The Very Rev Albert Bogle highlights the need for the Church to embrace technology in moving forward.

THE Radical Action Plan for church growth, due to be presented to the General Assembly later this month, must surely include an understanding of the power and significance that technology can play in worship, mission and discipleship, especially when it comes to engaging with today’s generation which has lost contact with the church.

The Church of Scotland requires a new digital strategy that will enable us to reach beyond our present structures and become what we long to be – a Church Without Walls. When it comes to helping our local congregations engage with the digital world of worship and media, Sanctuary First is seeking to lead the way, but a great deal more needs to be done in this area if we are to be effective.

The Re-Imagining Church Conference funded and hosted by Sanctuary First in January 2019 saw around 150 church leaders begin to share and search for a new paradigm to begin to re-construct the way we do church. You can view all the material and seminars free at www.sanctuaryfirst.org.uk It is important that the energy and enthusiasm of that weekend continues to be fed back into the life and structures of our church.

I’m now entering into the fourth year of my pioneering ministry at Falkirk Presbytery as minister of Sanctuary First. Our online church has been able to establish a regular clientele. It is heartening to know that there are literally thousands of people using our material to pray and read the bible on a daily basis. All this is possible because of an amazing pool of around 80 volunteer writers, two part-time staff members and our Presbytery Management team. We need a larger team to enable the vision to continue to develop.

An increasing number of people are beginning to recognise the growth potential of Sanctuary First. Opportunities are arising to network across the country with institutions, congregations and individuals who are seeking to create new initiatives and fresh expressions of church. Our 24-hour availability of digital material is creating opportunities to minister to people often at their lowest ebb in the early hours of the morning. This means that we are in a unique position to partner congregations without infringing their parish based ministries and at the same time befriending others who have become disconnected from their Christian communities.

Sanctuary First is seeking to develop a three tier digital strategy to grow and develop these partnerships. Firstly we are developing our app and website into a more creative and interactive worship hub.

Our second priority is to begin to nurture the small pilot Connect Groups that we set up during Lent this year. We had ten groups meeting regularly to use the study material we produced alongside our daily devotionals. It can still be downloaded from our app or Sanctuary First website, www.sanctuaryfirst.org.uk. These groups met in homes, cafes and church halls. For some congregations they may well become their pilot Fresh Expression of church.

The third major plank in our strategy is to organise small and large conferences to promote various aspects of our ministry and in doing so use the conference as a way to inspire and motivate leaders and potential partners to become involved in our mission which put simply is to nurture and create disciples of Jesus through the immediacy of scripture and prayer and teaching on the internet, mobile phone and tablet. While this may sound contemporary to some, to others familiar with the role the printing press played in the Reformation it is simply the church returning to embrace technology in the same way as the reformers did in the sixteenth century.

Returning to the Radical Action Plan mentioned at the beginning of this article, I hope the General Assembly will be given the opportunity to embrace a church digital strategy that has mission and discipleship at its heart. Sanctuary First offers part of that strategy, however a great deal more has to be developed in this area. Understanding mission requires the people of God to once again be inspired by the compassion and vision of Jesus.

Speaking to an Agrarian society in the first century Jesus spoke of mission being like cornfields being ready for harvest. Perhaps in the 21st century Jesus now offers another metaphor for mission. Could it be he might be saying to us today: “Lift up your eyes, see your neighbours’ heads are down, searching their phones, looking for directions. The screens are lit up and ready to receive the message, start texting.”

The Very Rev Albert Bogle is a Pioneer Minister of Sanctuary First Church Online at www.sanctuaryfirst.org.uk