How should churches think about (and use) the internet?

1. Ministry in an

3. Ministry in an
The Theology

4. The Living God who speaks

5. The Living God who speaks
"And God said…”
Genesis 1:3, 6, 9,
14, 20, 24, 26

6. The living God’s living images
“Then God said, “Let us make mankind in
our image, in our likeness so that they
may rule over the fish in the sea and the
birds in the sky, over the livestock and all
the wild animals, and over all the
creatures that move along the ground.”
Genesis 1:26

7. The living God’s living images
“You shall not make for yourself an
image in the form of anything in
heaven above or on the earth
beneath or in the waters below.”
Exodus 20:4

8. The communicating God: Word
“In the beginning was the Word, and the
Word was with God, and the Word was
God. He was with God in the beginning…
The Word became flesh and made his
dwelling among us.”
John 1:1, 14

9. The communicating God: Image
“The Son is the image of the invisible God,
the firstborn over all creation.”
Colossians 1:15

10. The communicating God: Multimedia
“In the past God spoke to our ancestors
through the prophets at many times and in
various ways, but in these last days he has
spoken to us by his Son…”
Hebrews 1:1-2

11. The multimedia God
Incarnation

12. The subverting God
Cruciform

13. The subverting God
“In your relationships with one another,
have the same mindset as Christ Jesus:
Who, being in very nature God,
did not consider equality with God
something to be used to his own
advantage;”

14. The subverting God
“rather, he made himself nothing
by taking the very nature of a servant,
being made in human likeness.
And being found in appearance as a man,
he humbled himself
by becoming obedient to death—
even death on a cross!”
Philippians 2

15. The subverting God
“For the message of the cross is
foolishness to those who are perishing,
but to us who are being saved it is the
power of God.”
1 Corinthians 1:18

16. The subverting God
“When I came to you, I did not come with
eloquence or human wisdom as I
proclaimed to you the testimony about
God. For I resolved to know nothing while
I was with you except Jesus Christ and
him crucified.”

17. The subverting God
“I came to you in weakness with great fear
and trembling. My message and my
preaching were not with wise and
persuasive words, but with a
demonstration of the Spirit’s power.”
1 Corinthians 2:3-4

18. Speaking as God
Accommodating the
audience (minding the gap)

19. Speaking for God
“What we have received is not the spirit of
the world, but the Spirit who is from God,
so that we may understand what God has
freely given us…”

20. Speaking for God
“This is what we speak, not in words
taught us by human wisdom but in words
taught by the Spirit, explaining spiritual
realities with Spirit-taught words.”

21. Speaking for God
“The person without the Spirit does not
accept the things that come from the Spirit
of God but considers them foolishness,
and cannot understand them because
they are discerned only through the
Spirit.”
1 Cor 2:12-14

22. Speaking for God
Incarnate, cross-shaped,
image bearers minding the
gap

23. The subverting God
“Though I am free and belong to no one, I
have made myself a slave to everyone, to
win as many as possible… I have
become all things to all people so that by
all possible means I might save some.
1 Corinthians 9:19, 22

24. Speaking for God
“You yourselves are our letter, written on our
hearts, known and read by everyone. You
show that you are a letter from Christ, the
result of our ministry, written not with ink but
with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets
of stone but on tablets of human hearts...”

25. Speaking for God
“And we all, who with unveiled faces
contemplate the Lord’s glory, are being
transformed into his image with ever-increasing
glory, which comes from the
Lord, who is the Spirit.”
2 Corinthians 3:2-3, 18

26. Speaking for God
May I never boast except in the cross of
our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the
world has been crucified to me, and I to
the world… From now on, let no one
cause me trouble, for I bear on my body
the marks of Jesus.
Galatians 6

27. Ministry in an
The Reality

28. 1980
Digital Natives

29. 8 Hours
Online. Everyday.

30. 10 Hours
Factoring in multi-tasking.

