Church of England Releases New ‘Ten Commandments’ For The Internet Age

From England-

These commandments were written on a very different type of tablet.

It can be hard navigating the modern world of social media, but thankfully the most modern of organisations The Church of England has decided to step in and help out.

The original Ten Commandments that Moses brought down from Mt Sinai were so helpful in reminding us important lessons like “Thou shalt not murder” and what we should and should not covet.

But those old stone tablet commandments don’t really apply to our online world so we really need some modern twists. Surely, God could speak to a modern Moses and tell him things like ‘Thou shalt not DM an ex after midnight’.

The Church of England have asked Anglicans to pledge to the following online community guidelines, and while it’s not exactly the online ten commandments (because, for one, there are only nine of them), it’s as close as we’re going to get.

More here-

https://10daily.com.au/shows/theproject/comedy/a190702mvncb/church-of-england-release-new-ten-commandments-for-the-internet-age-20190702

Smartphone users warned to be careful of the Antichrist

From The BBC-

People's dependence on smartphones and modern technology could bring about the coming of the Antichrist, the leader of the Russian Orthodox Church has warned.

Russian social media users largely responded with humour and scepticism, while some accused the Church of "serving the regime".

Speaking to Russian state TV, Patriarch Kirill said smartphone users should be careful when using the "worldwide web of gadgets" because it represented "an opportunity to gain global control over mankind".

"The Antichrist is the person who will be at the head of the worldwide web, controlling all of humankind," he said.

More here-

https://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-trending-46794556?SThisFB&fbclid=IwAR203WOXP9O6IMAnfgrv1gHNAL2oEk9Gf-xFNmNbn3KOdZc4Vl9lQT-vee0

St Mary's Cathedral defends credit card compatible collection plates

From Australia-

Sydney's St Mary's Cathedral calls it a necessary step into the 21st century, but not everyone thinks the introduction of credit card compatible collection plates is a righteous move.

As of last weekend, parishioners can now tap-and-go a flat $10 donation when the collection plate is passed around at the cathedral's public services.

It's a trial of a system already in place at St Paul's Anglican Cathedral in Melbourne, according to St Mary’s Cathedral precinct general manager Helen Morassut – and a response to being "continually asked for alternative ways to donate".

Despite the apparent demand for the plates, the response on the cathedral's Facebook page to its announcement the new technology had arrived was so overwhelmingly negative, the post was removed.

More here-

https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/st-mary-s-cathedral-defends-credit-card-compatible-collection-plates-20180927-p506ig.html

Many Church Services Are Now a Sea of iPhones. And Clergy Members Think That’s Great.

From Slate-

The rousing sermon by Episcopal Bishop Michael Curry delivered at the royal wedding a few weeks ago drew notice around the world for its energy, its very American style, and its subtly radical message of liberating love. But there was something else about Curry’s sermon that stuck out to some viewers: He read it from the podium on what appeared to be an iPad.

It felt somewhat jarring to see a cool slab of 21^st-century technology in a 14^th-century Gothic chapel. But it shouldn’t have. Cellphones and other devices are increasingly common sights in Sunday-morning worship services, both in the pews and on the podium. It’s not just that churches are relying on technology in the same way that other large organizations do—snazzy websites, donations via app, and so on. The bigger change is that personal devices are increasingly part of services themselves, in ways both planned and unplanned.

More here-

https://slate.com/human-interest/2018/06/many-church-services-are-now-a-sea-of-iphones-and-clergy-members-think-thats-great.html 

UK to use medieval church spires to boost digital connectivity

From CNBC-

The U.K. government has signed an agreement with the Church of England that will see church spires across the country used to improve digital connectivity in rural areas.

The accord was signed by the National Church Institutions of the Church of England, the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) and the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.

It encourages the Church of England to uses its buildings and properties to boost mobile, WiFi and broadband connectivity for communities. The British government said that 65 percent of Anglican churches were in rural areas and that their locations, often in the center of communities, meant they were "well placed" to help solve problems surrounding connectivity and coverage.

More here-

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/02/19/uk-to-use-medieval-church-spires-to-boost-digital-connectivity.html

and here-

https://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/3026887/uk-gov-prays-church-of-england-deal-will-help-boost-rural-broadband-coverage

This church has faith in Amazon: Tech giant’s HQ2 could help ‘make Pittsburgh alive again’

From Geek Wire-

The stunning 14-foot cross suspended above the altar at Trinity Episcopal Cathedral was constructed of steel, glass and aluminum in the 1960s, symbolizing the city’s major industries of the time.

Given Pittsburgh’s new industry, maybe it’s time to add a layer of silicon chips?

“I’ll bring that up,” joked William Kaiser, Trinity Cathedral’s 81-year-old docent, laughing at my suggestion during a tour of the 146-year-old building in downtown Pittsburgh after Holy Eucharist on Sunday morning.

