The ongoing tragedy that is COVID-19 has made undeniable the need for digital ministry to further the work of the church, and our mission to proclaim Christ.
The need for us to expand into digital ministry has been obvious to me since I decided to study online theology in 2005 and since I started doing digital ministry consulting in 2011; and started the Digital Ministry, Aboundant, in 2014; and then started teaching digital ministry to religion undergrads in 2016, and to professionals in 2017. Needless to say, I’ve been beating this drum for a long time to anyone who would listen. I remain a digital ministry evangelist. But instead of saying “I told you so”, I would like to instead invite us into a deeper expression of digital ministry.
We need to meet people where they are at, and people spend a lot of time online. Lately, they spend that time social distancing, and because of that online outlets have become our most viable source of community outside of the home. But even before now, online spaces were a primary source of community for a growing population of the world.
We’ve been slow to engage people online. We’ve ceded those spaces to radicals and trolls, letting them write the narrative of the church online, and for the most post they have won out. I can assure you that most of the group we call “the nones” are engaged in online community, as they are mostly digital natives, not having known a world without the internet. They are not finding us there because we do a poor job of ministering there.
We have a lot of excuses not to engage people online in the fullness of ministry. Here are the greatest hits:
- “It’s not as good as face-to-face”
- “We have a great facility, people should come to us”
- “We don’t have the time or the money or the knowhow”
- “You can’t do sacraments online”
CORVID-19 Has made all these excuses seem pretty silly. This virus has proven a point I’ve spent 15 years of ministry trying to make: we need to engage in digital ministry, even if it’s just to be prepared for times like this.
Yet, and yet, I am grateful for every church worker who has taken to online spaces to do ministry in this troubled time. I know it won’t be easy, and will require a lot of grace on everyone’s part. I am also grateful for my Digital Minister friends who have really risen to the occasion. I hope people take the time to listen to their sage advice. They’ve been waiting for people to take them seriously for over a decade (if their experience is anything like mine). They will be grateful to be heard, and to help.
But the most important lesson I’d like people to draw from this experience is this: Just like we now know that we need to be better prepared to fight a pandemic, we need to be more serious about digital ministry. Not just during this tumultuous time, but always. When the pandemic dies down, don’t put away your webcams or your zoom meetings, keep them going. Grow into these digital spaces, then grow the spaces themselves into holy places. Meet people where they are at in the name of God. God is already there, I promise.
For those of you wanting digital ministry advice specifically related to COVID-19, please check out our ongoing post on Aboundant.