eFormation on the Holy Hill

Old Chapel garden--where the altar once stood

For the first time in almost decade, I have returned to Virginia Theological Seminary (VTS), my alma mater. I must say, it is a little strange wandering around buildings that hold so many memories from 20 years ago. The Addison Academic Center, brand new when I was here, is nearly two decades old. The old chapel is gone, consumed by fire several years ago and now a prayer garden. The new chapel is rising. Key Hall, once a classroom and storage space, is now the bright, airy location of the Center for the Ministry of Teaching. Can't believe it has been nearly 20 years since I left this place.

One thing that has not changed is the seminary's commitment to teaching and learning. It has been a privilege to be back here for a conference on "eFormation"--highlighting how electronic media have changed how we are formed as disciples of Jesus and how we help form others. Like any conference, there is far more available than one can hope to take in. I focused my attention on only a few. On Monday, I attended "Stealth Christian Formation" with Tim Schenck (pronounced skank--make of that what you will). Tim talked about how to make everything we do in church a formation opportunity--as exemplified by the phenomenal success of Lent Madness, which he launched several years ago.

The next seminar was "Getting Started with Online Christian Formation" with Chris Yaw. I decided to take this class because Good Samaritan is a subscriber to ChurchNext, Chris' online video educational site.  He had some good reflections on this very early venture into helping churches set up online schools for members new and old. It seems like a great way to both connect with people who may never darken the doors of our church (not exactly a great image, actually...) and to teach and form people within our church without having to make things up from scratch--which many clergy end up doing because they don't know what resources are there for things like Confirmation classes. It was a good presentation and motivated me to actually start our own online school through our parish web site.

Finally, I ended up attending a "Curating Faith Formation: Digital Content for Bible, Theology, Spirituality, and More" with Sharon Ely Pearson and John Roberto. This was a fascinating seminar highlighting not only the HUGE array of web sites and materials available, but the critical task of curating--filtering, if you will--those resources for one's own congregation via the church web site. Oddly, it never occurred to me that people would look on our web site for links to help them study the bible, raise their children with Christian values, or deal with the challenges of growing older. I figured that it was out there and they would just find it. As was pointed out, however, Google is notoriously unselective when presenting resources, so some human curating is both necessary and valuable.

So, all in all, a great day of learning. Also, a great night in the new(ish) "pub on campus--named "1823" for the year the seminary was founded.

4 Years Later: Nothing Changes in TEC Advertising (UPDATE: Except the responsiveness!)

UPDATE: If you click on the newest Episcopal Church advertising link, you now get the following rather than the ads:

Many thanks to those of you who have given us constructive comments on the billboard and postcard suggestions we had posted.  We agree that the concept needs more work, and we are going back to the drawing board with your ideas in mind.  We sincerely appreciate your feedback and encourage you to keep sharing your ideas and, when appropriate, your criticisms.  We take them all seriously. 

Well put and a good response--something that was not in evidence four years ago. So, things DO change! Well done, Episcopal Church Center staff!

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As a prologue to this post, I want to say first of all that I love the Episcopal Church. I am an Episcopal priest because I love the combination of Word and Sacrament, the "big tent" theology that welcomes everyone, and the conviction that the love of God in Christ is transformational in people's lives. I'm one of a diminishing number of so-called "cradle Episcopalians" and a member of likely an even more rare group: Generation X cradle Episcopalians. I've spent nearly 20 years in the ordained ministry and with everything that is wonderful about the church there is one thing that continually amazes me about it:

How many times we shoot ourselves in the foot. Repeatedly.

Almost four years ago, I wrote a blog post critical of the Episcopal Church's new advertising campaign which came up with this attention-grabbing ad (sarcasm) which they paid a significant amount of money to put as a full-page ad in USA Today (see above). Not only was I underwhelmed and lamented the waste of time and money that this represented, but I also recalled the not very helpful fact that if any congregation wanted to use this ad and put their own church's name on it they were invited to "email us [Episcopal Church Center] and we will create a personalized ad for you." Had no one at Episcopal Church Center heard of Photoshop? Could we not be trusted to take the artwork provided and personalize it? Apparently not.

