Imagining the Post-Digital Church

CDX Theory and Resources
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COVID-19 forced many churches to become more digital. Now, many churches are functioning with a “digital first” strategy: focusing on digital engagement as the primary means for communicating and communing. And this is likely to continue for the foreseeable future. In a post-pandemic future, will churches revert to a more pre-digital condition? Or will churches be transformed into something new and post-digital?

Chris Lim and Michael Paulus discuss the idea of the post-digital church in this video. What are your thought about a post-digital church?

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I watched this video and found it really fascinating. One thing that really struck me was about missions ending gracefully, recognizing that they are no longer really in sync with their surroundings… and that this a natural part of mission life cycles. I guess what we need to discern as participants and leaders is whether or not there is a path forward in our particular mission to embrace new pieces of the context… and also what the cost/benefit will be if it means we lose some of our previous mission foothold to pursue a new one.

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Hi Susan–Welcome to Seattle and the CDx discussion! This was a point I did not plan on surfacing, but I’m glad it came up. As you note, this is a natural part of lifecycles. Digital technologies accelerate these cycles for institutions, and you are right that we need to be thinking more about how institutions can die well. This is an ancient practice of the church, and death is something we need not fear.

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Thanks :slight_smile: I think that I saw this a lot where I lived previously (Bible belt): there was tendency in some bodies to resent culture moving forward and fall into bitterness. I see it connected to our larger tendency as humans to want a known, comfortable structure and sometimes choosing that over being transformed into something new in Christ. The need for digital resources is a really pointed expression of this; it’s a new lens uncovering a lot of our subconscious values and expectations about our communities and worship. May that the Spirit open our ears :slight_smile:

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