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sales pitch on one plausibly one very good answer that is the challenge i need to meditate on some more posted by gord at 4 45 pm no comments email this blogthis share to x share to facebook share to pinterest labels sabbatical2026 books culture ministry technology theology friday july 03 2026 book review both and maximizing hybrid worship experiences for in person and online engagement both and maximizing hybrid worship experiences for in person and online engagement by jason moore 2022 invite press 204 pages this book grew out of the reality of covid 19 and the changes pushed on churches by the lock down of course many places had been doing some form of hybrid worship long before march 2020 but many of us were suddenly pushed to do worship differently in that month and then as the world moved into the later stages of the pandemic many of us decided either intentionally or by default more on that later to continue with some form of hybrid worship whether we were are doing it well might be a whole other question in fact that is one of the questions i brought with me into sabbatical which is why this volume ended up on my reading list i am instinctively convinced that hybrid worship needs to mean more than simply streaming what happens in the sanctuary on sunday morning but am not entirely sure what i think needs to be done differently i was hoping this book would help me sort that out it did and it didn t moore affirms my thoughts that we need to do things differently he draws out questions and concerns that had not occurred to me and ones that had but not at a conscious level at the same time many of the suggestions he presents for how to do things differently seem like they only work within specific worship structures with a bigger volunteer staff team and with far different technology than some of us work with so the questions were good the suggestions made logical sense the challenge is how to adapt them to the context worship style team size expertise comfort technology available where one is one of the key pieces i took from the book was the idea that we are serving different audiences we have the people who are in the room we have the committed church folk who for a variety of reasons who are not in the room but are on line instead we have the people who are using the livestream as a way to check us out to test this as a possible faith community we have those who drifted away or left more intentionally who are wondering about coming back there are probably more subsets as well we also have the reality that some will join online as the service is happening and some will join when their schedule fits better how do we build hybrid worship that meets these various needs how do we make all feel welcomed included as participants rather than observers how do we keep them engaged what language opens or closes doors what pieces work really well on screen but not in the room and vice versa in the end it becomes an inclusivity question another piece that kept occurring to me particularly early in the book was that maybe improving the experience for the online side of the hybrid worship equation will improve it for the in person side as well maybe that hit me because it ties in to my ongoing pondering of does our current worship order actually work or maybe who does it work for and who doesn t it can worship on line and in person be more interactive and participatory how changing worship is always a bit of a tightrope to walk but worship styles patterns need to evolve and change over time then there was the key question the one many of us may not have spent much time on why are we doing hybrid worship there are lots of answers to this there are also people who in 2022 23 were saying ok we can stop now so all those people will come back it is possible that we need to talk about why we see the need why we are called to be hybrid churches or the reverse as we move forward into a new era i appreciated moore s suggestion that one of the reasons for hybrid worship is as a way of living out the great commandment seeing it as much as outreach as service to the current members of the community it is my belief that the church of the future will need to be a hybrid church this is about worship and about everything else we do generally speaking we clergy and laity alike have been well trained to be church in one way we need to learn a new way there are churches that are primarily or only on line that is not what most of us are looking for we need to figure out how to be both and posted by gord at 10 24 am no comments email this blogthis share to x share to facebook share to pinterest labels sabbatical2026 books church life culture technology sunday june 14 2026 book review ijesus the culture of god in a digital world ijesus the culture of god in a digital world by nadim nassar 2023 sacristy press 153 pages last fall i went looking for a book i heard referenced in a podcast because i wanted to reach the free shipping threshold i needed to buy a second book and this title seemed like something that would fit my sabbatical plan ironically i have yet to read the book i originally went looking for nadim nassar has written a previous book called the culture of god to which this is a bit of a follow up there were times particularly early in the book when it might have been helpful to have read that first one to know what nassar means by the phrase culture of god as he tends to use it assuming that foreknowledge but with time i was able to pick up where he was going with it the book as a whole is as one might expect from the title very christ centered nassar is pushing the reader to find how we can best share the encounter with jesus on a digital world within that discussion he talks about the centrality of communication as a building block of community he also takes time to talk about the cultural clash we find in a digital world i found his suggestion that the onset of digital globalization has brought about culture clash at a speed that was not known with slower and earlier forms of communication and cultural change quite intriguing still the reality that how we communicate the old story in a new world is a central point of being the church in a digital world is inescapable as he says at one point because christianity is about knowing the risen living christ the church has the responsibility in every generation and in different cultures to reinterpret the timeless revelation in christ for its time and place p 30 this quote reminds me if the united church of canada understanding that each generation needs to restate the gospel which is why we have a succession of statements of faith i found that nassar does a good job of naming both the positive possibilities and the negative possibilities of technology as we move into the new world over and over he talks about what new communications are available to us but also that we can not let the technological relationship replace irl relationships this is important but at the same time i have to wonder at his suggestion later in the book that online relationships lack a reality that can only be found in person i wonder how this might sit with the debate during covid and following if online worship online church was real or just a stand in in the end this book did not quite fit my sabbatical goals quite as well as i thought it might but that does not mean it was not an important read in the topic area a big takeaway