Mark's Brown blogs on DigitalSymp

Here is Mark's blog entry exploring Digital Symp - some interesting points raised here...

Pete

Guest Blog on the Churchmouse!

Exclusive: Guest post from Andy Jackson, editor of surefish.co.uk on Christianity in the Digital Space

Quite an extensive comment from Pam Smith as well exploring coercion and synergy...

Pete

Tweet from @emptybelly

emptybelly: @Ulfilas

http://tinyurl.com/pardissblog Blog entry for Dissertation

#digisymp

Original Tweet: http://twitter.com/emptybelly/status/2686835683

Sent via TweetDeck (www.tweetdeck.com)

Please note that Dr Bex Lewis' Twitter Account was frozen after all her endeavours at digisymp!

Please use hashtag #freedrbexl : big campaign to free the Twitter One!

Pete

A letter from CMC

Dear friends,

I hope you enjoyed our time together in Durham. I was certainly glad to meet you in Rea...I mean "off-line". I've come away with lots to think about. Over the coming months we will try to pursue some of the outcomes we discussed.

One of these was that we should find ways to remain in contact. In order to do this ! I invite you to join the Churches' Media Council New Media Forum. You will find this at http://cmc-newmedia.ning.com/ - or you can just click here. The Forum has a group for people who attended Christianity in the Digital Space. I'm grateful to Rachel Collinson (a dragon, but not a worship-leading one!) for setting this up for us.

It would be good to use this ning to advance our thinking about Christianity in the Digital Space. So please feel free to ask questions, add links, do some fresh thinking etc. The Twitter feed #digisymp will also remain open for more general chat.

The CODEC blog is also open, with lots of content and responses to the symposium. I'd encourage you to go there too.

Look forward to continuing ! the conversation with you.

Best wishes,

Andrew Graystone

It's all over

Sadly the Symposium on Christianity in the Digital Space has come to end.

Will we meet again? Dunno...hope so...I think.

We will continue to use the #digisymp hashtag on Twitter.

Hopefully lots of relationships have been kicked off.

Please pray for CODEC and if you are a millionaire looking to support digital expressions of our faith or an agency with some funding to spare - please come and support our work.

Some reviews are beginning to appear: Ship of Fools

Thanks to all the participants - twas a blast!

Pete

Day three and the fat lady has yet to sing

Day 3 dawns. And it’s a joy to at last hear Scripture and the Spirit applied to the issues at hand – followed through with a prayerful response. What a good start to the whole symposium this would have made, providing an essential reference point that would have enriched everything.

The overall discourse, which has been extensive and valuable, has had a surprising number of old ‘thought that had been sorted long ago’ questions. There’s such a need to walk in today’s light rather than yesterday’s shadows.

A big thought has been the reference to ‘the spirit of the internet’ which is a very warm, welcoming, engaging and ‘let’s share this for free’ environment. In many ways more ‘Christian’ than much that carries the Christian tag.

Then Bishop Tom ‘two names for two brains’ Wright showed up and everything got ramped up three more gears. What is going on is more than ‘more information that arrives faster’, he underlined. Something has happened to those involved. Bringing in a new intuitive age, where play is more important than we though it was.

The final Dragon’s Den shows there is no shortage of ideas and needs to be met.

Now the challenge is to process all the input and engagement with some practical outcomes. Let's go and play.

That was day 2

So that’s day 2 done and dusted. Lots of talk – up front and in groups. All creating echoes of the kind of conversations that must have happened when the church first confronted the advent of printing. So nothing totally new here.

But so far as the digital space is concerned a Christian response seems to come down to three options -

1. Do we create our own space ‘out there' and invite people to find us and join us – even to do those things that most people no longer want to do in physical space?
2. How do we behave now ‘the world and the Church’ counts the digital space as part of their living space?
3. Do we identify the conversations happening out there and join in, including where we might feel the least welcome?
   

Meanwhile, there seems to be lots of angst about what church is in digital space, how you exercise authority and keep the mad men from raging. All too late as the genies are all out of the bottles and granting wishes to everyone. Anarchy rules, ok.