The rise of technology played a key role in Pittsburgh’s resurrection following the decline of the once-booming U.S. steel industry. Now the focus of the region is turning to Amazon’s $5 billion second headquarters, an unprecedented corporate prize that promises to bring 50,000 employees to the winning city.

When it comes to its Amazon bid, Pittsburgh is dealing with plenty of non-believers. Sizing up the Rust Belt city against Amazon’s request for proposals, many skeptics think Pittsburgh doesn’t have a prayer in the competition, despite its status among the 20 finalists for Amazon’s HQ2.

O ye of little faith.

“Amazon coming will make Pittsburgh alive again,” said The Very Rev. Scott Quinn, a Pittsburgh native, speaking like someone with an inside track on the outcome, when asked Amazon HQ2 during coffee hour on Sunday.

More here-

https://www.geekwire.com/2018/church-faith-amazon-tech-giants-hq2-help-make-pittsburgh-alive/

Sometimes we need quiet time

From New York-

It is one thing to be at a family dinner table and everyone is excitedly talking at the same time, but it is altogether more annoying if it is a meeting and in every direction people are simultaneously exchanging thoughts and opinions. Isn’t that what we’ve come to in our culture?

We are entangled in an unending strand of multi-phonic, simultaneous communications shouting at us via text, cell phone, computer, twitter, snap chat, and even old-school television, radio and telephone. This becomes painfully clear when the person sending a text or email wonders what took us so long if we didn’t answer immediately. Worse yet is when we are the one who has become impatient for the same reason.

I don’t want to sound like a curmudgeonly Luddite, but sending an electronic communication seems to have become tantamount to being present with them and demanding a person’s full attention. If I were to receive a phone call at my house (yes, I still have a land line) at dinnertime, there is a pretty good chance I would not answer it until after dinner unless it was one of my kids. That does not seem unreasonable, and you may have the same protocol. Why then, should we allow texting or anything else to be more intrusive? Why feel compelled to read it or answer it immediately?

More here-

http://www.fltimes.com/opinion/denim-spirit-sometimes-we-need-quiet-time/article_923526d4-19fe-11e7-917a-53f6ce0f7eaf.html

Christians Turn To Podcasts To Say Things They Can't Say In Church

From NPR-

Toby Morrell curses and talks about sex on his podcast. Mike McHargue talks about evolution and LGBTQ issues on his. These things would be typical on most podcasts — but McHargue and Morrell's audiences are almost entirely Christian.

A study by the Pew Research Center, released in 2015, shows that millennials have been leaving Catholic and mainline Protestant churches in droves from at least 2007 but they don't necessarily lose their belief in God. In fact, more than half say they're still religious or spiritual.

That's the type of audience that's tuning in to McHargue's podcast The Liturgists and Morrell's podcast Bad Christian.The Liturgists has about 1 million downloads a month for some episodes and according to its Website, 250,000 subscribers.

Bad Christian is sponsored by a few corporations not generally known for their religious affiliations. Among them are Lyft, Casper, Stamps.com.

More here-

http://www.npr.org/2017/03/05/518644045/christians-go-to-podcasts-to-say-things-they-cant-say-in-church

Oklahoma Episcopal diocese launches new mobile app

From Oklahoma-

In the Episcopal Diocese of Oklahoma, mission and ministry appear in many forms.

This includes the Teacher's Toolbox at All Saints' Episcopal Church in Miami, OK, which provides a school supplies bank to support local teachers, and a disaster response team at St. Christopher's Episcopal Church in Midwest City, which serves those affected by disasters with its on-the-go-trailer.

All Saints' Episcopal Church in Duncan's Food for the Poor program, which collects and donates supplies to help support their neighbors who have fallen on challenging times, is another example of the helpful ministries happening every day in Oklahoma.
More here-

http://newsok.com/article/5539949

Technology updates pipe organs, but not without controversy

From Boston-

 Doug Marshall wasn’t thrilled with what he heard.

Seated at a makeshift desk at St. Matthew’s Episcopal Church, the organ maker ascended the keys of a plastic keyboard he’d propped on a pew to his side. A laptop glowed before him. But the real object of his attention stood by the altar: Opus 10, his newly minted digital organ with four keyboards, a gleaming shell of burnished wood, and the full sonic force, filigree, and thunder of 9,000 pipes — all without a pipe to be found.

Along with his business partner, David Ogletree, Marshall had been at work on the instrument for more than a year, their crew soldering components, wiring circuitry, and fine-tuning software. All told, the organ boasted more than 6 miles of wire, 72 speakers, and 18,000 watts of power. Now, as Marshall sat in St. Matthew’s 19th-century nave, their work was nearing completion: Opus 10 (the 10th instrument they’ve built together) would finally — finally! — receive its voice.

