Inclusive Placemaking: Placing the Christian Church in a Digital Age

Dr Bex LewisSenior Lecturer in Digital Marketing, Manchester Metropolitan University

For http://www.placemanagement.org/

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Paper Overview

• Church as geographical place

• The digital environment: reality and place?

• Discipleship online: The Big Bible Project

• Researching the church and digital

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Church as Geographical Place

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Church of England

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Grenfall Tower

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That trust exists because of the care and compassion they have received for decades… we actually live here… urge those who speak about it to avoid the ambiguous and woolly term “local church”, but to speak proudly, precisely, and powerfully of the “parish church”. The parish church is a living icon of God’s love, connecting with people in ways that we hardly begin to understand and so often underestimate.Revd Dr Alan Everett, Vicar of St Clement with St Mark, Notting Dale, and St James’s, Norlands

Methodist Church

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Foodbanks

"Faith in Foodbanks?" recognises the ministry of many churches helping people who cannot afford to eat, looks at why there has been such a growth in foodbanks, and suggests ways churches can take action to tackle the underlying causes. It offers worship and bible resources to help Christians to reflect on food and poverty in Britain today.

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United Reformed Church

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Baptist Church

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Catholic Church

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Theologians & Place

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2003 2014 2017

The Digital Environment: Reality and Place?

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Communities of PracticeTo be effective in the role of digital (technology) steward (Cochrane 2010; Narayan and Baglow 2010; Wenger, White, and Smith 2009), a person needs on the one hand to be capable with the technology, experimenting with innovations to explore their utility, whilst also aware of the various ways in which those innovations may be brought into the practice of the community. To achieve this effectiveness, the steward needs to devote time to increasing their own knowledge and abilities in the technological and community aspects of the role.Lewis, B, Rush, D. Experience of developing Twitter-based Communities of Practice in Higher Education, 2013, 3

Tweet @drbexl 13https://journal.alt.ac.uk/index.php/rlt/article/view/1310

Digital on its own terms

Even though in practice, face-to-face communication can, of course, be angry, negligent, resistant, deceitful and inflexible, somehow it remains the ideal against which mediated communication is judged as flawedLivingstone, S. Children and the Internet: Great Expectations and Challenging Realities, 2009, 26

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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.Lewis, B. Growing Churches in a Digital Age, 2013

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Online Church?It may be possible to set up an online mega-church of millions of people but it is more likely that a long-term online Christian community will be small and quiet rather than large and exciting, and may not be understood by the wider Church…the commonest question I am asked about online church is ‘What do you do?’ and it is hard to explain that we don’t ‘do’ church – we are church to each other, despite the lack of sacraments or a building, because we are committed to each other’s journeys in the faith and in Christ’s love.Smith, P. Online Mission and Ministry, 2015, Introduction

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Online Church?

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Hutchings, T., Creating Church Online: Ritual, Community and New Media, 2017, 2

Discipleship Online: The Big Bible Project (2010-2015)

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THANKS FOR FUNDING TO THE JERUSALEM TRUST AND

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#Digidisciple

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[If we are…] means by which God communicates and reveals himself through his Spirit, then our blog posts, status updates, tweets, artistic images, and online comments should be products of a life transformed by Christ and indwelled by his Spirit. As restored image bearers, our online presence and activity should image the Triune God.

Byers, A. Theomedia: The Media of God and the Digital Age, 2013, 196

Emerged Themes

• What is a theologically informed view of digital engagement?

• What is good practice for being a Christian online?

• What is the impact of digital on religious practice (online/offline?)

• What does a welcoming church look like in a digital age?

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Media Interest

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Researching the Church and Digital

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Digital Religion Reseach

Scholars are identified as having moved from excitement at this ‘new thing’, to the digital becoming a part of everyday life to be analysed, to understanding what the lived ‘reality’ of digital religion is. The three academic waves that Campbell identifies here—the descriptive, the categorical and the theoretical—are echoed throughout the rest of the book, as we understand how ‘digital religion’ has matured as a field of study.Lewis, B. Book review: Digital Religion: Understanding Religious Practice in New Media Worlds, written by Heidi Campbell, 2015, 249

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Intermediate Outputs

British Academy Funding Bid:

Planning:

Interviews: communications leads, major British church denominations

Design:

Content analysis: online content produced (nationally?) by churches

Reception:

Survey: Responses from users of church digital content

• 2019: ‘Being a Christian Online: How the church and its members are adapting to the digital age’, The Information Society (to submit summer 2018)

• 2020: ‘Raising Children in a Digital Age: concerns and policies for British churches’, Business History(to submit summer 2019)

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Bigger Project: Being a Welcoming Church in a Digital Age

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Q&A

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