Something New - Virtual Real Time Bible Study

[Tom Stuart]

Glen Powell has mentioned to me on a few occasions of his dream of isolated worship groups being able to work together by means of broadband interment technologies to participate in worship with each other.  In its simplest form that could mean someone in Ivanhoe would do the readings while the people in Hay look on, and the people in Hay lead the songs, and the people of Tibooburra lead the intercessory prayer.   At first I wondered what sort of drugs he’d been taking.  I have been puzzling over his idea for at least 12 months.  I wondered whether such a crazy idea would work, technologically and practically.  Of course we are light years away from it being practically possible because most isolated worship places are lucky to have electricity little else a phone line!   At the multimedia conference held at Canberra I was sitting with a bunch of blokes (yep blokes) and I made the comment that I would like to test out whether it is possible to create a sense of Christian community “real time” on the Internet.  We started dreaming and came up with all sorts of ideas.  Then we came back to reality and realised we had to start text based (rather than zooming our hologram image into a worship space!! – a worship space that we have created with our best Christian graphic designers!!).  We have made a commitment to develop the model to see if it works and see if it does create some sort of true community, whether it will be useful for people isolated in one form or other, and how far we can push the technology.   Anyway, we decided that we would start at the beginning, or at the bottom.  Last week we got together, using MSN Messenger for a Bible Study looking at the lectionary reading (Ephesians 6).  Participants were from Vic., SA, WA, and NSW.  We prattled on for just over an hour (actually the time flew and I had trouble stopping them).   Our first effort was a learning experience, interesting, and fun.   Next week we are going to try a web based chat environment to host the Bible Study (http://unitingchurch.org.au/chat/) so people joining in don’t need special software.   If you would like to join in on this virtual real time text based bible study then go to that above URL on Wednesday 3rd Sept. 8:30pm EST. (needs to be that late in NSW for the WA folk).  We study the lectionary readings for the following Sunday and use the theme biblical passage from the “Seasons of the Spirit” resources.  I suggest Bill Loader’s site for pre-reading for exegesis on the text.  The focus scripture for the next study is Mark 7:24–37.   The last part of the time together we think up some images that might be used for a multimedia presentation the following Sunday.  In the last study on the whole armour of God the suggestion of safety gear for a motor bike rider was suggested.  So at our “Arvo Worship” we were presented with images of the biker ready for the trail!   All welcome   Tom   [EMAIL PROTECTED] www.milman.uniting.com.au Ph: 6862 5502  Mobile: 0427 625 502 14 Bushman St Parkes NSW 2870   'Comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable'. I prefer to die living than to live dying! "War is a poor chisel with which to carve out the future." - Martin Luther King, Jr     I've stopped 116 spam messages. You can too! One month FREE spam protection at www.cloudmark.com   --     Stephen Webb Media Officer Communications Unit NSW Synod, Uniting Church in Australia Box A2178, Sydney South, NSW 1235, Australia email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Phone: +61 2 82674308; Fax: 92674716; Web: nsw.uca.org.au/cu/ & insights.uca.org.au/ ------------------ The Communications Unit publishes the monthly magazine Insights, conducts public relations for the NSW Synod of the Uniting Church, and provides a variety of communications services. These include writing, editing, web consultation and development, desktop publishing and graphic design, public relations and advertising. For a consultation or free estimate on your project call the Communications Unit at (02) 8267 4307.

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