In the midst of this I was also notified by legal council at Episcopal Church center that I was not permitted to use the Episcopal Church shield unless I obeyed strict guidelines on its use. I could not put it on t-shirts, coffee mugs, and other items in my Café Press shop. I was informed of this after I logged into my shop and found the images had been blocked and then had to ask why they were blocked. I haven't had time with my day job as parish priest to pursue the matter further. But apparently my efforts to advertise the Episcopal Church were not received in the spirit with which I offered them. Clearly no one was permitted to deviate from official materials.

In my blog post, I contrasted the USA Today ad with two ads that my colleague Frank Logue, then a parish priest and now Canon to the Ordinary for the Diocese of Georgia, put together in short order from the suggestions of two colleagues via Facebook:

The ad to the left is image-based rather than text-based, it has an attention-grabbing headline, it shows a picture of an actual ministry of the church with actual people. It shows a great view of a lovely worship space (of which the Episcopal Church has more than its fair share). Finally, it invites people to worship and service in the Episcopal Church--two things we do very well. What it does not do is explain all of the reasons that you really should give the Episcopal Church a try, in excruciating detail.

The other ad highlighted the multicultural nature of the Episcopal Church, gave a brief dig at the Republican Party, but otherwise pretty much said "we're a diverse, multi-age, multi-ethnic church" without using any of those words. Brilliant, and probably took him about an hour on his computer.

Fast forward four years and the Episcopal Church has now come up with brand new, cutting-edge, advertising materials that feature several phrases on a stained glass background, such as the ad:

Another clergy colleague has already voiced his opinion via an excellent blog post. My opinion is that we've progressed from wordy two-color bullet point ads in 2009 to less wordy, more snarky, and still image-less ads in 2013. Given the background graphics, this is something that many of my colleagues and I could have done in 15 minutes on a computer, if we had wanted to sound like a mother scolding her grandchildren who never write, never call, and just don't visit often enough. I won't inflict the others on you, but suffice it to say that they ads reinforce the stereotype that we're a bunch of old, rich, cranky white people who can't understand why our children and grandchildren don't come to church anymore. As someone on Facebook said in response: "These new ads somehow blend hipster elitism and stick-in-the-mud traditionalism into the same gooey mess."

Contrast that with the materials from the diocese of Ohio, which feature ads like this: 

Note that this does not conform to the national church's style standards (doesn't have the new shaded shield), but it is way more effective than what came out of the national church.

I would like ads worthy of the wonderful church that this is. I would like things like the advertising materials that the church posted but without the text, so that people could add pictures and their own clever text to the background. Perhaps even a repository where people can upload their own ad ideas. It is time to let go of the corporate command-and-control and bad 1980s style advertising and get into the twenty-first century where anyone with a computer and a basic image-editing program can do this kind of thing with a few resources at his or her disposal. And without offending anyone.

Give us the tools. Get out of the way. And talk to folks who don't currently go to church before you do this again. Please.

"Uncle Steve" Jobs

Steve Jobs 1955-2011

Much has been said and written about Steve Jobs after his death this past Wednesday. Having never known him personally, never even having worked at Apple, the only connection I have to him is as an Apple customer and stockholder. That said, many of my contemporaries and I feel almost as if we've lost a beloved but distant uncle. Growing up in Silicon Valley, the legend of Apple's first first "run" with the Apple II and Macintosh is eclipsed only by the legend of the rebirth of Apple with the iMac, iPod, iPhone, and iPad. I was still a small child when Johs graduated from the high school just south of the one I would attend a decade later, but I hit middle school about the time the Apple II emerged and I well recall the sheer joy of using a computer with color, speed (for its time), and floppy disks rather than cassette tapes.

So, in many ways, Steve Jobs was the author of my childhood obsession with computers. Perhaps that is why I and others of my generation mourn his passing so much.  The passion he brought to technology, the conviction that technology not only could but would change the world, is one that he lived out with single-minded determination.

This is not to say that Jobs was a saint. At least one blogger has some very pointed criticism of him, much of it on target. He was often ruthless in his pursuit of excellence. His desire to see his biography published so that "my kids will know me better" signals that, like many in Silicon Valley, he had the tendency to prioritize job over family. However, his genius for designing technology that people could (and did) fall in love with is unmatched in modern-day America. His famous commencement address at Stanford University ranks among the best ever.

