Otis Moss III: Digital Faith and Analogue Religion

The Rev. Otis Moss III (OM3) is the pastor at Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago. Trinity is the largest church in our denomination. 

While Trinity has been known for its social programs on behalf of the disadvantaged, the church is starting to be known for taking the lead in digital outreach as well.

The church has a membership of 7,500. On an average Sunday, 5,000 to 5,500 people attend service in person while at the same time 3,000 attend virtually. Recently, the church updated its technology to become even more interactive. The church has an active Facebook page, Twitter handle and an e-newsletter, which is delivered to 8,500 people. It even has electronic giving, which now supports 18% of the church’s budget.

All of this is done at minimal cost to the church. Most of the digital tools that Trinity employs are free to use. Facebook, Twitter, MailChimp (an e-newsletter site) and Youtube are all free to use. All it takes is time. And odds are you already have someone in your congregation that knows how to use these sites. But more on that in the next post.

To hear OM3 (that's his Twitter handle by the way) talk more about how digital culture can work for your church, please check out his lecture from Chautauqua from this past summer.

The Internet as a Blessing and a Curse

This summer, Luke Lindon was the chaplain for the United Church of Christ Society at the Chautauqua Institution. He heard a great talk by Paul Raushenbush entitled, "BEHOLD! I set before you a blessing and a curse; the internet and our spiritual life."

You can watch the full lecture here:


The main thing to lift up from the lecture is “One thing is very clear: The Internet and the technologies involved with it are not going away,” Raushenbush said. According to a poll administered by Pew Research Center in 2011, 79 percent of religiously active Americans use the Internet.

Whether you're looking up a scripture passage, looking for worship materials, or reading the UCC Daily Devotional; the internet is part of your spiritual life.

Yet many view the internet as a hostile place. Raushenbush states “It’s all about the intention. There’s good and bad — it’s what we bring to it.” Raushenbush stated that the internet is a useful tool, perhaps the most remarkable, at delivering information. There are blessings and curses that go with this tool. The trick is being actively engaged in social media and the internet so that we, as Raushenbush stated at the end of the lecture, "how we — all of you — can be a part of the force that bends the Internet away from the curse and towards the blessing."

The hope of the Faith Formation Team in this series is to get your comfort level with the "new media" up so that your church can be a force of blessing on the internet.

What are your thoughts on this talk? Was it helpful in laying out the issues of the internet? Are there lingering doubts or concerns that weren't addressed? Do you have a story of the internet being part of your spiritual life and blessing it?