The digital age is great, but has it taken over? In this blog, I discuss whether it’s a positive thing for the Church and Christian organisations to go digital.
So, I attended the Premier Digital Conference on Saturday 3rd November in London. For those of you who are not familiar with this event, it’s an event to help the Christian community take advantage of all the opportunities brought about by our digital age. Their aim is to ‘inspire with what is possible, equip with new ideas and skills and connect you with people and organisations that can help you achieve your aims’.
As you can imagine, as a virtual ministry assistant, this was an amazing event for me, and it proved to be just that”¦”¦.
To me, this event really brought to question, whether Churches, and Christian businesses were now becoming in tune with the digital age.
Why do Christian organisations, more specifically, Churches, find it so difficult to move with the times and become more digital / virtual?
Is it because Christianity is all about community, communication, being present with one another?
In today’s age, we now have Church apps where you can download your Church sermon, or Church newsletter; Bible verses posted on Facebook or Instagram, view Church sermons from YouTube while on the go. We have so many online Churches. A lot of Churches aspire to get their Church online. So, do less people now physically attend Church now that there are so many online Churches? You could now literally have Church while cooking your Sunday roast! Will it eventually get to a point where there will be no physical Churches, and everyone will be at home in their families, or worse, on their own listening to their Church sermon online?
Of course, the flip side of this is that tens of thousands of people can easily hear the word of God. People who may not have usually attended Church can just tune in to hear what it’s all about. People who are house bound can experience Church in their homes.
As a virtual assistant, I’m all for the digital age. Most of my work and interactions with Churches, pastors, Church leaders are done digitally, and it works well. But it is very slow to catch on. In times of such great change, it is important to take the positives of the digital age. We can reach so many people in different cities, countries and even continents. We can work and bring together a vast amount of different ideas from different cultures and generations.
Nevertheless, we must not lose our human connections. We must not forget what Christianity is about. Loving your neighbour, helping and supporting each other and working together.
As a Christian community, we must be known to not only love Jesus Christ, but to also love one another, and to live in fellowship with one another. When the world sees this, our light will ‘shine before others, that they may see”¦ our good deeds and glorify”¦ our Father in heaven’. (Matthew 5:16)
We need to find a happy medium where we have an option to connect virtually and digitally, but also not loose touch of our human contact.