One of the best ways to grow in your skill as a digital disciple is to learn from others who are using innovative, creative, and tech-savvy methods in their ministry. In August of this year, Aboundant asked you to nominate persons you know who are effective digital ministers. Nominations continue to be accepted, but we’d like to introduce you to some of the people who were nominated. Later this fall, we’ll begin to interview some (and eventually all, we hope!) of these digital ministry practitioners. For now, we encourage you to let us know about others who are involved in vibrant, meaningful and creative ministries that utilize websites, social media, visual storytelling, blogging, and so on. They don’t need to be well-known, published authors, or experts in their field; we’d like to know about anyone who is a respected and effective digital minister, whether clergy or laity. Share your nominations using the form at the bottom of the page.
Jana Riess
Editor and Author
Jana Riess has been an editor in the publishing industry, primarily working in the areas of religion, history, popular culture, ethics, and biblical studies. She was the Religion Book Review Editor for Publishers Weekly from 1999-2008 and continues to write freelance articles and reviews. Jana is a popular guest on issues pertaining to religion in America, and has been interviewed by everyone from Time and People to the “Today” show and NPR’s “All Things Considered.” She is the author, co-author, or editor of several books, including Flunking Sainthood: A Year of Breaking the Sabbath, Forgetting to Pray, and Still Loving My Neighbor. Her book The Twible: All the Chapters of the Bible in 140 Characters or Less . . . . Now with 68% More Humor! won first place in the non-fiction category in the Writer’s Digest Annual Self-Published Book Awards. Jana Riess’ website.
Eric Elnes
Pastor, speaker and media host
Eric is the author of Gifts of the Dark Wood:Seven Blessings for Soulful Skeptics (and Other Wanderers) as well as the a popular book in progressive Christian churches, The Phoenix Affirmations: A New Vision for the Future of Christianity. His book, Asphalt Jesus: Finding a New Christian Faith on the Highways of America, inspired a feature-length film called The Asphalt Gospel. Eric’s interactive weekly webcast “Darkwood Brew” gathers people from around the world for an engaging exploration of “Convergence Christianity.” Elnes serves as senior pastor of Countryside Community Church (UCC) in Omaha, Nebraska.
Keith Anderson
Pastor, Author, Editor and Speaker
The Reverend Keith Anderson is a pastor at Upper Dublin Lutheran Church near Philadelphia, author of The Digital Cathedral: Networked Ministry in a Wireless World (Morehouse, 2015), and co-author with Elizabeth Drescher of Click2Save: The Digital Ministry Bible (Morehouse 2012). Keith is co-editor of The Narthex, an online magazine about the changing contours of American Christianity and serves on the editorial committee for Odyssey Network’s ON Scripture lectionary commentary series. Rev. Anderson is a sought after speaker, writer, and expert on digital ministry. He also has taught at Andover-Newton Theological School and The Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia. Keith’s website.
Bruce Reyes-Chow
Pastor, blogger, author, event speaker, church consultant, leadership coach
For many years, Bruce was a congregational pastor in the Presbyterian Church (USA). A respected leader in his denomination, Bruce was elected Moderator of the 218th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (USA), the highest elected office of a 2 million member denomination, in 2008. Currently, he works in a variety of freelance roles – blogger, author, event speaker, church consultant and leadership coach. He has published two books: The Definitive-ish Guide for Using Social Media in the Church (Shookfoil Books, 2012) and But I Don’t See You as Asian: Curating Conversations about Race (Kickstarter, 2013). Bruce’s website.
Kimberly Knight
Minister of Digital Community
Kimberly began her ministry as the online organizer for The Beatitudes Society for two years and then later as a marketing and social media consultant for The Center for Progressive Renewal. Kimberly has led social media workshops for communities of faith across the nation and has been a featured conference speaker. She’s a popular blogger at Patheos. Kimberly is currently the Director of Digital Strategy at Agnes Scott College near Atlanta and is also appointed as the Minister of Digital Community for Extravagance UCC.
