlton heston died. there was just some great images of the nra advocate who had been so revered in playing moses joining in with the communion of saints

slide 13-14 : my favorite of podcasters is father roderick. he started his podcasting career out when pope john paul 2 became ill as a news show for catholics wanting to know.. what came out of that was the catholic insider a podcast that was part news, q & a, and tour of the world.

he's since parred his podcasting down to the daily breakfast which is a less technical pod