• Your ministry story: What kind of ministry—digital or otherwise—do you do right now, or hope to do in the future?

• Your context: What is your ministry context offline, if you have one? How does that connect (or not connect) to the work you imagine online?

• Your community: Do you sense that you have a community that has commissioned you into this work, or are you still discerning what that support might look like?

• Your contemplative lens: When you imagine doing ministry contemplatively in digital spaces, what does that mean to you? What pace, posture, or practices feel important?

• Your longings: What do you hope digital ministry could make possible—for you, for your community, or for those you are called to serve?

Beyond hybrid Mass, I know the next step (and equally important step) is having a more robust digital ministry.  Though we are part of the largest independent catholic tradition in the US, we’re still a small tradition (40ish churches).  When people find out about us, there is often not a community physically near them.  I believe there are folks who want connection to their catholic roots, but can't stomach the abuse and exclusion of the Roman church. Where do they go?  We can offer them a place to connect to their childhood tradition authentically and holistically. My folks are hungry to share this kind of acceptance with others, and know that digital ministry needs to be part of it, though I think they struggle to know what that looks like.

With regard to digital ministry, I lot of what I see feels corporate and...manipulative/performative?  I want to show up as me, not a brand.  Since it's probably going to be me doing this work, I want it to be lifegiving for me. I want it to be grounded and non-reactionary. Playful and creative.  I want purpose and connection.  Relationships, not another checklist.  Focus, not more scattering.  I want it to be an extension of my work, not an additional job.  My church folks tend to be contemplative (as do most of the folks in the wider tradition), and so it makes sense to me that a more contemplative approach to digital ministry would be nourishing for them, me, and for the folks who are looking for communities like ours.

But I do view writing as a sort of ministry. I help write collects and confessions at my church--something I dearly love. I've rewritten psalms and meet with a small group of people from church to co-write together each month.

When I first started writing about my deconstruction journey back in 2020, I felt like I thrived writing on social media. Now, it feels like the absolute worst. During a bout of insomnia last night, the YouTube video from the syllabus played in my head: how the algorithm constantly makes us feel like we're not trying hard enough or doing enough. That's definitely where I feel caught/burnt-out right now, and I'm hoping to regain a sense of why I'm doing this (social media, substack), and also a better how that works for me, through this class. I've loved reading rose's journey with this on her substack, but felt like I needed help connecting the dots of it a bit more.

Honestly, the difficulty I have writing introductions is part of why I'm here. I went to college in the late 2010s to study writing and communication. I wrote thousands of words over the course of my 4 year education, but hardly any since then. Especially when it comes to the internet I know I want to write and share, but don't know how to strike a good balance that is safe and healthy for me but also adds value to what seems like an already clogged environment.

I don't necessarily feel like my calling is to be making a living sharing on the internet, but I'm hungry to know how to use the space in a balanced way. I want to share my perspective and amplify the voices of others, but it's hard not to feel like it's work that's already being done by other people who can probably do it better.

I first encountered rose's work in the context of "moving at the pace of flourishing" and immediately breathed a sigh of relief. I want to be the kind of person on the internet who isn't posturing, but is able to be vulnerable in a way that helps other people feel like they are seen and safe.

I'm Zana. It was lovely to connect with you all yesterday. Thank you for this space rose, I can already tell it will be transformative for me.

I am a writer, public health researcher, and a Kenyan. I was raised Catholic and have since explored multiple Christian groups, including Pentecostal churches and the United Church of Christ. I also engage in aspects of my cultural group's traditional spiritual practices. I describe my spiritual beliefs as largely syncretic, though I remain a follower of Christ. I conceptualize my ministry and its corresponding context and community in three strands.

Strand 1: Ministry - personal, Context: one-on-one, Community: family, friends, near-acquaintances. I have always been the churchy and/or spiritual person whom people came to for spiritual advice, prayer, and support. My friends have considered me a guide of sorts over the years, though I don't have formal training and always share that disclaimer.

Strand 2: Ministry - professional, Context: public health research, Community: public health students, educators, researchers. Over the past 5 years or so, the overlap between my faith and work has become more explicit. My public health research began to incorporate the faith-based context, specifically examining the role that faith-based organizations play in health systems. I also sit on the board of a faith-based non-profit. I am perceived as a faith-based expert of sorts in the public health context, and I am still orienting myself to what that means.