Though I didn't know him, I use Apple technology almost every minute of every day. I wake up to the alarm from my iPhone, check my calendar on that same iPhone, work every day on a MacBook Pro, use my iPad to watch videos and read books, and pretty much just love Apple products with a passion. I hope that I can increasingly take this passion and "can do" spirit into my job as a clergy leader as well.

Technology and Sanctuary

Take a look at this video. It talks about all of the technological revolutions that have occurred in the last several decades and what is forecast for the future:



I'm 42 years old this year and I am mindful that my lifetime has seen revolution after revolution in how we get, process, and make use of information as well as how the vast majority of the rest of the world does this. And, as the video points out, the rate of change is accelerating logarithmically as each day passes.

Two things occur to me as I think about both the past and the future of the vocation God has called me to as a pastor and priest of the church. First, that this information revolution will affect some things that we do very much--people will have access to a virtually unlimited amount of information about the Bible and theological reflection and will be able to, essentially, be their own expert (for the moment) on anything that they choose to study. Second, however, I believe that there will be an increasing need for a sanctuary from the information tsunami--a place to step back, step out, take a breath, and ask some very low-tech questions about meaning and purpose.

The church may well be uniquely positioned to offer just such a sanctuary, a harbor, in which to ask those questions and seek answers that are not accessible at the touch of a key or the click of a mouse. Now all we have to do is penetrate the noise....

This is NOT Your Grandmother's Episcopal Church (but she's welcome, too...)

It's becoming more and more apparent that the institutional church, specifically the powers-that-be in my own beloved Episcopal Church, don't really get it. Their version of a national advertising campaign features the  cutting edge ad (my tongue planted firmly in cheek) to the right of this paragraph:


Contrast that ad, which probably involved hours and hours of conceptual work and much money for both design and publication, with the ad below from Pastor, Priest, and self-proclaimed Art Director Frank Logue, which likely took a few hours or less:

Where do I start? The contrast is stark: word-based vs. image-based, service-based vs. doctrine-based, edgy vs. corporate. I could go on. The last straw for me was the note on the " ad collaborative" page that said that "if you wish to customize it with your own church's address and/or web address, email...to provide the information." So, in an age of desktop publishing, Photoshop, and easy multimedia programs, we're supposed to email information to a central office and have someone else put it into the ad (no doubt at the preselected spot) for us?

Perhaps I'm just a grumpy Generation Xer, but I'm finding more and more of this sort of corporate thinking that simply rubs me the wrong way. Are we a corporate giant that simply puts out the blue and red shield and expects that people will instantly recognize the brand and beat a path to our door, or are we a living, breathing part of the Body of Christ that is active in service to the world and in "working, praying, and giving for the spread of the Kingdom of God" (from the Parochial Report form, no less!)? The USA Today Ad says the former, the ad from Frank says the latter.

Perhaps more scary for me is that, for far too many churches in TEC, this really is my grandmother's church: run from a central office in New York, staid, word-based, corporate. That is not a very attractive church for me. Don't get me wrong--I love the liturgy, the depth, and the spirituality of the Episcopal Church. What I don't love is that the face we too often present to the world is that of a declining church that has beautiful buildings and baubles but not a clue about what those outside our walls are needing, even desperate for, though they may not know it. My frustration is that the church seems to fail repeatedly to take advantage of the technologies and tools available to it to get our message out while simultaneously failing to engage the world that embraces such technologies. There are many, many exceptions (take Holy Apostles in NYC, where the ad picture comes from, for instance) but too often they fly under the radar. Let us (and I'm speaking to myself as well) embrace tools for delivering our message and make sure that it is relevant, faithful to our core values, and able to cut through the maelstrom of information with which we are constantly bombarded. And then let us live that message!

Memo to Episcopal Church Center: If you really want to be helpful, put together a toolkit, complete with submissions of ads like this one, and don't bother spending dollars you don't have on ad agencies or marketing experts. Those were the same folks who brought us the ill-fated "The Episcopal Church: We're here for you..." branding campaign. Give folks the tools, maybe even run an ad contest, and get out of the way.

