Engaging the Gadfly: Reflective Online, Hybrid, and In-Person Preaching in a Digital Age

In 2020, most preachers and congregations were forced into online and hybrid preaching. We had to react quickly. For some, this adventure opened creative forms of preaching—stitches, duets, reels, and VR. For others, it was a season of just getting by—cell phones propped up on books, laptops on dining room tables. We did what we could to proclaim the good news in turbulent times.

Five years later, Sigmon invites preachers and congregations to reflect on those experiences as they consider the future of preaching. She helps the reader engage the Gadfly, whose buzzing signals a shift in how we understand relationships, truth, presence, and place in this digital age. Sociologists and historians argue that we are now on the brink of a shift in communication as transformative as the invention of the printing press. No wonder ministry is so challenging right now.

Ultimately, this digital age, like previous ages of technological change, presents problems and possibilities to the practice of preaching—and so, ecclesiologically, the shape of the church. What shapes will emerge? Sigmon will empower preachers and congregations to answer that question for themselves through a new media homilecclesiology.

Casey T. Sigmon is assistant professor of preaching and worship, and director of contextual education at Saint Paul School of Theology. She is co-founder of TheoTechnics, a team helping congregations engage technology theologically. Sigmon is the project director of the Pause/Play Center for Preachers. Thanks to the generosity of the Lilly Endowment's Compelling Preaching Initiative, Pause/Play is a sacred space for weary preachers to restore their creativity and reignite their imagination through rest and play.



John S. McClure is Charles G. Finney Professor of Preaching and Worship at Vanderbilt Divinity School. He has written Mashup Religion (2011) and other books.