Canon Schueddig: Our leadership has not been afraid to adapt new technologies even before they became popular within parish life. It’s meant we have not always realized full acceptance at the start, but we have offered leadership in helping The Episcopal Church move from its history in print and oral communication to what is current without losing substance.
As an independent church agency, we have the luxury of staying focused on the gospel. I think it is what has kept us alive for over 60 years. Today, for example, our work in the digital arena with the Digital Faith Community is far ahead of where 99 percent of congregations and dioceses are, and they don’t seem to “get it” yet. Bishops and communicators are still rather patronizing to the “techies” among us and don’t give them a serious place at the table when communications strategies are developed. We are blessed at the Episcopal Media Center that our head of technology is also a fine theologian.
TLC: Realizing the pace of change has accelerated, and that it may be difficult to look out even five years, how might information technology continue to change church life?
Canon Schueddig: Research used in developing the Digital Faith Community revealed that mainline denominations don’t show up on the list of the top 30 most visited religious websites (searched with Google, Yahoo, etc.) We are in the midst of a digital revolution that can be used to serve evangelism and mission, but we must harness this energy together…
[blockquote] Our new line of merchandise, or logo wear, I believe, is very important to the revitalization and growth of the church. [/blockquote]
Yeah, right. Maybe we can get the 2020 plan back on track (doubling membership by 2020) by selling some t-shirts.
Sorry, make that [i]polo shirts[/i]. Episcopalians don’t do t-shirts.
Even the other day we went on a fact finding mission to Guttenburg.
[b]but we have offered leadership in helping The Episcopal Church move from its history in print and oral communication to what is current without losing substance.[/b]
Too late. It has and did.
RSB
“…our work in the digital arena…’
How doing some work in the analog arenas of adhering to Scripture and the creeds, prayer, spreading a Gospel unadulterated by secularism, etc?
[i]”Research used in developing the Digital Faith Community revealed that mainline denominations don’t show up on the list of the top 30 most visited religious websites.”[/i]
Well, research reveals that mainline Protestant denominations are not at the top of list of the most visited religious real estate sites, either.
[blockquote] Our new line of merchandise, or logo wear, I believe, is very important to the revitalization and growth of the church.[/blockquote]
Speaking of merchandise, you can get your Episcopalian thong underwear with the Dove of the Holy Spirit imprinted on it here:
http://www.cafepress.com/enaw.43169404
http://www.cafepress.com/enaw
Accompanying product description states: “Panty-minimalists love our casual thong that covers sweet spots without covering your assets û putting an end to panty-lines. This under-goodie is ôoutta sightö in low-rise pants. Toss these message panties onstage at your favorite rock star or share a surprise message with someone special … later.”
Are you repelled by the notion of a computer church?
Imagine receiving bread and wine electronically. Little by little, the human touch, the touch of the real world, is being lost.Increasinglyone sits before a screen and is fed a image of reality, a carefully designed fake. And here is America, sitting on its fat couch with their fat tails, cellphoning an electronic priest to say “Amen.” How can one not despair. Remember Farhenheit 451 and the fourwall interactive television? Bring on the soma and let us pray to Ford; the Brave New World is upon us.
Where can I resign from this world? Larry
#8, you understnad the irony of you posting a comment like this, on a blog
Preach it, brother, the congregation is with you!
Bob C. sure, I am well enough aware of the irony. But there is a real difference between electronic debate and electronic religion. The debate has this virtue – if exercized – that one can revise before printing. And nothing much is at stake. We talk and talk but what we say makes very little difference in a world where action counts. We are about discursive thought, and this means words.
Religion is not about words. It uses them because it has no choice. However, it is about what words cannot say – a point I made in reference to poets. It is, at every level, about the laying of of hands, and I mean of course a much broader thing than the touch of apostolic succession. When my deacon dips the wafer in the wine and places it on my tongue, he does not touch me, and yet he does.
You all know what i mean.
When some clown goes to a porn site, he is not after real sex, he wants virtual sex because the real is too personal, too complex, too dangerous, too demanding, too…….real. He wants fake, the distant, the secondary, the safe and uncommitted stuff. Even when you visit a prostitute, you touch and touch again, and this is real. Electronic religion is no different. It’s fake, ersazt, uncommitted, where the narcissist can get what he wants without actually having to communicate. At last, one becomes a shadow, something Plato would see on the wall, a mere virtual.
Gimme the old time religion, and gimme a real prostitute. And when I die, the death rattle must be in my real throat, and I expect to see a real Judge, not some electronic shimmer of Fred Turkey, who plays God on Sundays on Channel 7. Larry