Len Wilson
Creative Director, author, speaker
Len is an author, speaker, and advocate for creativity in faith and life. He is known for his pioneering work in visual storytelling at Ginghamsburg United Methodist Church, Lumicon Productions, and Midnight Oil Productions. He has consulted with organizations and ministries across the country. Len is the author or co-author of ten books (most recently, Think Like a 5 Year Old: Reclaim Your Wonder and Create Great Things), has been featured in dozens of articles for major religious periodicals, and has acquired leadership books for Abingdon Press, a division of the United Methodist Publishing House. He currently serves as Creative Director at Peachtree, a large church in Atlanta, Georgia, where he oversees a team of creatives and communications specialists. Len Wilson’s website
Gavin Richardson
Web designer, author, youth minister, consultant
Gavin is an expert on–and an expert practioner of–just about any web ministry topic you can think of. He’s a partner and CTO at CircuitWriter Media which operates the United Methodist Reporter and MethoBlog, both entities that he actively contributes to. Gavin is also a partner with startup Wesleyan youth ministry resource Youthworker Circuit and Youthworker Movement. He designs websites, is a consultant on church media, and is a long-time veteran of youth ministry. Gavin has written or contributed to numerous books, articles and blog posts. Gavin’s website
Meredith Gould
Sociologist, digital strategist, and author
Meredith is a sociologist and digital strategist with decades of communications experience in healthcare and mission-based organizations. In July 2011, she created the #chsocm hashtag and founded the weekly Twitter-based ecumenical Church Social Media Chat (#ChSocM). An author of nine books, most recently The Social Media Gospel: Sharing the Good News in New Ways, Meredith regularly works with individuals, churches, conference leadership, businesses and others on strategy development, social media, and digital communications. Meredith’s website
Mary Hess
Seminary Professor
Mary Hess has been on the faculty as Professor of Educational Leadership and Chair of Leadership Division at Luther Seminary in St. Paul, MN since 2000. She’s been on the editorial board of the premier journal in her field, Religious Education, since 1999. Her books include: Teaching Reflectively in Theological Contexts: Promises and Contradictions (2008), and Engaging Technology in Theological Education: All That We Can’t Leave Behind, (2005). She frequently writes scholarly articles on topics from media ethics to digital storytelling in faith formation. She’s the co-founder of Storyingfaith.org, a project considering how digital storytelling can be a form of faith formation. Mary has actively blogged since 2003 and her website can be found here.
Adam Thomas
Rector, author, blogger
Ordained to the Episcopal priesthood in 2008 at the age of 25, Adam was one of the first priests from the millennial generation. He is the Rector of St. Mark’s Episcopal Church in Mystic, Connecticut. Adam also is the author of Digital Disciple (Abingdon Press, 2011) and the recent Unusual Gospel for Unusual People Bible study series (Abingdon Press, 2014), plus the Christian fiction novel Letters from Ruby. He also writes the blog WhereTheWind.com.
Michael Buckingham
Graphic designer
The founder of Holy Cow Creative, Michael has helped churches and ministries of all kinds communicate better. Since 2011 he has also been the experience pastor at Victory World Church in Atlanta. Michael is a respected writer as well, contributing regularly to the popular blog Church Marketing Sucks. Michael’s website
Matthew Johnson
Pastor
Matthew is Pastor to the Community at Grace United Methodist Church in Naperville, IL and the Dream Architect/Produce at Sonic Mustard Media. He’s the founder of the Portico Collective, a “mixed-reality Christian faith community that combines ancient practices and modern technology to promote new relationships, deepening discipleship, and acts of mercy and justice.”
Who have we missed?
There are hundreds of terrific digital ministers in the world – clergy and laity, professional and volunteer, broadly recognized or locally known. Who would you add to our list? Use the form below to nominate them. We’ll be continuing to feature (and interview) terrific digital ministers on our list.