Digital Communities Are Embodied Communities

Photo by Ehimetalor Akhere Unuabona on Unsplash

I recently had the honor of listening in on some seminary students defending their theses, and it reminded me of two clear truths: 

1. The emerging leaders are alright. 

2. Challenging the status quo/institution/empire has not gotten easier. 

After an entertaining and engaging defense on the importance and necessity of digital ministry, a professor pushed back on the idea of digital ministry altogether and said that digital spaces “didn’t speak to embodiment.” This was a sticking point for him, and he didn’t think embodiment in a digital space had any theological grounding. 

The student did a really great job of pushing back, but all I could think of as I left that zoom room (by the way, a fully digital space) was how disappointing and even ridiculous it is that even now, almost exactly three years after the pandemic moved us all into digital spaces in a way no one expected or was really prepared for, we are still stuck on this one point. Somehow it all hinges on “embodiment.” 

Oof. All I could think was - really? Have we learned nothing during Covid? 

First, as someone who feels called to and actively leads digital ministry through my podcast and podcast community (of which there are thousands, across the entire country and globe), I have an obvious bias and no small amount of skin in the game. But also I feel like it needs to be said loudly and clearly: Digital Communities ARE Embodied Communities. 

Next, I feel I should be clear that the embodiment I practice and believe in is likely very different from that professor’s idea of embodiment. 

I believe embodiment is not just “having a body.” 

I also believe embodiment is not just “having a body in a space where there are other bodies.” When I’m on Zoom and you’re on Zoom, we both still have bodies. 

When I’m on Marco Polo and you’re on Marco Polo, even if we’re not on there at the same time, we both still have bodies. 

When I’m on Facetime and you’re on Facetime, we both still have bodies. Do none of those count because we aren’t sharing physical space? Good gosh I hope not. Believing we aren’t fully embodied when we’re online or in a digital space is dangerous. We have all learned (or experienced) how to fully disconnect from the whole person on the other side of a computer screen. It’s how people can say things online that they would never say face to face. 

“I can’t even see them.” 

“They aren't real.” 

What a small and limited view of embodiment that is. 

I have been taught and believe that embodiment is the full integration of mind, body, and spirit. Embodiment is more of a holistic state of being than just having a physical body near other physical bodies. 

For me, some of the most holy moments of the past three years have happened in digital spaces. Thank goodness for them and the people who met me there.

They have saved my faith. They have saved me. 

The community and connection that saved me happened BECAUSE of the digital space, not in spite of it. 

Digital Communities ARE Embodied Communities. 

Simply sharing physical space does not equal embodiment. 

In fact, for many people, sharing physical space does the exact opposite. We could have a room full of physical bodies in the same physical space. Each and every one of them could be totally disconnected from their body and their spirit and somehow we’re calling that the best we’ve got? 

I will continue to argue vehemently that when we interact in the digital space, we are embodied. If we are more than physical bodies - and I think we could all agree that we are - any time we are fully who we are, connecting, engaging, and together, we are embodied. Even when it’s online. Even when it’s through a screen. 

Our ecclesiastical tradition actually has a lot to say about this. 

Embodiment in digital spaces IS actually grounded in deep and beautiful theology. Or, as the student stated in her thesis defense: “The church has always been virtual.” Peter wrote letters to churches from far away and praised the continued relationship and communion he shared with those communities - even when he wasn’t physically able to be with them. 

Every time we gather around the communion table we talk openly and clearly about how we join together in this meal across time and space with the whole communion of saints, past and present. 

We are about to celebrate Pentecost, where the spirit shows up as wind and fire - not as a body - and we will celebrate and rejoice in the ability of God to be in all people and places and time. 

How can we believe all of this, and yet have no space to believe that ministry in a digital space is also embodied and incarnational and just as valid as physical, in-person gathering? 

What if we stopped being so afraid of the digital space, and started meeting people there instead? What if we stopped telling people that the safe space they have created doesn’t quite count as much as the in-person space? What would happen if people connected with each other and with faith communities in whatever way allowed them to remain fully embodied? 

What if we believed and supported and encouraged digital communities as fully embodied communities? 

This is not a threat to but an expansion of the kingdom of God into more abundant life. It’s one I am so thankful to be a part of. And one I will keep fighting for because of those who have experienced embodied community in digital spaces. They matter. We matter. 

Digital Communities ARE Embodied Communities.

---

Rev. Natalia Terfa

Natalia is a Lutheran pastor and author who lives in Minneapolis with her hubby, kiddo, and kitty babies. She loves to bake, to read, practice yoga, and find nature adventures. She is passionate about the church of the future, one with no boundaries and filled to the brim with love and grace and laughter and snark and a lot of fellow “not that kind of Christians.”

