New Media Project one-day conference in November

By Verity A. Jones

We are pleased to announce a public, free one-day conference at Union Theological Seminary—Digital Church: Theology and New Media on Monday, November 5, 2012. The conference will showcase the work of the New Media Project over the last two years and invite more conversation about how to think theologically about new media and social media in the context of ministry today.

It’ll be a great day. We hope you will come.

We’ll begin with several guests from our case studies—Eugene Cho of Quest Church in Seattle, Tony Lee of Community of Hope AME Church near Washington, D.C., Eric Elnes of Community Christian Church UCC and Darkwood Brew, Susie Shafer of the Young Clergy Women Project, and John Weaver, Dean of Library Services and Educational Technology at Abilene Christian University in Texas, and formerly of Union Theological Seminary.

Next, our own New Media Research Fellows will respond and in the afternoon present their own theological essays that grew out of the case studies and conversations with the pastors and leaders of those sites. This will be super fun as we demonstrate how we’ve been thinking theologically about the changing patterns and tools of communication. We hope this will spur more thinking in the church and the academy on these important topics.

Two Union Theological Seminary faculty members—President Serene Jones and Professor John J. Thatamanil—will then respond to the Research Fellow presentations. What a treat it will be to engage their new ideas and scholarly perspectives on these questions.

Finally, our case study guests will end with the day with their last thoughts on all that has been shared.

The New Media Project, which is funded by a generous grant from Lilly Endowment Inc., has been hosted by Union Theological Seminary since 2010. Because I have recently accepted the position of Executive Director of the newly created Center for Pastoral Excellence at Christian Theological Seminary in Indianapolis, Indiana, the New Media Project has moved from Union to CTS. We are exceedingly grateful to Union for their partnership in launching this project and are pleased to host this transitioning conference in New York in November.

The event is free and open to the public, but we do ask you to register. Hope to see you there.

Verity A. Jones is the executive director of the Center for Pastoral Excellence at Christian Theological Seminary, Indianapolis, and project director of the New Media Project which is now part of this new Center.

The New Media Project is a research project helping religious leaders become theologically savvy about technology. To request permission to repost this content, please contact newmediaproject@cts.edu.