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Introduction:

New Challenges for the Church in New Media Forms

The Information Age we are entering is a supreme challenge for the theological community. We know that what we are facing is more than simply relaying information, but presenting that information in a way which sets it in a context of relevance to the user of that information. The Christian scriptures, along with the sacred books of other faiths, were an attempt to communicate key elements of faith to a widely dispersed audience. These writings are full of the diversity of expression which could be found in the people during those times when the writings were authored, collected, and dispersed among the faithful.

The technology of writing, the various materials for holding these writings, and ensuing technologies for copying and distributing these writings often brought with them great shifts in the roles of the common people in their faith communities. The Printing Press is often heralded as the single most significant of these shifts into new communication technologies. Some would say that the present "MTV generation" would represent a modern shift from text and books to video as the major mode of communication.

Today we see in print and on television the identification of a new, "Information Age". We see regional Bell companies scurrying to acquire Cable TV operators, and many program producing conglomerates buying up alternative media producers such as multimedia developers. It seems as though it is apparent to everyone in the business and media world that the face of communication and entertainment is about to change forever.

Just as the Churches in Luther and Gutenberg's day were able to build new movements through the wider availability of printed material, there are opportunities today for a more significant presence of the church in the mainstreams of the communications world.

Today's "marketplace" consists of "the digital data highway", where faster, more efficient means of communication and sharing of vital information is taking place. This is happening within organizations and between "information" services which provide a variety of database services and resources for upgrading the communication efforts of any organization.

We've already seen it happen in the world of publishing and writing as the word processor and desktop publishing software have made it simple for almost any organization to produce its own internal news with documents of quality appearance and style previously attainable only by professional printers.

More recently, correspondence has been shifting dramatically toward the use of E-mail, eliminating costs previously necessary for phone conversations (and the oft-resulting "phone-tag") or the time consuming US Mail or its more expensive "overnight" alternatives.

This paper will attempt to be your window into what is possible for the theological community in these new Computer Mediated Communication technologies.

Now, with the World Wide Web and the increase in packages available and providers on which to run these packages, the idea of Publishing on the Internet is taking form for the average Internaut. I have been steadily building a series of interlinked pages around the theme of Theological Education and Community, and to provide a reference to other areas of interest to the visitors of this "web within The Web".

The development of electronic magazines such as WIRED (with their Hot WIRED "e-zine" (electronic magazine) shows a model for what electronic publishing can mean in the age of the World Wide Web: Additional articles building on the print version, with a discussion group around a variety of "extra-curricular" subjects, as well as continuing updates of the latest breaking new sites, happenings, and issues.

The Church can derive benefit from the structure of this new collaborative publishing. My "New Media Communications" site includes such areas as Internet Theological Seminary , where I am developing a strategy to bring together a diverse set of theological study tools and contact with their various sources by nature of the hypertext links pointing back to the individual Web homes of the various representatives. I am offering my home as a launching place for those in the theological community who would seek to journey into this new paradigm of communication.

Seminaries are invited to send their own links and invite those who visit here to check out their offerings

Various Theological Groups are invited to supply their links to what they have developed.

I am seeking the best "mail archiving program" for my site which will allow me to provide a Web-conferencing system where we can explore what impact Cyberspace has on the church.

My own alma mater (one of them), United Theological Seminary , is where all of this vision of cyberspace began for me as I integrated their video production with desktop video, and discovered the possibilities of Computer Mediated Communication. I am presently engaged in a study of Technology and Theology with the distance education program at United wherein I am looking specifically at the way this explosion of online activity and discussion will impact the way we conduct the mission of the church.