Natalia co-hosts Cafeteria Christian, a podcast for people who love Jesus but aren’t so sure about his followers.

 Church Anew is dedicated to igniting faithful imagination and sustaining inspired innovation by offering transformative learning opportunities for church leaders and faithful people.

As an ecumenical and inclusive ministry of St. Andrew Lutheran Church, the content of each Church Anew blog represents the voice of the individual writer and does not necessarily reflect the position of Church Anew or St. Andrew Lutheran Church on any specific topic.

---

What I Learned from Attending Church in the Pandemic

My dear friend and colleague, Rev. Natalia Terfa, wrote a brilliant piece naming the feelings that so many feel as they have discovered new space and freedom in life away from church.

If that is you, I see you and I hear you.

After someone on the interwebs mentioned how much they have valued the practice of attending church through this time, I wanted to share a bit of my own story as well, as a pastor, father of two young children, and spouse to someone who draws great inspiration and promise from attending church.

When church closed, we loved the novelty of Sunday mornings in our jammies, tuning in online, but of course something was missing.

As soon as church opened, we came back, nervously, a bit uncertain and afraid. But in this year of pandemic church, my kids have experienced some amazing happenings. They saw those first people returning to the building with tears in their eyes, just to be among the people, smelling familiar scents of carpet and brick, hearing organ and the voice of a preacher not filtered through tinny computer speakers.

Our kids were there when we had Christmas Eve services with no more than fifty people in a barn of a building, hearing carols sung, and once again the tears of elders seeing part of tradition that has persisted through challenging times and has continued since.

Our eldest was thrilled when it was her turn to carefully take down her mask if only for a moment to read the lesson of the day, rehearsed over and over again in the car, hearing her little voice boom in the loudspeaker.

There were many weeks throughout the pandemic that we only attended church. It was our only outing, our only encounter with real faces and voices and eyes. Over other exposure, we chose church because it grounded our family in a rhythm that was beyond what we were experiencing.

We chose church over soccer, over activities, over restaurants and vacations. We chose church. Actually scratch that self-righteous baloney. We just didn’t know any other way. So we went, week after week after week.

We often spoke of the image of the bank; that we all have so much risk that we have and we all choose to spend it differently. Church got more than a tithe.

We missed many friendships and throughout the past weeks and months it is like homecoming after homecoming, seeing people tentatively emerge through the doors, glancing around to make sure it is safe, to hear the stories that we missed, see the new babies born, celebrate the accomplishments, mourn the losses.

Even more, what I found was a pattern to life that grounded the way I interacted with everything that this season has thrown at us. We found ways to sing, with little masked groups separated by huge distances, something that I find essential to my wellbeing. The music kept me breathing in unison with my neighbors and creation and perhaps the divine.

If staying home is right for you, we believe you. You don’t need to explain a thing. We promise to keep holding a virtual spot for you at the table.

If you’ve been here every week, online or in person, I see you, and I am so glad you’re here.

If you’re tentative or are waiting until your kids are vaccinated or are still not ready, I get it. I wasn’t ready either.

We eased in at first but every step along the way we were greeted with grace.

It’s like putting on an old sweater that doesn’t quite fit. We’re trying on relationship and belonging. We aren’t sure it fits anymore.

But in the end, I hope you will come to church when the time is right for you.

Because I believe something has been lost in our time away from together.

I can see it in the fissures of our neighborhoods, the pitch of our echo chambers, and the clamor of our discourse.

Have many churches failed us in these spaces? Sure. But I believe God is up to something new in these imperfect institutions.

Natalia said it best: God has always and will continue to meet you where you are.

And I think the church has learned a thing or two from God and even the psalmist this year.

Where can I go from your spirit?
    Or where can I flee from your presence?
If I ascend to heaven, you are there;
    if I make my bed in Sheol, you are there.
If I take the wings of the morning
    and settle at the farthest limits of the sea,
even there your hand shall lead me,
    and your right hand shall hold me fast. (Psalm 139:7-10)

God searches and finds us wherever we are. But God also gathers us, shepherds us, gets us closer to people we couldn’t imagine sharing life with.

Because we need it. We need one another. Perhaps God is gathering us together to be this something new, to be a people who can break down barriers to belonging.

Because the church is us.
It isn’t an abstraction, and it isn’t a building.
It isn’t a theology or an ideology.

It’s you and me, our hopes and fears and dreams and longings, our failures and disappointments and anxieties. And God is still moving this imperfect institution, still calling us forward, and still doing something wonderful in these walls, through our bandwidth, in the woods, and in the workplace.

But isn’t it better to see it all together?

