Digital Ministry in Times Square
Rev. Jim Keat brought his ministry from the venerable Riverside Church into the pedestrian plazas of Times Square recently.
In one hand he carried a sign that read “The Church is not ________,” and in the other his digital kit: a small Canon Rebel S1 camera with a Rode shotgun mic on a Joby Gorillapod.
Camera running, he approached people and asked them to fill in the blank.
“The Church is not … dead,” said a man in a camouflage hunting jacket and deep southern accent. “Cuz I think a lot of people think it’s dead.” He motioned to his wife and told Rev. Keat they were visiting from Tennessee for the first time.
They were surprised at how few churches there are in NYC. “Where we’re from, every stop light there’s a church,” the man said.
“Yeah, I’ve been to Tennessee. I’ve got friends who are pastors there,” Rev. Keat agreed. “Up here it’s like, ‘where they at?’”
Many people declined to speak with Rev. Keat, looking suspiciously at his collar and camera as he wove in long steps towards them, past Times Square’s daily parade of giant Statues of Liberty, a Naked Cowboy, Minnie Mouse, and various cartoon superheroes.
Formally, Rev. Keat is the Associate Minister for Digital Strategy and Online Engagement at Riverside Church, the historic interdenominational church that overlooks the Hudson River in Morningside Heights. Among the traditional faith organizations in the city, he is an enthusiastic outlier and early adopter of digital technology.
The church livestreams its sermons. It tweets, FB Lives, and podcasts. This particular adventure in Times Square was the second in a new YouTube series called Church Talk.
Riverside Church has historically been progressive not only in its theology and social justice work, but in its embrace of technology. It was one of the first Gothic Cathedrals built on a steel frame, alleviating the need for the flying buttresses that hold up the willowy, stained glass cathedral walls of Europe.
It also may be the only gothic cathedral in the world that has Jews in the tympanum statuary. Albert Einstein was alive when the Riverside Church was built and is commemorated among the saints carved above the front door.
In his evangelism for digital ministry, Rev. Keat led a workshop for eFormation recently at the General Theological Seminary called “Real Ministry in a Digital World.” He told an amused crowd about asking his congregants to pull out their mobile phones and tweet the service.
His advice for clergy who are tempted to step outside their brick-and-mortar buildings into the digital landscape?
Don’t hesitate. And be yourself. Especially in a big city, chances are you’ll never see any of these people ever again. So each encounter is a chance to invite them to think about God/spirituality in a different and deeper way. This is public theology at its finest!
He has some best practices as well.
Don’t do everything. And don’t give up. Pick a lane and run in it for a while. And give yourself permission to shift and change as needed, only not too much or too fast. It takes time to build momentum. But once you do you’ll be blown away with everything you can do!
Check out a short video of Rev. Keats in Times Square here.