More here-

https://www.bostonglobe.com/arts/2015/10/03/needhamorgans/bCve3SZd9fa4mBmxaInyJI/story.html

“Because Cotillions!” & Other Episcopal #AutoCorrect Fails

From Patheos-

Like most folks, I do a lot of things while I’m doing a lot of other things.

As primarily a stay-at-home dad right now, it often means that I make notes while I’m doing dishes, cleaning rooms, folding clothes, or ferrying kids to and from summer activities or camps.

Typically, Apple’s speech-to-text software is pretty spot on. It gets most things right.
But frustratingly — for an Episcopal priest — it tends to get one word unfailingly  and hilariously wrong.

Episcopal, apparently, isn’t in Apple’s lexicon of oft-texted words. Neither is Episcopal Church or Episcopalian for that matter.

So in order to blunt my frustration of SCREAMING ‘EPISCOPAL’ AT THE TOP OF MY LUNGS AT MY PHONE FOR THE SEVENTEENTH TIME while composing an eight-word tweet, I decided to make a list of all the terrible ways my iPhone autocorrects variations of the word “Episcopal.”

More here-

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/davidhenson/2015/07/because-cotillions-other-episcopal-autocorrect-fails/

What happened to online churches?

From Christian Today (Not sure if this is a parody or not)-

I'm outside the cathedral having a few problems with my body. Currently it's a white cloud, which is far from optimum when it comes to meeting new people. To be fair, the wistful freedom of this stratocumulus form has its charms and I do feel a strong desire to float high o'er a few hills and vales, but interviewing people when you can't keep eye contact – due to having no discernible appendages – lacks professionalism.

The reason for my corporeal difficulties turns out to be age-related. It's been several years since I last set foot on Epiphany Island, an online virtual world which is home to the Anglican Cathedral of Second Life, and in that time the template for my previous incarnation has been deleted and replaced with shinier, new upgrades. If having a mid-life crisis in real life wasn't bad enough, now fictional versions of myself are deemed substandard. This wasn't the welcome I'd hoped for. Thankfully the contact I'm meeting is used to these kind of problems.

"There's one person who attends the Cathedral who I've only seen as a non-cloud once," says Helene Milena, Lay Pastor at the Cathedral. In fact this isn't even the most unusual avatar likely to be here today. "We used to have a hippo that worshipped with us quite a lot," says Helene, "the church warden's a mermaid...and another regular's favourite avatar is a parrot. There's a perch over there, that's for him."

More here-

http://www.christiantoday.com/article/what.happened.to.online.churches/54701.htm

Plans grow to put WiFi in every church

From The Church Times-

THE Church of England's Buildings Division has backed a plan to fit all of the C of E's 16,000 churches with WiFi internet access.

The director of the Cathedral and Churches Buildings Division, Janet Gough, said in a statement on Tuesday that the Church was ideally placed to build up a national network.

"We will be talking with those involved to explore how to build on the existing projects, such as the diocese of Norwich's WiSpire programme, and the provision of free WiFi for all visitors at individual cathedrals such as Chester, Canterbury, Ely, and Liverpool, to link up and expand WiFi coverage countrywide."

More here-

http://www.churchtimes.co.uk/articles/2015/9-january/news/uk/plans-grow-to-put-wifi-in-every-church

Pastors Who Podcast

From Slate-

In 1921, Scientific American published a story titled “A New Era in Wireless,” reporting that radio was no longer just for experts and tinkerers, but had spread to the masses. In Pittsburgh, the magazine reported, Calvary Episcopal Church was broadcasting a full church service every Sunday. “Think what this means to many people: the invalid, unable to go to church can enjoy its benefits without leaving his bed or wheel chair; the farmer, too far from town to go to church has the service brought to him; and the sick in the hospital are encouraged to get well by the wonderful words of the preacher,” the reporter gushed. “One can almost imagine being in church.”

More here-

http://www.slate.com/articles/life/ten_years_in_your_ears/2014/12/religious_podcasts_are_christian_podcasts_replacing_church.html

The rise and fall of AM radio

From Pittsburgh-

Two months later, according to KDKA sources, a live broadcast from Calvary Episcopal Church in Shadyside became the world's first regularly scheduled church service and the first remote pickup.
In the choir loft were Westinghouse engineers -- one of them Jewish, another Catholic -- dressed in surplices for anonymity.

Edwin Jan van Etten, rector of Calvary, was quoted as saying, "Even now, as I think of their presence there, it seems to me that they symbolize the real universality of radio religion."
Early adopters listened to radio broadcasts via fairly complicated receiver units sold by Westinghouse for $65 to $125. But home use really took off in 1921 when KDKA designed a small (6 inches by 6 inches by 7 inches) wooden box housing a crystal set.