Rev. Matthew Ian Fleming

Matthew Ian Fleming is a recovering evangelical who opens up his Bible bruises with curiosity, wonder, and a fair amount of irreverence. He is the founding director of Church Anew, an international platform equipping church leaders to ignite faithful imagination and sustain inspired innovation. With four colleagues, Matthew launched Alter Guild, a podcasting network with over 350,000 downloads that now features four shows including Cafeteria Christian with Nora McInerny and New Time Religion with Andy Root. Matthew is ordained in the ELCA and serves as teaching pastor to St. Andrew Lutheran Church in Eden Prairie, Minnesota. At home, Matthew sings unrequested car-duets with his spouse, Hannah, jams on banjo with their two daughters, and religiously bakes sourdough bread.

---

Church Anew is dedicated to igniting faithful imagination and sustaining inspired innovation by offering transformative learning opportunities for church leaders and faithful people.

As an ecumenical and inclusive ministry of St. Andrew Lutheran Church, the content of each Church Anew blog represents the voice of the individual writer and does not necessarily reflect the position of Church Anew or St. Andrew Lutheran Church on any specific topic.

Real Ministry in a Digital World

Church in person and church online. Connecting real life and real ministry.

When I was learning Greek and Hebrew in seminary, I decided to teach myself HTML and CSS, thinking if these dead languages from the past would help me as a pastor, then surely these living languages of our present and future would be helpful for the future of the church. I am in no way fluent in any of them now, knowing just enough to be dangerous with an interlinear Bible or on the backend of a website. Learning to parse verb stems and <div> tags set me on a path to value the church in person and the church online. Now more than ever, the future of former depends on the latter.

Willa is 90 years old and lives in New Jersey—close enough to catch a glimpse of the Manhattan skyline on a clear day but far enough to require a car in order to make it into the city. She’s perfectly happy with her life in New Jersey, except for one thing: her church is in the city and her friend who would drive her in on Sundays passed away seven years ago. Willa has tried to connect with congregations in her neighborhood but none of them feel like the church home she is used to. She misses connecting with the people, seeing their faces and being seen in return. And so when she received a message saying that her church would not be meeting in person and would only gather online during this pandemic, she was curious to find out more.

Willa clicked a link on her church’s website and suddenly she saw her pastors reading scripture and preaching from their own homes. She saw the choir on screen like the Brady Bunch, singing hymns and inviting everyone to sing along from home. After the benediction one of the pastors mentioned a Virtual Coffee Hour. Willa clicked another link, a small green dot lit up on the front of her computer, and her screen was filled with the familiar faces and voices of her church family.

The phrase “IRL” emerged in the early days of the internet, popping up in AOL chat rooms in the 90s and eventually making it into the Oxford English dictionary in 2000. It stands for “in real life” and is often used to distinguish that which happens online from the world around us. Only as we are all thrown into the deep end of church online, we are realizing that this phrase and its distinction between the internet and “real life” is beginning to break down. Because our online connections are real connections. Virtual is not the opposite of real, it’s the opposite of physical. They are both real. Everything is IRL.

This has always been true but is especially important now when these online spaces and virtual connections might be all we have.

When you respond to someone’s post on social media, that’s pastoral care.

When you reflect on scripture on Instagram Live, that’s preaching.

When we smile and laugh together on what can feel like endless video calls, that’s passing the peace.

In whatever ways you are engaging your congregation online during these COVID-19 times, know that this is the real work of ministry that we are called to—real ministry in our digital world. Because even though we can’t connect in person the ways we typically would, we can still connect in real life, embodying a modification to the prayer Jesus taught us:

“Your kingdom come, your will be done, online as it is in heaven.”

Jim Keat

Rev. Jim Keat is the Digital Minister at The Riverside Church in New York City and the Director of Online Learning for Convergence, a diverse collective of faith-based leaders, learners, artists, activists, learners, communities, and congregations. He is the producer of original media projects from The Riverside Church like Be Still and Go and The Word Made Fresh as well as the creator of the Thirty Second Bible project and Thirty Seconds or Less.

Twitter | @IdeasDoneDaily
Facebook | @IdeasDoneDaily
Instagram | @IdeasDoneDaily
Website | JimKeat.com
Website | freeandsimple.life
Website | trcnyc.org
YouTube | youtube.com/TheRiversideChurch
YouTube | youtube.com/FreeAndSimple
Podcast | trcnyc.org/BeStillAndGo

Church Anew is dedicated to igniting faithful imagination and sustaining inspired innovation by offering transformative learning opportunities for church leaders and faithful people.

As an ecumenical and inclusive ministry of St. Andrew Lutheran Church, the content of each Church Anew blog represents the voice of the individual writer and does not necessarily reflect the position of Church Anew or St. Andrew Lutheran Church on any specific topic.