2014 Woodbury Leadership Workshop

Friday, January 24, 2014

8:30 AM

Date: January 24

New Habits for Nones: Practicing Digitally-Integrated Ministry in the Post-Christian World with Elizabeth Drescher and Keith Anderson

It’s been hard to miss the near-constant news media coverage of the growth in the population of so-called “Nones”—people who answer “none” when asked with what religion they most identify or affiliate. It is often assumed that Nones are atheists or otherwise unreligious (or even irreligious). But the data tell is that this is not the case. The majority of Nones believe in God or a universal spirit and many have robust spiritual practices that are not inconsistent with more progressive Christian traditions and values. The challenge for ministry leaders now is how to understand Nones on their own terms, beyond the data and often over-generalizing commentary and outside religious assumptions about being unaffiliated or unidentified with institutional religion might mean.

In the 2014 Woodbury Leadership Workshop, Elizabeth Drescher and Keith Anderson, co-authors of Click 2 Save: The Digital Ministry Bible, will share new insights on Nones, digitally-integrated culture, and hands-on approaches to relationship, engagement, and leadership in the “land between religions.”

Registration for the Woodbury Workshop will begin in September 2013.

Elizabeth Drescher, PhD teaches religion and pastoral ministries at Santa Clara University. Her research and writing focuses on the spiritual lives of ordinary believers. A senior contributor to the online magazine Religion Dispatches, Dr. Drescher is also the author of Tweet If You  Jesus: Practicing Church in the Digital Reformation (Morehouse, 2011). She is currently at work on Choosing Our Religion: The Spiritual Lives of Religious Nones. Her website is www.elizabethdrescher.com.

The Rev. Keith Anderson is a pastor at Upper Dublin Evangelical Lutheran Church in Ambler, PA. He served as pastor at the Lutheran Church of the Redeemer in Woburn, MA from 2003 to 2012. He is the author, with Elizabeth Drescher, of Click 2 Save: The Digital Ministry Bible (Morehouse 2012), and his blog, PastorKeithAnderson.net, was ranked among the top 100 religion blogs by Technorati. He holds an MDiv from Harvard Divinity School and an MTS from The Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia.