What Comes Next: Continuing the Digital Ecclesiology Conversation in Response to the COVID-19 Pandemic

Abstract

This essay seeks to add to the emerging conversation regarding digital ecclesiology. In short, digital ecclesiology is an ongoing conversation not only about how congregations use technology but craft digital spaces for worship and ministry. This essay will seek to add in four ways. First, this essay will explore the concern of techno-ontology. As articulated by Ashley John Moyse, techno-ontology occurs when humans lose their identity to technology by being conformed to the limits of technology. Concerns such as “Zoom fatigue” and content proliferation will be given attention here. Next, this essay will explore a homiletic response which was adopted largely wholesale, whether done so critically or uncritically, during the COVID-19 pandemic—conversational preaching. Then, this concern will come into focus through a brief textual analysis of Hebrews 10:19–25. Finally, a way forward—the “what comes next”—will be considered and proposed. This way forward will be articulated in two forms. First, there will be the overall ecclesiastical, or congregational, focus. Second, there will be the specific homiletic and liturgical focus. The essay will conclude with an invitation for continued conversation.

Keywords

• digital ecclesiology
• techno-ontology
• conversational preaching
• technology
• disability
• pastoral care