In depth | Evangelicals Now

We’re almost ALL digital evangelists now

Glen Scrivener

After this month I’m taking a break from writing this Everyday Evangelism column. It’s partly so I can focus more energy on reaching out online. This article explains a little of why.

There are 2.5 billion monthly users on YouTube. Three billion on Facebook. If these were countries, they would be easily the biggest countries on earth. How can we be missionaries to these lands?

Technoference: How screens are shaping our youth

Karen Soole

Young parents seem to be constantly under attack by the media for their parenting failures, and it’s easy to see why.

There are significant concerns about the development of preschool children. The recent Kindred Squared School Readiness survey had some disturbing findings, including the number of children arriving in reception who are not toilet-trained, starkly contrasting to other parts of the world. Children come with poor motor skills, with some unable to use the stairs and many struggling with emotional dysregulation. There are various causes attributed to this, from Covid baby syndrome to parents working full-time or the pressures of social deprivation; however, one factor appears over and over again – the use of technology. School nurses report that these issues began emerging before Covid alongside the increased use of mobile phones.

Technology and the vision of a Christ-centred cosmos

Paul Blackham

A technological revolution is happening in the way information is handled. It has been happening for at least 20 years but has achieved a level of impact and accessibility to make everybody sit up and take notice.

The modern world could be defined not as the Bronze or Iron Age but as the Ink Age – because words were the most powerful resource, beginning with the Renaissance and Reformation, through the Enlightenment and into the era of mass media through radio, television and information technology. This trajectory already indicates that words have been turned into pictures and images as a primary form of communication.

Tech wise

Stephen Ayre

Book Review MADE IN OUR IMAGE: God, artificial intelligence and you

Read review

Children & smartphones

Date posted: 17 Jul 2024

Dear Editor,

Thank you for Glyn Harrison’s wake-up call in the June issue of en, ‘Social media and our children’ on page 15. After clearly sounding the alarm, Glyn concludes by asking: ‘And what are we going to do about it now?’

New Egyptian app helps 120,000

Bible Society

With churches closed due to the Covid lockdown and large events prohibited, Bible work in Egypt fell significantly in 2020. But the digital world came to the rescue, with remarkable results.

In January 2020, before the pandemic struck, The Bible Society developed a new app guiding people to read though the whole Bible in a year. By December, 5.7 million chapters had been requested by 121,392 different users.

imperfect parenting

Do you FULLY know the dangers of digital?

'Imperfect Mum'

The purpose of writing anonymously is to enable me to be freer in how I write and what I write about. To be more honest about my parental failings and limitations and more open about the difficult topics facing parents.

Such as the dangers of children accessing pornography. We had a challenging Sunday recently (the evil one does tend to favour the Lord’s Day to test Christians, don’t you think?). It was a relatively short-lived incident but raised many issues for us as parents.

Prayer app sees record growth in Covid

Prayermate.net

The PrayerMate app has seen growth during 2020 with record numbers of users in March and April.

Reaching a total of 444,000 downloads, there were 42,000 active users at the height of the UK lockdown. The PrayerMate community prayed for over 19 million prayer items in 2020 which is over 1.6 million items per month.

Technology

Do you need to develop better digital habits?

Pete Nicholas

A few years ago, I was asked to do a main stage seminar on digital technology at a large conference for ministers.

In the Q&A time I got a rather angular question from a minister who I think was feeling overwhelmed: ‘This is all very well for those who are young and trendy, ministering to hipsters, but what does it have to do with the rest of us?’

In Depth: technology