What's that? Worry about the Sunday Bulletin?

Religion Meets 21st Century Media
By John Spangler

When I offer communication primers, guest presentations in classes here or there, I often like to make the point that "Its not always high tech."  Among the several guests who were linked to the Religion and Media classroom this week was the Rev. Elise Brown, pastor of Advent Lutheran Church on the Upper West Side of New York City's Manhattan borough. She said that the look and feel of the Sunday morning bulletin reflects the self esteem of the congregation. This simple point resonated within the class, so much so that I would guess that it is one of those very true and yet very neglected aspects of regular parish activity.

Recent graduate John Wolf spotted the comment on facebook and responded with a brief video (http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=10151513168020561) demonstrating the ability of a congregation that projects information on the worship space's wall to avoid printing such a bulletin.

Nevertheless, my guess is that more than 90% of congregations are still printing something for distribution for its primary gathering times, and most of them include notes and calendar items that they wish to be useful after one returns home.

Bulletins that interpret and guide people through worship may be seen as "low tech," but are aesthetically important and signify things about a ministry beyond the worship order or the seven days ahead. And in fact, require some technological and design skills to make good use of the current tool box. Desktop publishing changed bulletin printing a long time ago, and for the good. In my first call, the volunteer printing bulletins and news letters "donated" lots of dress shirts to the dumpster because the mimeograph was spreading ink all over him in collateral printing.

I suspect strongly that the "Sunday bulletin" is still the most read publication in the life of the church. Care for the primary guide and announcement tool for congregational use will be around for at least a little while longer. And if it is a barometer of self esteem, a sign of confidence and purpose, and a subliminal source of identity and messaging, then it is time and energy well spent to make sure it is doing its work. Let the bulletin be as effective as all the other forms of preparation, communication and hospitality that your ministry's mission demands. More than we know, it may even reflect upon the credibility of the experience, if not the message itself. What would a visitor conclude about the self esteem level of your congregation?

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Vocational Choices a Century Apart

Religion Meets 21st Century Media -- Day 3

by John Spangler

Last evening, the Religion Meets 21st Century Media class watched the film Network, which tells the unseemly story about the dramatic origins of Mark Zuckerman's Facebook. It is a work filled with poetic license taken by the screenwriter Aaron Sorkin (West Wing fame). Zuckerman created the phenomenon known and identified among fellow students as the major platform for social media. But since it began as a student facebook for the purpose of enhancing "social life," it is filled with cringe inducing portrayals of undergraduate women, ivy league privilege, and for that matter, "dot com" culture.

An hour later, I was encountering media again, this time a PBS American Experience opener on The Abolitionists. In this 150th anniversary year of the great Battle that overtook the seminary grounds, I've been quite interested in aspects of the Civil War that intersected with the anti slavery advocacy and preaching of Gettysburg Seminary founder Samuel Simon Schmucker. Moreover, slavery and abolition represents another current among my present set of project priorities, culminating in the creation of the Seminary Ridge Museum (www.seminaryridgemuseum.org ) in the Seminary's historic, oldest building. This museum exhibit includes the 19th century dynamic of the way slavery was tearing the church's apart as it was the nation. The PBS program on the Abolitionists introduced William Lloyd Garrison as a 20 year old young man trying to find a purpose which would give his life's work meaning. Garrison chose Abolitionism, and specifically the publication of an Abolitionist newspaper.

Two young adults, about 20 years of age, finding a purpose that centered on communication platforms. One was driven by the cause of the injustice of slavery, the other by a complicated social revenge. One was threatened by society around him for his radical commitments to eliminated the economic and social structure of slavery. The other was the object of law suits by business partners and competitive fellow students. One was a "Gutenberger," the other a "digital native." 

Garrison stirred the pot in both northern and southern United States, and helped build momentum to end the institution of human enslavement left over from the nation's beginnings and often called its "original sin." Zuckerman created a system of communication that has become instrumental in the liberation movements in China and the Arab spring, as well as an identifiable place where young people spend a lot of digital time. In this class, students, including veteran pastors and seminarians pursuing ordination fill the room with observations, cases and examples in which the social media medium is a place where ministry can and does take place. I wonder what would have happened if William Garrison had the platform of facebook or if Mark Zuckerman had taken on the passion of the cause of ending slavery. That might also make a good movie.  

Assembling the People of God -- And New Media

A blog entry by John Spangler from the course "Religion Meets 21st Century Media"
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From January 7-11, 2013, 17 learners, plus addtional experts from across the country are participating in an intensive course: Religion Meets 21st Century Media at Gettysburg Seminary

For a long time, I have defined the church’s first task and mission as that of gathering. Communication has been very much a part of that assembly, call to assemble, and the shape of the transcendent sense of what the dispersed, diverse church is that gathers as one, but in many
places. Guest presenter (via skype) Verity Jones of the New Media Project identified gathering as an important part of the gift and scope of new media. I agree, and believe that this is one of those cases in which new media is a ready tool to apply to helping the ministry of gathering. And I appreciate her pastoral sense of the tools of ministry, and her ability to move between old and new with grace and elegant style.

People are connecting through new media. Nothing really new there. They are being empowered to respond to large and pervasive societal and social questions. “Liberative” is a word she used where I might have said “liberating,” but the point is a strong one. As Christians, we ask the tough questions driven by the content of the gospel: are the words/stories/song liberating people from oppression, freeing people from that which binds them? Newer media in ministry seems to be helping the cause when it emerges naturally from the leadership of the congregation, seen and accepted as a natural extention of a coherent ministry.

The church still gathers, but the way in which it does so is part of what is changing. As a Lutheran, I hear the echo in the catechism’s explanation of the third article of the creed, in which Martin Luther reminds us that we 'cannot by our own understanding or strength believe in Jesus Christ or come to him, but instead the Holy Spirit has called me through the gospel, enlightended me...made me holy....' So we are called, contacted, invited to be in touch in new places and spaces often created by new media function.

Here is an example: The Seminary's Board Chair, a veteran pastor serving an interim ministry in a very large congregation, used facebook this week to explore an idea for his sermon.

"When we allow ourselves to see and hear in the midst of the noise in our heads and the busyness of our lives, maybe we will discover the Holy where the Holy always is: in the moments of silence that speak louder than thunder in our souls . . . in the right word spoken at the right time that touches the heart with healing; in joy of human laughter." (sermon thought for sunday)

One of several comments came in response: "I look forward to your sermon teasers. Glad they are back! Your words always make me think extra hard."

This exercise works on at least a couple of levels. A pastor gets the opportunity to prime the pump among those listening to his or her listeners, who begin to think about this word of God outside the 15 minutes of a sermon. And secondly, the preacher can listen to the way an idea lands in the lives of those people attached to a living community. Win win. Facebook created a space for ministry.

www.ltsg.edu/religionandmedia