Read more:

http://www.post-gazette.com/stories/ae/tv-radio/the-rise-and-fall-of-am-radio-707433/#ixzz2hb7Z8dee

Online Communion? Methodist Church Debates Offering Virtual Service

From Huffington-

As online worship becomes more common in some churches, leaders within the United Methodist Church are debating whether the denomination should condone online Communion.

About 30 denominational leaders met last week after Central United Methodist Church in Concord, N.C., announced plans to launch an online campus that potentially would offer online Communion. Some nondenominational churches already offer online Communion, according to United Methodist News Service, but leaders urged the denomination’s bishops to call for a moratorium on the practice and do further study of online ministries.

The majority of the leaders agreed with the statement that Communion “entails the actual tactile sharing of bread and wine in a service that involves people corporeally together in the same place.” Not everyone, however, agreed that congregants must be in the same place.

More here-

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/10/11/online-communion-methodist-debate_n_4084854.html?utm_hp_ref=religion&ir=Religion

iPhones, Social Media In Church Presents Opportunities And Challenges To Pastors

From RNS (via Huffington)

Tyler Woolstenhulme might be loath to admit it, but sometimes he’s not paying attention in church. He will happily confess that he’s not the only one.

The 31-year-old Mormon has more than once sat in the pew of his congregation in Sandy, Utah, and let his mind wander. When that happens, he pulls out his iPhone and sometimes plays his puzzle game, “1to50.” Or maybe he texts his friends across the aisle.

“I take the time in church to catch up with people I haven’t contacted in a while,” he said. “I text friends or family.”

The thing is, he says, about half the congregation also is on phones and tablets during a sermon.

“I see people play games all the time. I’ve seen them watch football games,” he said about other congregants and their mobile devices.

For many bored churchgoers, fiddling with smartphones or computer tablets is the 21st-century equivalent of playing tic-tack-toe or dozing off during services.

It can be a problem particularly with younger members, the first generation to know no life without cellphones or social networks and with whom digital devices are “like an appendage to their body,” said Colleen Gudreau, spokeswoman for the Catholic Diocese of Salt Lake City. “They don’t see it in the same context as the adults do.”

More here-

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/08/19/phones-in-church_n_3781132.html

Texas: ‘Please use your cell phone,’ says rector in service

From ENS-

Upon entering a church, we are all accustomed to the signs asking us to turn our cell phones off or on silent, but one church turned that conventional wisdom on its head. On Sunday, leaders at St. Andrew’s, Pearland, asked congregants to “Please use your cell phone.”

For weeks leading up to the event, dubbed “Bring Your Cell Phone to Church Sunday,” St. Andrew’s leaders encouraged everyone to bring their cell phones and take photos of the service. Their e-mail newsletter read, “Take at least one photo of our worship and post it on Twitter and/or Facebook and/or your Pinterest account.”

“We are just trying to find ways where people are comfortable inviting friends, and so we thought this would be a good way of doing it,” said rector, the Rev. Jim Liberatore.

Liberatore encouraged the congregation to post photos or status updates that referred back to the church’s Facebook page, Twitter, Instagram, or Pinterest account. Liberatore said it was hard to tell exactly how many people mentioned St. Andrew’s in social media on Sunday, but the parishioners were excited, including those who attend the more traditional 8 a.m. service.

More here-

http://episcopaldigitalnetwork.com/ens/2013/03/07/texas-please-use-your-cell-phone-says-rector-in-service/

Episcopal minister Christopher Carlisle uses technology to knit together small communities of faith

From Western Massachusetts -

A new ministry of the Episcopal Diocese of Western Massachusetts is described as "an eclectic expression of church that is as cutting edge as the moment and as ancient as first-century Palestine."

The ministry, Clearstory Collective, says it seeks to reach out to college students and other young adults, homeless and otherwise marginalized people of faith who have become disaffected by the institutional church and who seek informal and often spontaneous faith communities. It is doing so through technology.

However, the collective is conceived to be more than email communication. Containing blogs, descriptions of the various communities comprised of photographs, video clips and radio interviews as well as key people and community contacts, the churched and unchurched alike can become and remain connected to these communities and their members.

More here-

http://www.masslive.com/living/index.ssf/2012/12/episcopal_minister_christopher_carlisle_uses_technology_to_create_knit_together_small_communities_of.html

Churches use technology to build flock

From Houston-

There's something very fitting, the Rev. Steve Wells said, about the use of technology to further a church's outreach.

"What's astounding to me about Christianity is God came to us," said Wells, pastor of South Main Baptist Church, 4100 Main St. "One of the things technology lets us do as a church is come to people where they are."

Well-chosen technology can be of tremendous benefit to churches and the people they serve, said Jen Frazier, director of communications for Christ Church Cathedral, an Episcopal church at 1117 Texas Ave.

"It can facilitate the church community's interaction with one another and with the world," she said.

More here-

http://www.chron.com/bellaire/news/article/Churches-use-technology-to-build-flock-3821805.php