Strand 3: Ministry - public, Context: digital (Substack, Instagram, Threads), Community: social media friends

Over the past three years or so, I've started sharing more about my beliefs, musings, and how I perceive the Divine showing up in my life. I started on my IG stories. And about a year ago, I started a Substack. I write broadly, about things I want to say regarding any topic. My personal essays feel like testimonies about how I navigated a given thing. I sprinkle in my core takeaways, which adds an instructional element.

When I imagine engaging in ministry in contemplative ways, I imagine ritual (sharing with a relatively structured cadence, and/or sharing by theme or developing series of sorts), vulnerability (using my personal narrative as an opening to instruction/guidance), and not being prescriptive (having a loose enough tone that feels like an invitation rather than a "should"). Most importantly, I imagine honesty and truth-telling; an acknowledgement of the history of Christianity, including the systemic harms caused along the way.

I hope that digital ministry makes it possible for me and my community to be willing and able to slow down, think deeply, and think freely (i.e. to dream and imagine new ways of living, doing, loving). I look forward to learning with you all!

Neither of my churches have a digital presence. I thought this might be interesting after being in a program that had difficulty with contemplation in a digital space.

Hope to see you next week!

I worked for many years teaching software engineering to university students and since stepping away from from this I am studying for an MA in digital theology. I don't know what the next step will be on my journey but it increasingly looks like something in the blend of church and computer.

The Island has a reputation of being a playground for the rich, but until recently, Duke's County MA (Martha's Vineyard) was the poorest county in the state. Now it is the second poorest. Addiction, homelessness, food insecurity, and poverty, lack of affordable housing are some of the challenges we face here. We also have a significant immigrant population, mostly Brazilian. Faith communities and other justice oriented organizations are doing our best to support and protect our immigrant neighbors from ICE.

I'm still discerning what a contemplative digital ministry would look like in this community, and what it might make possible. I'm hoping that we can create something that would be an uplifting alternative to the outrage machine that is social media. I'm hoping for an online an experience that is unhurried and non-transactional, and a space where people can embrace their true identity as beloved children of God.

I've been following rose's work for years now, and had the privilege of taking several classes together at seminary.

So glad to be here with y'all!

My dad is the filmmaker who trained me, and he taught me “the film is a prayer.” Many of my films are for ministries and non-profits, and regardless of the subject matter, filmmaking is a lot of how I pray my way through the world and also how I pray for the communities that hire me or with which I intersect.

I’m about to take on a potentially enormous social media storytelling initiative for the Episcopal Diocese of RI. I was working on that proposal when Rose mentioned this class, and I recognized the synchronicity. I want to approach this diocesan initiative as a form of community care and digital ministry, and I need both better personal practices and some reinforced hope that this is actually possible. Social media has felt so shallow, dis-eased, transactional, and frenetic to me lately, and it feels daunting to try to build a body of meaningful work there. Am I building on sand? The films and other media we make will also become part of a public story archive; there may be other "clearings" I can populate with these stories as well. I want to learn my options and better form my own digital disciplines, so that I can better lead my clients in the "wilderness" -- and breathe deeply while doing so.

I have been mostly absent from social media for the last few years, but as I have grown my practice, I have felt the pull to get back into the digital space with a website and digital presence for my practice, MYST Psychotherapy. My aim is to create and hold space in the digital world for community, specifically with creators and healers.

• different email address and log-in

• coupled with using different browsers eg chrome, firefox, edge etc usually with different colour schemes

So my suggestion would be to set up an email address to use for your client(s) work, then create a substack account linked to that email and then use a different browser just for that email address / substack account eg if you usually use firefox only look at the new email address/substack account on a chrome browser and choose a chrome browser colour scheme which is distinct to your usual colour scheme.

This should then actively separate your personal substack usage from that for your client with the differences in colours acting as a visual prompt for where you are.

At the end your working day for the client you can then close your client specific browser and only reopen when you start work for them again.

Practices: journaling, rest both actively (movement) and passively (stillness), prioritizing taking care of my health

This was one of the "sections" I made in my rule of life, and as we've talked about rest tonight, I added beneath the practices a list of what extended rest could look like in each season (winter, spring, summer, fall) and that's really sticking with me tonight.