Discussion seminar prepared for The Retreat Association Conference (http://www.retreats.org.uk/conference2015.html) .

1. +
Experiencing God in a Digital Age
Dr Bex Lewis
Director, Digital Fingerprint
Research Fellow in Social Media and Online Learning, CODEC Centre for
Digital Theology, Durham University
June 2015 for The Retreat Association
http://www.slideshare.net/drbexl/experiencing-god-in-a-digital-age
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International

2. +
Session Overview
 Intros
 21st Century: A digital age
 24/7 Discipleship
 ‘Reality’ of online experiences
 Experiencing God in digital spaces
 Worship
 Creativity
 Relationship Building
 Healthy Boundaries

3. +
Introductions

4. Introducing
Dr Bex Lewis
Research Fellow in Social Media
& Online Learning
CODEC, St John’s College, Durham
Director, Digital Fingerprint
T: @drbexl
F: /drbexl
W: drbexl.co.uk

6. + 21st Century: A Digital
Age

7. +
Martha Lane-Fox, 2015
The internet is the
organising principle of
our age, touching all our
lives, every day. As the
late activist Aaron
Swartz put it, “It’s not
OK not to understand
the internet anymore”.
http://www.doteveryone.org.uk/

8. http://youtu.be/jottDMuLesU

9. +
"If you want to build a presence in the social media
platform, then you need to be present."
- @unmarketing

10. https://twitter.com/hanelly/status/405754162555944960/photo/1

11. https://twitter.com/LeistCatalano/status/473076349394255872/photo/1

12. Even though in practice, face-to-face
communication can, of course, be
angry, negligent, resistant, deceitful
and inflexible, somehow it remains
the ideal against which mediated
communication is judged as flawed.
Prof Sonia Livingstone, Children and the Internet:
Great Expectations and Challenging Realities. 2009,
p26

13. +
https://youtu.be/-bnYpCiwV2Q

14. +
24/7 Discipleship
Image Source: http://chainsawsuit.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/201208081.png

15. +
https://youtu.be/7eQ7D-A00Bw

16. + [If we are…] means by which
God communicates and reveals
himself through his Spirit, then
our blog posts, status updates,
tweets, artistic images, and
online comments should be
products of a life transformed by
Christ and indwelled by his Spirit.
As restored image bearers, our
online presence and activity
should image the Triune God.
Byers, A.
Theomedia
(2013, 196)

17. +
“No life of faith can be lived
privately. There must be
overflow into the lives of
others.” C.S. Lewis
H/T @jaybutcher

18. +
‘Reality’ of online

19. + https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Rom
ans+12:1&version=MSG

20. +
A good [wo]man brings good things out of
the good stored up in his/her heart, and
an evil [wo]man brings evil things out of
the evil stored up in his/her heart. For the
mouth speaks what the heart is full of.
Luke 6:45 (New International Version)

21. +
24/7 Values?
What do you stand FOR?
 Authentic – be a consistent ‘you’
 Transparent – be honest, where’s the source?
 Self-aware – note your ‘tone of voice’
 Integrity – own your own content
 Self-control – be aware of consequences
 Patience – hold the trigger finger before send
 Non-manipulative – ‘love Jesus’ = send this! No!
 Kindness – encourage others

22. + Experiencing God in
Digital Spaces

23. +
Worship

24. +
John Ortberg
“I need to worship because without it I can forget
that I have a Big God beside me and live in fear. I
need to worship because without it I can forget his
calling and begin to live in a spirit of self-
preoccupation. I need to worship because without
it I lose a sense of wonder and gratitude and plod
through life with blinders on. I need worship
because my natural tendency is toward self-
reliance and stubborn independence.”

25. +
Digital Worship?
Illustration by @Mattart1Art

26. +
@drbexl

27. +
Creativity

28. +
Relationship Building
It is also a motivating factor for us as believers while
we are still living here on earth. We are to look for any
opportunity, whether it be an open door to sharing, or
initiating a conversation to begin to open a door. As
long as there are broken lives, Jesus will be sending
His Spirit to bring strength, health, love, wisdom,
peace, joy, self-control, faithfulness, and unity
Cris Rogers, Immeasurably More (2015) p217

29. +

30. +
Healthy Boundaries

31. +
Taking the Pulse…
@drbexl

32. +
“The means by which we live
have outdistanced the ends
for which we live. Our
scientific power has outrun
our spiritual power. We have
guided missiles and
misguided men.”
Dr Martin Luther King, Jr
@drbexl

33. +
Dodgy Health Information
A fifteen-year-old girl tries to diet but finds herself bingeing soon
afterwards. Ashamed, and even more concerned about how this
will affect her weight, she searches for help online, but finds a
“pro-mia” website. Or a fifty-three-year-old man, faced with
redundancy, wonders how he will manage without his work and
income. Too ashamed to talk to his wife or his GP, he enters a
forum for those suffering from depression, but instead of support,
he finds aggressive interactions and accounts of self-harm.
Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust, 2011
@drbexl

34. +
“As young people develop their identities
they need guidance and support,
particularly from the significant adults in
their lives. The behaviour that those
adults model, whether it’s with regard to
digital technologies or great historical
events such as the Holocaust, or even in
the way the cleaner is treated, is important
in helping children define their own identity,
values, and attitudes.”
Raising Children in a Digital Age, p.101
@drbexl

35. +
(Work) Boundaries
 Expectations of your availability: not NOW
 Journaling your habits
 Working at home: a dedicated ‘work space’?
 Buzzing with ideas? Note it down & move on
 Disable push notifications
 Create separate user profiles in Chrome:
https://support.google.com/chrome/answer/2364824?hl=en
@drbexl

36. +
Time Stewardship?
@drbexl

37. +
“Accept some of your own limits today –
not out of laziness or fear, but out of
contentment and assurance”
Brian Draper, Lent E-Mail Series, 2015
http://briandraper.org/engage
Image Credit: Purchased from Stockfresh

38. +
http://www.emotionallyhealthy.org/

39. +
Spiritual Disciplines?
“Jesus sets an example for us of
how to boost our spiritual health. He
engaged in spiritual disciplines such
as solitude, silence, service, study,
prayer, worship and fasting.”
@drbexl

40. +
Taking time out..
“It's about family togetherness,
personal growth and development, and
being masters over our environment -
rather than enabling our fast-moving,
sophisticated world and electronic
equipment to dominate us.”
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-29751577
Chief Rabbi
Ephraim
Mirvis
speaking of
‘Shabbat UK’,
October 2014
@drbexl

41. +
Conversation
“The epiphany for me was that I’d
become a terrific broadcaster and a
terrible communicator…. There was
an awful lot of telling going on and
not a lot of listening”
Daniel Sieberg, The Digital Diet, 2011,
p.26
@drbexl

42. +
WISDOM!
Image Source: RGB Stock

43. +
@drbexl @codecuk