Yesterday, I spoke to the Parents of Teens class at Saint Michael and All Angels Episcopal Church in Dallas, TX.
My topic was Digital Natives: Raising the Facebook Generation. The focus of my talk was on the current context in which we find ourselves sharing the faith with younger generations.
My thanks to the class and Andy Sahl for inviting me to speak. They were most hospitable and an attentive audience. I wish them many blessings in their ministry to, with, by and for young people. I promised that I would make slides and resources available – hence this post.
The internet and in particular social networks give us the ability to be producers of content not just consumers. These channels allow for communication from many to many as opposed to one to many like newspapers or television.
I presented some of Doug Pagitt’s work from his book, Church in the Inventive Age. I also talked about cognitive surplus from Cognitive Surplus: Creativity and Generosity in a Connected Age
by Clay Shirky.
I briefly talked about the website http://www.ushahidi.com/. Great information about Ushahidi can be found in one of Clay Shirky’s Ted talks on YouTube. This is a better explanation of the site than I was able to cover in my brief talk.
Below is my slide deck from Slide Share. I hope you find this information beneficial. This is a topic that I enjoy conversing about, so comment below with your thoughts and ideas about the ministry landscape in light of the communication changes in civilization.