By Rev. Rick King

At Falcon Heights Church, we can trace many of our recent experiments and innovations back to the pandemic. One of the areas we didn’t think we’d be so involved in a few years ago is something called “digital ministry.” But the need to stay connected during the pandemic thrust us quickly into it—even when we didn’t really know what that was.

Churches like ours that never thought much about it now devote staffing and budget to digital ministry. Rev. Jim Keat of Riverside Church in NYC has been sharing a “theology of digital ministry” in a series of half-hour webinars he’s doing on all aspects of digital ministry.

Digital ministry enables us to go where people are who are not a part of a church. For many of them, their first point of contact with our church, or any church, is going to be online.

The first two elements of a theology of digital ministry are “Be flexible and mobile,” symbolized by a little Airstream trailer like the one Jim and his family take on camping trips and can set up pretty much anywhere; and “Be where people are,” symbolized by the Little Mermaid, who sings a song in the Disney movie about it.

The third and final element of a theology of digital ministry is “A shared experience.” It’s symbolized by a campfire—something around which people gather and tell stories, sing songs, laugh and cry together, and sometimes just sit silently together, hypnotized by the embers, flames, and smoke.

My wife, Linda, and I have some of our deepest, most wide-ranging conversations around the firepit in our back yard, talking about the future, our children, our struggles and triumphs. One of FHC’s most popular intergenerational events is the Epiphany party, which begins with eating and always ends with a fire in a firepit out on the patio in the snow and cold, and offering our hopes and dreams for the coming year, tied to sprigs of evergreen.

One of the main things about church is that we DO IT TOGETHER, not as solitary individuals. But “together” can mean different things: one is in person, the other is online. Both are important. Digital ministry has the capacity to provide shared experiences—worship, concerts, small-group meditation and Bible study, and as we saw in the middle of the pandemic, even a Christmas pageant. And these are just the beginning of a list of the many shared experiences people can participate in, online.

And the whole point of these things to gather around is what happens when people reflect on something, grow in knowledge, faith, and wisdom, and connect meaningfully with each other. I think we’ve just barely tapped the potential of digital ministry in our church to connect people through shared experiences.

How many different kinds of “campfires” have YOU experienced? How many online? In person? Both?