from it was the insistence that the way we measure our actions the thing that we allow to shape our actions needs to be the culture of god culture of trinity which is inherently relational culture of love technology may be one of the tools but it should not be the primary force that shapes us even if it can be a powerful force to shape us at a number of points i found myself thinking i need to remember this for a sermon even when the sermon was not going to be about the digital world for example creation time this fall posted by gord at 8 26 pm no comments email this blogthis share to x share to facebook share to pinterest labels sabbatical2026 books church life future technology theology tuesday june 02 2026 book review tweet if you jesus practicing church in the digital reformation tweet if you jesus practicing church in the digital reformation by elizabeth dres c her 2011 morehouse publishing 190 pages fourteen years ago standing at a presbytery book display i saw this book and picked it up never really got into it at the time but gave it another crack this month drescher uses this book to both explain what she sees happening in this new reformation and share thoughts about how the mainline church might be best able to move into the new way of being based on her understanding of how social media works she suggests that the mainline protestant church is better able to adapt to new communication patterns in the digital reformation social media than other forms of church the model that drescher starts with is to talk about what she terms habitus a term used to describe a model of understanding and being in the world this is similar to a rule of life but a more complete thing than that early in the book she talks about how this habitus has changed from medieval to modern to current eras habitus she says is resistant to change but also evolves over time one of the questions she raises pushes us to look closely at what our habitus is as habitus evolves and a new paradigm takes over it raises questions about authority something we can see happening in the development of the digital age one of the things dresher seems to see in this new paradigm is the idea that some of the ancient pre modern ways of approaching storytelling and h ma become more relevant in the new social media age she talks about interactivity and visual imagery as examples she suggests that boradcast media particularly in the last half of the 20 th century was much more spectator based than the new way of corresponding she suggests that mainline churches being less focussed on a charismatic leader ove the community as a whole may be well suited to make use of those ideas all of what drescher has to say in this book really is about communication and how we do it well or poorly how we mightdo it well using new tools and models is the discussion churches need to have it is not about the technology it is not about making use of all the flashy bells and whistles it is the how rather than the what that takes precedence at one point she does lead the reader to ponder what might jesus tweet pointing out that jesus makes use of the communication styles of his day she also discusses more than once the challenge that the digital reformation might encourage more vicarious participation and lessen incentive of irl participation this certainly has been a discussion as more churches have moved to streaming worship services drescher raises some very good points about how life in the church might look in what she terms the digital reformation she raises the image of dispersed authority and less reliance on charismatic leaders repeatedly this brought to mind phyllis tickle s book the great emergence and made me ponder of maybe the digital reformation is part of what tickle would call the church s next great rummage sale at the same time drescher seems more optimistic about how the digital reformation and social media in general will play out in society looking at how things like facebook and twitter x have actually developed over the last 15 years makes me wonder if that optimism was accurate social media has indeed democratized sources of authority and information but has that really been a good thing has it diminished the role of the charismatic voice or emboldened and empowered it this is a good read drescher raises important questions each chapter ends with some questions for reflection she challenges the church to seriously engage in this new world it is not a book of how to use specific tools it is a book calling us to reflect on how we will be in the new world and the last chapter does include some suggestions for building a digital rule of life the church perhaps especially the mainline protestant roman catholic and orthodox branches of it does not have a great history of adapting to new ways of being church but when the world changes we have no choice i close with two things from the conclusion of the book one is this quote if we update practices that have served us reasonably well for some two thousand years i do believe we will be able to enrich relationships and build communities that will allow us to more generously live out the commitments of our faith p 181 the other is this question asked almost at the end of the book is the digital reformation the end of the church the beginning of a new way of being the church both p 181 only time will tell and the answer will in part depend on us posted by gord at 7 37 pm no comments email this blogthis share to x share to facebook share to pinterest labels sabbatical2026 church life future technology theology tuesday may 26 2026 book review theology in a digital world theology in a digital world by david lochhead 1988 ucph 95 pages this piece by the late david lochhead 1936 1999 https grokipedia com page david_lochhead united church minister theologian and professor is part of the early discussions of the role of computers in the life of the church written in the early days of personal and home computing and the very early days computer networks it is ahead of its time in 1988 many of us had barely even used a computer and when we had it was not to communicate with others it was for word processing or spreadsheets or games there were some early adopters who had been playing with programming for much of the 1980 s and those of us who went to see the movie war games 1983 knew that it was possible for computers to connect across the miles though that was in a setting that was both comedic and terrifying at the same time lochhead was an early adopter he was part of early networks like uchug and ecunet and saw the potential for what these new possibilities he calls the computer a possibility machine could mean for the church he also saw the need to give thought to how these changes needed to be intentional and would change the church still he is very positive on what he sees coming each of the book s 6 chapters is something that was first prepared for another purpose public lectures worskshops addresses at conferences the earliest dates back to 1984 which means it truly was ahead of it s time in 1984 the only computers i had seen in person were school machines with green screens and only operated using commands menu driven machines were yet to hit the market as such there is some repetition of themes and comments over the course of the book lochhead talks about how the computer changes communication patterns looks at some of the theological questions that this new technology brings up a...