But that's just my thinking....

Looking backward, Going forward

As I vacation with my immediate and extended families in California, I am struck anew by the flurry of cultural, economic, technological, and media retrospectives on 2007. As yet I have not found an Anglican/Episcopal retrospective, but I'm sure someone in the blogosphere will put one together soon (if you know of one, feel free to leave it in the comments section of this post). I am also less than two months away from turning 40 years old, always an occasion for both looking back and looking forward. As the Anglican/Episcopal world convulses and raises questions of identity, structure, and purpose, I've also been thinking about my own identity as an Episcopal priest and my own values for ministry on which I hope to focus a bit more purposefully in 2008. Those values are:

1) The transformational power of faith in Jesus Christ.

Perhaps it is my own grounding in the evangelical flavor of Christianity, but my own belief is that if the church is not standing up and proclaiming that being a disciple of Jesus Christ is not just a nice thing to do, a trendy (or counter-trendy) lifestyle, or even something that changes your world-view but something that fundamentally transforms one's life in both real and mysterious ways, I'm not sure what exactly we're here for. If you want to serve, there are plenty of service clubs around. If you want to learn, there are many blogs, podcasts, video courses, and even classroom-based opportunities for learning. If you want to socialize, there are likewise plenty of social clubs (including social networking web sites) in which you can join. Heck, even worship of God is something that one can do alone with an iPod, at least to some extent!

I am at once frustrated with my own tendency to 'put God on hold' amidst the pressures and demands of life and ministry and frustrated with the tendency of the church to be so self-absorbed with similar demands that there is little time given for exploring our relationship with God in Christ. So little, in fact, that many people in the pews have no idea what I'm talking about when I mention such a relationship! For 2008, I want to 'go deeper with God' and invite members of the congregation I serve to go there as well.

2) Being grounded in traditional Christianity and yet drawn to fresh expressions of the church through the emerging church and missional movements.

I'm an anomoly--a Generation Xer who grew up in a very traditional, middle-of-the-road Episcopal church in Silicon Valley with parents that are still together to this day. I didn't suffer from a broken home, a broken faith, or a broken church. We had major players from Silicon Valley companies in our congregation, but no one would have dared suggest that we incorporate the least bit of technology into our services. At the same time, the rest of my life was saturated with cutting-edge technology as well as cutting-edge ideas. I married that very traditional liturgical church upbringing with an evangelical fervor caught in high school and fanned into flame during my college years at InterVarsity Christian Fellowship at Humboldt State University. Even so, I am drawn to fresh expressions of being a disciple of Jesus Christ. These are often expressed in the emerging church and missional church movements.

All that is to say that while I'm grounded in traditional expressions of Christianity, I'm searching for ways to live out my calling as an Episcopal priest in the very exciting world of the emerging church without losing that traditional base and evangelical fervor. I suspect that exploration will continue in 2008, primarily through the addition of a new evening 'alternative service' to the very traditional service currently at the church I serve.

3) Love of technology as a tool for ministry.

I'll admit it--I love technology with a passion. Raised in Silicon Valley and in high school at the beginning of the technology wave, I'm as fully plugged in as my time and money allow. I obviously blog regularly, check my e-mail constantly, monitor a variety of blogs, and essentially live on the Internet, with only one exception--my ordained ministry. Sure, I use the Internet to get ideas, illustrations, and examples for sermons, but the church I serve has no real value for technology as a tool for ministry. This is not limited to my current congregation. There have been plenty of folks over the years who wonder why I'm on the computer 'so much' and exactly what I'm doing there. I will readily admit that occasionally the lure of technology overwhelms my call to on-the-ground ministry.

So, in 2008 I'm resolving to explore ways to unite my love of the church with my love of technology, all under the umbrella of being a more faithful disciple of Jesus Christ and a more effective priest of the church. Viewing technology as a tool for ministry rather than simply a toy for entertainment means being more focused in my use of technology and my learning about how best to integrate it into my ministry. It also means making sure that I do not neglect face-to-face ministry in favor of 'screen-to-screen' ministry.

We'll see how all of this goes. I'm mindful that most people break New Year's resolutions before the end of January. Hopefully by my birthday at the end of February, I'll still be plugging along!