These are slides that accompany a presentation I gave to St. Paul's UCC in St. Paul, Minnesota on February 16, 2022

1. Finding, forming, sharing faith in a digital world
St. Paul’s UCC / February 16, 2022 / St. Paul, MN
(note: all underlined words are hyper links to citations and online versions)

2. frames for seeing
• context collapse
• learning in ideas, feelings, and action — while being
people in a speci
fi
c place with speci
fi
c questions
• authority, authenticity, agency
• kinds of stories
• ignite, curate, practice

3. digital media permeate our processes of meaning-
making, having their most pervasive impact
through our stories

4. digital media wrest context from our stories, and
enclose us in ever smaller spaces

5. let’s start with introductions: please share three
things about yourself in short phrases — and do
not explain them, simply state them

6. for example:
• I’ve lived in St. Paul for more than two decades on
Lincoln Avenue
• I have an adult son who had a stroke at birth and
lives with cerebral palsy, epilepsy and prosopagnosia
• My mom has been and remains the church organist
in a UCC church in Oshkosh for the last
fi
fty years

7. take a moment to think what three things you
would like to share right now

8. sharing

9. we are a story-making, story-sharing people

10. but we live in a world of context collapse, shaped
by algorithmic enclaves

11. we know that human meaning and learning are shaped by
ideas, feelings, and actions — and digital media are profoundly
impacting how we understand authority, how we experience
authenticity, and how we engage agency
authority, authenticity, agency

12. context shapes all of this, and yet we are living in
context collapse

13. so how do we bring context? again, through
stories

14. we may be living in times shaped by digital media,
but humans have always lived through and in and
against stories

15. Jesus taught through story
we learn of Jesus through biblical stories
the Holy Spirit continues to breathe in our stories

16. fi
nding faith helps to form faith and of course
involves sharing faith!

19. but stories have their own elements that
authenticate or manipulate people

20. Bell, Roberts, Irani, and Murphy
• “…stock stories .. are the most public and ubiquitous in dominant,
mainstream institutions… the other story types critique and challenge their
presumption of universality
• Concealed stories … are often circulated, told and retold by people in the
margins whose experiences and aspirations they express and honor, and they
provide a perspective that is often very different from that of the mainstream
• Resistance stories are … stories, both historical and contemporary, that tell
about how people have resisted [oppression], challenged the stock stories
that support it, and fought for more equal and inclusive social arrangements
• Counter Stories … are new stories that are deliberately constructed to
challenge the stock stories, build on and amplify resistance stories, and offer
ways to interrupt the status quo and work for change”
citation

21. so what are we to do?
ignite, curate, practice

22. For example …
• to glimpse a stock story (Generic Brand Video by Kendra
Eash)
• concealed stories (The War on Drugs by Jay Z, et. al. )
• resistance stories (Understanding Charlotte, by Dr.
Rodney Sadler)
• counter stories (Knowing by Mai Vang) (Seriously by This
American Life)

23. it is inevitable — and appropriate! — that people
learning how to discern such stories in our wider
social spaces will also use them for discernment
close in at home, in religious ways and places and
practices

24. So, for example…
• a stock story (Bp. Nienstedt in MN)
• a concealed story (House for all Sinners and Saints in
Denver, CO)
• a resistance story (music video from Selma) (MN United
campaign)
• a counter story (House for All Sinners and Saints)

25. story practices
• learning to listen
• moving from listening to hearing
• hearing one’s own voice in relation to God (spirituality)
• hearing each other’s voice in relation to God (vocation)
• hearing God’s voice in the world (mission)

26. more of my resources
• slideshares: https://www.slideshare.net/maryhess1/
• writing: https://meh.religioused.org/web/writing/
• storyingfaith.org
• Tech in Church in a pandemic: https://
www.techinchurches.org
• a page of COVID-related resources: https://
meh.religioused.org/web/covid19_resources/

27. print resources
• Grace & Gigabytes: Being Church in a Tech-Shaped
Culture, by Ryan Panzer (Fortress, 2020)
• Click2Save Reboot: The Digital Ministry Bible, by
Elizabeth Drescher and Keith Anderson (Church
Publishing, 2018)
• Digital Creatives and the Rethinking of Religious Authority,
by Heidi Campbell (Routledge, 2020)
• The Virtual Body of Christ in a Suffering World, by Deanna
Thompson (Abingdon Press, 2016)

28. more info:
meh.religioused.org
mhess@religioused.org