new publication: online space in a Community of Christ congregation

A couple of years ago, I worked with a graduate student to examine the geographic and linguistic diversity in an online Community of Christ ministry that made an intentional effort to cross borders during the COVID-19 pandemic (and before and since, but for all of the obvious reasons, this was particularly pronounced during the pandemic). I was pleased with how the work went and was eager to get it to publication. I’m happy to announce that that’s finally happened, thanks to the Journal of Media and Religion.

There are a limited number of “eprints” available here, and I’ve uploaded a preprint here. This is also the first publication that I’ve been able to add to the new research section of my website as it came out. You can check out the publication page here or browse all of my research here—or via the taxonomies that I link to there. I’m pretty proud of that research section setup, so it probably deserves its own post sometime soon. For a simple preview of the article, here’s an abstract:

Internet technologies may provide new spaces for churches that are facing challenges in geographic spaces. These online spaces can be understood as distinct online spaces or as extensions of geographic spaces. We consider the Beyond the Walls online ministry provided by the Toronto Congregation of Community of Christ, a denomination with a growing global footprint and a shrinking population in the Global North. Examining worship services between January 2020 and January 2022, we consider the locations and languages represented in Beyond the Walls services, the distribution and social network of contributing individuals, and how the services performed on Facebook and YouTube. We found that online ministry allowed Beyond the Walls to draw from a larger, more geographically and linguistically diverse population than in-person services could have, possibly responding to denominational concerns. We also illustrate the ways that this ministry corresponds with both distinct and extended understandings of space in the online church.

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• Community of Christ
• online Mormonism
• Mormonism
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• Beyond the Walls