Technology impact on Church communities - during lockdowns and beyond TechHuman

John Wyatt and Jonathan Ebsworth discuss our experiences of how technology provided a lifeline for many Church communities through lockdowns. We explore both the blessings that came from this, the risks that follow and some of the longer-term consequences as we look to a future that seems to require a hybrid on-line and embodied expression of 'Church'.
Some groups - like the housebound - found they had unexpected access to collective events as online provision grew in response to the pandemic-driven lockdowns. Youth groups; that might have been expected to find the switch online easiest of all, often struggled to maintain contact with all those who were participating before lockdown. For us, this suggests that while digital presence for Youth work can be helpful - it is hard for a fully online youth work to compete unconstrained access to brighter, more addictive expressions of technology engagement, like TikTok, Snapchat and Instagram.
We speculate that the hybrid expression of Church is here to stay - and consider a few of the challenges that follow. There is going to be a need for creativity, and we feel that our existing theology may need to be refined in the face of these emerging expressions of Church.
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