Prepared for a session with the Bible Society at New Wine.

1. Social Media: Digital Dialogue
5-Step Crash Course in Digital Media
Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn: Who follows
who? Are there boundaries to the public
conversation, and are some things better
said in private? How can social media help
and hinder dialogue?
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2. Introducing
Dr Bex Lewis
Research Fellow in Social Media
& Online Learning
CODEC, St John’s College, Durham
Director, Digital Fingerprint
T: @drbexl
F: /drbexl
W: drbexl.co.uk
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3. Place Your Life Before God
So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your
everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work,
and walking-around life—and place it before God as an
offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing
you can do for him. Don’t become so well-adjusted to your
culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix
your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out.
Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly
respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging
you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of
you, develops well-formed maturity in you.
Romans 12:1-2
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Romans+12:1&version=MSG
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4. 1) WHY DIGITAL?
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5. God is a communicating God: “In the
beginning was the word, and the word
was God…”.
God is extravagant in communication – he
is not a silent God who has to be tempted
into communicating with people.
Rev Prof David Wilkinson
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7. Social
Social
Social
Social
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8. A good [wo]man brings good things out of
the good stored up in his/her heart, and
an evil [wo]man brings evil things out of
the evil stored up in his/her heart. For the
mouth speaks what the heart is full of.
Luke 6:45 (New International Version, [adapted])
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10. 2) WHERE ON DIGITAL?
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13. 3) WHO ON DIGITAL?
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15. “No life of faith can be lived
privately. There must be
overflow into the lives of
others.” C.S. Lewis
H/T @jaybutcher
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16. I’m a passionate believer that we
need to be ‘incarnational’ in the
digital spaces, whether those are
specifically ‘Christian’ spaces or not,
but that we need to understand how
to be ‘resident’ in those spaces,
rather than merely ‘visiting’ to do a
‘bit of reaching out’.
http://www.threadsuk.com/redeeming-culture-in-a-digital-age
Bex Lewis, May 2014
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17. Who sees this?
1. God
2. Parents
3. ‘Kids’
4. Newspaper
5. Enemy
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18. Who does social media?
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19. 4) WHEN ON DIGITAL?
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20. http://small-bizsense.com/the-best-times-to-post-on-social-media/
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21. In a Crisis?
Don’t overthink. Running through committees,
endless drafts and approval processes to get a
response out there can cause far more damage
than good. As long as you have taken the time to
assess the situation and can take a rational,
respectful tone in your response, even an
awkward response is OK to start with, and buys
you time to continue to respond to the problem.
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22. 5) WHAT ON DIGITAL?
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25. Principles of Good
Engagement
• Be interesting
• Be encouraging
• Be active
• Be helpful
• Be authentic
• Represent your organisation well
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27. @drbexl @digitalfprint
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