38. Mythbusting
“Media aren’t just channels of
information. They supply the stuff of
thought, but they also shape the
process of thought.”
Nicholas Carr, The Shallows

39. Neuroplasticity, media
ecology, and idolatry
No ‘neutral’ mediums

40. Neutral mediums?
“We shape our tools, thereafter they
shape us.”
John Culkin

41. Neuroplasticity, media
ecology, and idolatry
“Our conventional response to all media,
namely that it is how they are used that
counts, is the numb stance of the
technological idiot.”
Marshall McLuhan

42. Neuroplasticity, media
ecology, and idolatry
Those who make them will be like
them,
and so will all who trust in them.
Psalm 115:8

43. Mythbusting
“Do not conform to the pattern of this
world, but be transformed by the
renewing of your mind. Then you will
be able to test and approve what
God’s will is–his good, pleasing and
perfect will.”
Romans 12:2

44. Ministry in an
The Theory

45. The Task
“Discerning what characterizes the
socially constructed worlds people around
us inhabit places us in a better position to
address the generation God calls us to
serve.”

46. The Task
“Doing so, however, necessitates that we
conceptualize and articulate Christian
beliefs—the gospel—in a manner that
contemporary people can understand.”

47. The Task
“That is, we must express the gospel
through the “language” of the culture—
through the cognitive tools, concepts,
images, symbols, and thought forms—by
means of which people today discover
meaning, construct the world they inhabit,
and form personal identity.
Grenz & Franke,
cited in TheoMedia

48. Know the mediums
“The medium is the message”
Marshall McLuhan

49. Know the mediums
When we go online, we, too, are following
scripts written by others—algorithmic
instructions that few of us would be able to
understand even if the hidden codes were
revealed to us. When we search for
information through Google or other search
engines, we’re following a script.
Nicholas Carr, The Shallows

50. Know the mediums
“What are the rules of the medium and
what are the underlying messages and
patterns that emerge from those rules?“
John Dyer,
From the Garden To The City

51. Know the mediums
“In Jesus Christ, there is no distance
or separation between the medium
and the message: it is the one case
where we can say that the medium
and the message are fully one and
the same.”
Marshall McLuhan

52. Know the myths

53. Know the costs

54. If it’s free you’re the
product, not the customer

55. If it’s free you’re the
product, not the customer

56. Pick your platforms

57. Own your platform?

58. Ministry in an
The Practice

59. Logos alone?

60. Remember there are no
non-verbal cues in typed
text.

61. Remember there are no
non-verbal cues in typed
text.
Even with emoticons.

62. Subvert self-seeking myths
by deliberate “decreasing”
“He must become greater; I must
become less.”
John 3:30

63. Value presence (over
absence)
“I have much to write to you, but I do not
want to use paper and ink. Instead, I hope
to visit you and talk with you face to face,
so that our joy may be complete.”
2 John 1:12

64. But absent presence is
valuable

65. The perils of clicktivism

66. The perils of clicktivism
Matthew 6 and the ice
bucket challenge

67. The perils of clicktivism
Matthew 6 and the ice
bucket challenge

68. The perils of clicktivism
“Be careful not to practice your righteousness
in front of others to be seen by them. If you
do, you will have no reward from your Father
in heaven. So when you give to the needy, do
not announce it with trumpets, as the
hypocrites do in the synagogues and on the
streets, to be honored by others.”

69. The perils of clicktivism
“Truly I tell you, they have received their
reward in full. But when you give to the
needy, do not let your left hand know what
your right hand is doing, so that your
giving may be in secret. Then your Father,
who sees what is done in secret, will
reward you.
Matthew 6:1-4

71. All things to all people to
win some…
Who is it for?

72. It’s public
Remember the ‘media’ in
social media

73. It’s public
And permanent…

74. It’s media
Pick your audience.

77. It’s media
Pick your message.

78. It’s media
Stay on message

79. Democratise
Put the ‘social’ into social
media

80. New Media = everyone is
an editor
Curate and create.

81. Be generous
Pursue costly relationships

82. Be generous
The medium communicates
the value of the message.
Up the cost.

84. Write with clarity, read with
charity

85. Take it offline

87. Ministry in an
Good Books