Chaired by Pam Smith, the online and new media session has offered a structured series of talks on the following themes: ‘An introduction to the online church’; ‘Is there a theology to this?’ and ‘Online evangelism’. Speakers on the first session were Tim Hutchings, who is researching online churches, and Simon Jenkins and Steve Goddard who were behind Church of Fools.

Online Churches
Since online churches first surfaced in the 1980s, novelty has kept new developments in the public eye, but Tim noted “strangeness only keeps you interested for so long”. There needs to be something more than ‘novelty’ to keep people engaged with online churches. A number of churches have come and gone, whilst others are only just beginning, including various Second Life churches, and i-Church and St Pixels, which emerged from Church of Fools.


Ship of Fools at St Pixels
Simon and Steve explained how they had started ‘Ship of Fools’ as a rather ‘anarchic’ game show, using Biblical characters in a Big Brother style online programme, producing the 3-month experiment that was ‘Church of Fools’ as a spin-off.

Advantages and Disadvantages of Online Churches
The St Pixels team, responding to questioning, felt that the main advantage of the online church was the ‘whole church universal’, with exposure to greater diversity and broader experience. Online churches also provided a place for those unwilling and unable to attend a face-to-face churches. The biggest disadvantage was felt to be the lack of committee meetings at which problems could be sorted, and Pam noted that she had really come to understand Paul’s letters after the experience!