It’s been a while…….

It’s been a while since I’ve written here…..I suppose it’s mostly due to my getting slightly depressed that this didn’t take off the way I’d hoped. I’d thought that a few more people would find this blog, and that I’d have more to say than I have so far. I’m planning on changing how dead this blog has become, however.

I’ve applied to do a few elective talks at this years Black Stump (see my write up on last year’s Stump here). If I get accepted, I’ll be talking about Digital Missions, and if I end up doing more than one talk (which I’ve applied to do), I’ll use the second talk to speak more about what I have done in the past, what I’m doing at the moment, and what I hope to do in the future within the world of online gaming – and hopefully get some back and forth going on different ways that Digital Missions can be done.

The practical upshot of this is that – no matter whether or not I get the spot – I’m going to be doing some serious thinking and reflecting on the reasons I set this blog up, and on what could possibly be called content. I’m not promising super regular posts, but I will be using this space to sort through my thoughts and actions concerning Digital Missions. So expect to find a few more posts during the next few months……..they may even be interesting to people other than myself.

Online Church?

One of my classes last year was a Church Planting intensive. I spent a lot of time during the class thinking about the possibility of a fully ‘online’ church, made up of people around the globe, to the point where I did my major assignment (an assessment of a community as a potential area for a church plant, along with a theological reflection on the form of church I intended to plant, with a value call on whether a church needs to be planted in the area, along with what ‘model’ of church plant would work best) on one of the communities I was involved with at the time. I was going to copy and paste the report I made for anyone who is interested, but for some reason WordPress isn’t letting me do that, so I’ve uploaded it to Google Docs here

 

I can’t decide at the moment if I should follow up on this at all, so I’m going to leave it for the moment. If you’d like to hear my thoughts from a few months later, I’ll either edit this post, or put it in a new one….

 

A Year in Retrospect

Assuming you didn’t find this blog through my original blog – Freelancing for the Kingdom – and you still look at this regrettably empty blog, you may be interested to know that I’m doing a wrap up of the year that has been, and looking towards the year that is to come. The stuff I’m writing there is going to involve this blog too, and rather than seperate my thoughts between two blogs, I figured that I’d just link this one to there.

Merry Christmas, and a Happy New Year, to all of you.

Fr33Lanc3r

An Introduction to Digital Missions

Probably the most fitting post to follow the blog’s introductory post is this one – an introduction to the broader themes that will be addressed within it. So without further ado, the answer to the question: ‘What is Digital Mission?’

To my mind, and the minds of those that I’ve spoken to/listened to on the subject, Digital Mission involves seeing out online interactions (from talking to friends on facebook to writing a blog post) as a mission field  - that is, a place where we should be seeking to spread the Gospel, bringing people into relationship with God through our words and our actions. Practically, this can take numerous forms, from having conversations about life (and faith) with our friends on Facebook, to weighing in on (or starting) discussions on forums, to offering to pray for people throughout the range of online interactions that you have, to (my major personal interest) building communities that share life and faith through the varied challenges offered by online gaming (which I will probably talk about at length in the future).

Throughout my personal interactions with people online (mostly through online games), I’ve made friendships that are as deep (or deeper) than the friendships that I made during my years at school, or the friendships that I have with a variety of people from college and church. So – at least for me – when I came to the realisation that sharing my faith with the people around me wasn’t an option, it seemed fairly natural for me to start thinking about how to do this through the games that I play online. I’m sure that it’s the same for many other people around the world, and it’s to those people more than anyone else that I say this: Use the time you spend online (whether on social media, on forums, or on games) to share the Gospel, the Good News of Jesus. See the time you spend connecting with people online as a place to bring people to an understanding of who God is, and let God work through you to bring the people around you into relationship with Him. You don’t have to do the same things that I (or others you may know) do, but you should be doing something.

Digital Missions Blog

Welcome!

I am Ben ‘Fr33Lanc3r’ Larkin, and I describe myself as a Digital Missionary. I’m a student at Morling Baptist Theological College, and I spend a lot of my time online, doing whatever I can to build relationships and share the Gospel with the people I interact with.

I’ll be using this blog to share my thoughts on the ins and outs of what it means to ‘do’ mission and evangelism online – whether through Social Networking and Forums, or through Online Gaming – and hopefully encourage others to use their time on the internet for more than just their own enjoyment – if you do, let people know, I know that I’d love to hear about it!

I’m also hoping that this blog will turn out to be something that is more than my own endeavor – I’m hoping and praying that others wrestling with the same questions that I am will find this blog, and contribute to discussions (and start some, I won’t turn away other authors if they are genuinely interested in writing something useful and relevant, something that everyone can benefit from).

So again, Welcome! There’ll be something else to read that isn’t an intro soon (I hope).