The funny thing about blogging is that lots of Vicars do it but it is hard to justify, and it becomes a guilty pleasure. As far as I can see, we do the same things online as we do in real life… we write stuff and then communicate it publicly and then debate it. In addition, I get a fair few emails that are of a pastoral nature and I enjoy chatting to people off line about deeper things. I also get the odd request to help with academic stuff, believe it or not…
Defining what being a ministry is, or what lay and ordained ministers do is quite a challenge, and anyway no one wants to feel ministered to – that is insulting. But my point is that sometimes what I do as a priest in real life and online are very similar – strikingly so for me.
It occurs to me that increasing amounts of peoples lives exist in cyberspace, and less in the parishes, especially amongst the younger people, including their spiritual searches. There are various bloggers around the world that feel comfortable doing their spiritual thing online, but the time to do it is pressurised. Speaking as a priest in the Church of England, I recognise that I must fulfil a number of hours in my parish, and the blogging is almost entirely in the late evening, when the kids are in bed and the meetings or whatever are over.
I got ridiculously excited a while back, when I read the title of a post by David Housholder - ‘Bi-vocational Pastors’ – I leapt to the conclusion that some far-sighted churches were paying their minister to do part time internet ministry and part time real life ministry. The post didn't say that at all! Hmmmm, shows I wish it were so!
David Housholder wrote a post that I did read correctly about how churches are going ‘open source’, I recommend clicking through and reading what he says. Part of the post states:
All of your members have access to free Bible teaching and sermons from all over the world. It used to be that you, as a local pastor, had a monopoly on reaching and teaching them. Our church, Robinwood, reaches 100 times more people on its podcast than in person on Sunday mornings.In a similar vein, I listened to the Podcast of Jamie the Very Worst Missionary, who said she and her husband and kids moved to Costa Rica to do missionary work, and her husband and kids have thrived, but she failed at all she turned her hand to. Except blogging. She has an exceptionally large number of people who follow her blog and form a community around it. Not Christians particularly… but for her it is the bulk of her ministry in Costa Rica, very different to what she expected!
I’m wondering whether we need to discuss this as churches. The Church of England has founded i-Church, which was set up as a ‘Cutting Edge Ministry’ in the Oxford Diocese some years ago. I don’t know how it is financed, and maybe one full time ordained minister is sufficient to meet the needs of the cyberspace mission field. But I feel doubtful about that.
What do you think – would the churches thinking about cyberspace ministry more deeply kill it off or enliven it?
10 comments:
My services get a second life on the Internet, and I am aware of the wider audience before writing. Most of these people are unknown.
Mhoira read it all before she came to see me, in the church, and she is developing her own outreach - and a lot of independents do this online - but also to offer direct ministry from her ISM Church to ours, to an existing congregation, which she might help develop, should that be what it wants.
if the facts in this video http://bit.ly/lFjXom are even only 50% right then i think we don't really have a choice
I think that internet ministry is invaluable. Whether from Ordained or Lay Ministers.
What it requires is authenticity and authority. i-church is, as you know, part of Oxford Dioceses under the oversight of the Bishop of Dorchester. The Web Pastor is Rev Pam Smith, whose role is multi-functional but she remains for me the Parish Priest of i-church.
Some members of i-church are members of normal churches of different denominations, for others, i-church is their only church. But the ministry reaches out to people of all faiths and none. It attracts people worldwide to its forums, some of who apply to join the inner community.
i-church is a genuine Fresh Expression of church, which meets the needs identified in its charitable objectives. But like any church, it constantly reviews what is it doing and seeking fresh initiatives for outreach. Its seasonal materials are particularly valuable.
Genuine ministry 'on line' will find an audience.
I do not have time for the money spinning USA type of broadcasts, and feel that nothing can replace the charisma that should be present in a 'body' [read church] or assembly of believers.
Having said that - lets go with the times - follow your heart Lesley.
There are so many issues that need to be considered or addressed here. The whole area of the internet and social media raises issues that the churches have yet to think about seriously. The change is as significant as (possibly more than) the introduction of print technology in the 15th and sixteenth centuries which facilitated the Reformation.
Since the 80s I have been concerned about the assumptions behind the CofE parish system in a highly mobile, dispersed and more individualistic society. Fresh expressions acknowledges that for many people the network model works better for worship and mission. Social media add a another dimension to this, and I think we are only seeing the beginning. Somebody in the upper echelons of the CofE needs to be reading Wired magazine regularly.
Back in the 1980s I'd never heard of the Unitarians and it was only a fluke when I did. Now the Internet makes such ignorance less likely. However, the big beneficiaries of the Internet are these Independent Sacramental Ministries, individuals and tiny clerical Churches, who can now get more easily noticed both for online and local activity.
The Old/ Liberal Catholic tradition in Britain has been tiny for a long time, and will remain so, but these self-supporting ministers can function now largely because of the Web page. These individuals are not like the C of E 'getting in on the act' but have to be nifty and flexible if they are to achieve anything. But in the end, nothing beats having some local base, some pressing the flesh, and the Internet is another the means to that end.
When the Simon Mapps and Mark Townsends leave the C of E to practise a more flexible independent ministry you know that the landscape is shifting.
Follow up:
http://pluralistspeaks.blogspot.com/2011/04/usm-flexibility.html
In answer to the funding issue - i-church, like all the Oxford Diocese Cutting Edge ministries, was initially funded from a one off award to Oxford from the C of E for new evangelism initiatives. The post of Web Pastor was funded sessionally for the first post holder, and as a half stipend for the second post holder, who had another half time church post.
When I took over as the third post holder I was on a half time stipend but when that money ran out I became non-stipendiary, and have now been so for nearly 2 years.
Funding is the elephant in the room for all fresh expressions ministries, but especially so for those of us working online; the only model I think will work in the long term for anyone who is making a ministry of this stuff is the 'tentmaking' one.
'Tentmaking' would be very much easier for those of us licensed as ministers in the C of E if NSMs were not seen as a source of free labour. I do a lot of cover for stipendiary clergy, but I am not paid other than travel expenses, even if I do weddings and funerals for which the family pay a fee. Yet I still have to find money for robes, books etc.
I deliberately use the term NSM - non stipendiary - because I think the term 'self supporting minister' implies that we are all in receipt of other incomes and easily able to contribute our labour.
I accept that when you are working in something 'fringy' not being paid tends to go with the territory, but I think it is adding insult to injury to imply that this is somehow something that the NSM can take on without any difficulty. That is very often not the case.
Pam, I am really saddened that there is so little funding for this important ministry. Wondering whether there is a possibility of getting money directly from the church commissioners as they seem to be funding fresh expressions directly in some cases...
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