Author: Ryan Dunn

Powering up through engagement and repurposing

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We’re going to explore creating digital content that engages our online audiences WHILE we engage in a spiritual practice that hopefully gives us, personally, a bit of a power up in the midst of our busy digital ministry lives.

This episode takes an older piece of content that is a great example of content that engages our digital community and reworks it into something useful for the audience of this podcast. This meditative prayer is going to help us refresh for the work of the busy digital minister.

Jesus’ path from pain to triumph: a guided meditation with Cindy Serio

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You are invited to ponder the events of Jesus’ final hours on earth through the contemplative spiritual discipline of guided meditation. The Rev. Cindy Serio, a retired United Methodist pastor and current spiritual director, leads us through the narrative as we stay attentive to God’s invitation to us.

You have gifts and you are a gift

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You have gifts and you are a gift to the world around you.

Don Everts is a pastor who had a startling realization while dealing with the ups and downs of pastoral and personal life: everyone is a gift. Including that vocal parishioner. Including that strange relative. Including himself.

Including you, too.

Don is the senior pastor of First & Calvary Presbyterian Church in Springfield, Missouri, and is a writer for Lutheran Hour Ministries and the Hopeful Neighborhood Project. Don has spent almost three decades helping people on college campuses and in the local church become good stewards of their God-given gifts. His many books include The Reluctant Witness, The The Hopeful Neighborhood, and, most recently, Discover Your Gifts: Celebrating How God Made You and Everyone You Know… all of which feature original research from Barna and biblical insights for our everyday lives.

Establishing safe spaces online

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Is it safe to do ministry digitally? A lot of people have foreseen some possible scenario where our digital ministries enable someone with nefarious motivations to do harm to a member of the community. 

Churches and youth organizations have long utilized guidelines to help protect both vulnerable populations of people and the caring people who work with them. But how do we translate those guidelines for digital ministry?

In this session of Pastoring in the Digital Parish, our adjunct professor is an old friend, Pastor Nathan Webb. Nathan shares with us the procedures his all-digital ministry, called Checkpoint Church, is putting in place. By sharing their system, you should be able to discern some necessary procedures you can put into place in order to keep your online ministry space a safe place for all people.

TikTok, pastoral care and puppets

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Rev. Bradley Laurvick shares the story of a unique TikTok ministry, The You Matter Zone. Through the story, we learn how TikTok can be utilized not just for sharing information, but also for forming relationship. Pastor Brad also shares who this ministry, which has over 2 million engagements, relates the to the ministry of his local church.

Rev. Bradley Laurvick currently serves with Highlands United Methodist Church in Denver, Colorado. His Masters of Divinity is from the Iliff School of Theology. Brad ministers to TikTok through the BradAndThePuppets channel, which has over 170,000 followers.

Finding humor in holy moments with Robert Darden

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Did Jesus laugh? Did he find humor with his friend, the disciples, as they moved through the region? Robert Darden, Baylor University professor and religious humorist, emphatically says, “Absolutely!” Learn how humor can be a part of your faith journey in this conversation Darden, author of “Jesus Laughed: The Redemptive Power of Humor.”

Faith formation in digital contexts

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“I’m being called to minister in a digital space, but seminary didn’t train me for this.” Some seminaries and divinity schools have heard the need and are responding. Dr. Emily Peck-McClain will be teaching classes on digital ministry for Wesley Seminary. She joins Pastoring in the Digital Parish to reveal how her classes might help train digital ministers in a challenging area: faith formation.

Rev. Dr. Emily A. Peck-McClain teaches in Christian Formation and works as the theological educator for the Wesley Innovation Hub, part of a Lilly Endowment Initiative for young adult ministry. She is a United Methodist elder from the New York Annual Conference. Her ministry background is concentrated on ministry with young people and urban ministry. She is teaching a class at Wesley Theological Seminary on Faith Formation in Digital Contexts.

Disrupting your anxiety through spiritual practices

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All of us encounter anxiety. Current cultural conditions have feelings of anxiety on the rise–and for many anxiety is not a fleeting feeling. It sticks with us and locks us into a spiral of depression, shame, and mental paralysis.

Rev. Jason Cusick provides a practical and pastoral approach to navigating anxiety. As he shares his story, you’ll hear a hope and compassion that is grounded in faith… and it’s a little infectious. It’s our hope that Jason’s story disrupts your possible spiral of anxiety.

Jason Cusick is lead pastor at Journey of Faith in Southern California. He previously served as a pastor of care ministries, overseeing grief, recovery, crisis, and counseling ministries, and has also worked as a board-certified hospital chaplain. He’s written a book coming out April 26 titled The Anxiety Field Guide. Which you can order right now.

Artificial intelligence uses for digital ministry

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The machines are taking over! In this session of Pastoring in the Digital Parish, we set aside fears of a future dominated by robot overlords and look at several ways we can utilize artificial intelligence right now for digital ministry success.

Much of this episode was generated by AI. It provided new content ideas and streamlined the content generation process. Looking at this process and the processes used in publicizing this episode help us creatively apply AI to our digital ministry settings.

Faithfulness: Rethink Church audiomagazine for March 2022

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In this edition, we present the latest stories from the Rethink Church website and one of our most-read articles from years past.

Throughout March of 2022, our content focused on faithfulness. And we have some great posts about what faithfulness looks like in this new age and how we personally nurture our own faith. In this edition of the audiomag, we’ll hear:

“Exploring God’s behind-the-scenes faithfulness” by Madison Myers

“Faith, life and the lessons of “git gud” at video games” by Nathan Webb

“Faith and your world-changing invitation” by Joseph Yoo

And “What makes you feel spiritually alive” by Laquaan Malachi

 Let’s enter into our March 2022 edition of the Rethink Church audio magazine.