One diocese's voyage
onto the Information Superhighway
When Vancouver theological student Rob Domaschuk needed to research a liturgy project, he didn't go to the library.
Instead, he posted a call for help electronically, on one of the free Anglican e-mail systems springing up around the country.
Within a few days, Domaschuk had responses from clergy and laity all over Canada.
From his home computer, Domaschuk had tapped into "AngliNet" -- a network of computers around Canada offering Anglicans electronic mail and discussion forums.
"The response really was incredible," explains Domaschuk. "If I'd have used any other traditional method, like writing to parishes, waiting for them to get around to it, waiting for them to mail something back, it would have taken more than a week."
"This way, it only took five minutes."
Using a device called a modem, people are connecting their computers to AngliNet host systems and entering discussion forums on dozens of topics from liturgical renewal and the Cursillo movement to continually updated news from the worldwide Anglican communion. Their only cost is long distance phone charges, and in many cities even the call is a local toll-free connection.
And it all started with one Vancouver-area parish.
The Rev. Ronald Barnes, a parish priest in Port Moody, B.C., started an electronic bulletin board system called NWnet (named for the Diocese of New Westminster) for his parishioners to share news, read committee minutes, and send electronic mail to other parishioners.
It's similar to the bulletin board at your local supermarket where people leave messages for others -- everything from personal notes to for sale items.
But that's where the similarity ends. Besides leaving messages for others, people are transferring free software to their computer, reading committee meeting minutes just hours after the meeting, and searching databases of information.
The idea caught on, and soon people from other parishes starting calling NWnet and sharing their own thoughts.
"For a while it was mostly laity," notes Barnes. "Now we're starting to see clergy getting online as well. It's very much an egalitarian system in that everyone who participates is at an equal level with everyone else."
Since everyone uses only their first and last names online, some don't even realize they are discussing liberation theology with a Canon or Bishop.
However, while a core group of about 50 throughout the diocese use NWnet regularly, Barnes says the concept is not being used to its potential. He'd like to see a time when parishes log on each morning to collect Synod office news and overnight parish bulletins.
One group trying to move the medium toward that goal is the young people of the diocese.
The diocesan Anglican youth ministry council has a forum on NWnet and keeps in touch with parish youth leaders by electronic mail. News about upcoming conferences and workshops reach the online participants weeks before printed material arrives in the mail.
The provincial AYM, too, hosts its own forum in which council members conduct business between meetings.
"Our council is made up of young adults from all over B.C. and the Yukon, so it was hard to stay in touch between meetings. Now that we have the BCAYM online forum, we can still meet throughout the year without all being in the same place," explained one BC-AYM council member.
To Barnes, it's not surprising that young Anglicans are leading this transition to instant communication. "This generation uses computers in school, at home, at work. They don't think of them as complicated at all." "In the next few years as our teens come into their twenties, they'll be the spearhead for changing communication in the church," he says.
"And we need our young people to dream out loud like that."
Other dioceses began to follow suit. An electronic bulletin board system in the yukon linked its discussion forums to NWnet. Soon, people from both dioceses were meeting online and sharing thoughts. Then three Edmonton systems joined.
The computers are programmed to shut down for one hour in the middle of the night to transfer e-mail and forum messages between each other. The connection between the computers was coined "AngliNet."
Like Barnes, the system operators aren't computer experts, just active members of their parish who set up their home computer to act as an AngliNet host. For them, it's a hobby. "It's a common misconception that you need to be a computer expert," says Barnes. "But it's really no more difficult to type an e-mail message than to type a note on paper. In fact, it's probably easier."
In Ottawa, when the system operator of Maximillian BBS heard of the growing AngliNet, he decided to jump on board.
"I already had an Anglican BBS here in Ottawa, and AngliNet offered our users an established message base," Martin Hubbard explained in an interview conducted by e- mail. "I believe this sort of `networking' can make a very positive, and significant, contribution to the Anglican community."
So far, AngliNet has access points established in Vancouver, Edmonton, the Yukon, Ottawa, New York, Ohio, Illinois, and Rhode Island, with more planned for Winnipeg, Victoria, Washington state, and Toronto.
During New Westminster's recent bishop election, NWnet hosted an online forum called "NewBishop", in which people from all points of the diocese gave input into the selection process. People linked to AngliNet hosts in other cities were able to eavesdrop on the discussions and even drop in their own thoughts.
John Sager, the Search/Nomination Committee's chairperson, says the immediate feedback was invaluable.
"I was pleased that we were able to use the network to post our update letters. Mail is often difficult in a church environment. Even if it's mailed it may not hit the church bulletin board for weeks, if at all."
"But using the electronic bulletin board, I could have our updates online right away for anybody to read," Sager recalls. "There's something very powerful about being able to disseminate information very quickly and widely."
Even elected bishop Michael Ingham has an e-mail address and regularly participates in the online discussions.
Ingham says he has always wondered why the church doesn't embrace such new communication tools with more enthusiasm.
"I remember trying to convince the church committee not too long ago that we should get a fax machine -- I couldn't convince them. Now, most of our parishes have fax machines. It was the same way with answering machines not too long ago," notes Ingham.
"I think to some degree the church has been unduly suspicious of innovative technology. For some reason, people still think it's somehow unspiritual."
In addition to NWnet, Ingham often signs on to EcuNet which, although that network costs money to use, holds vast resources for the Christian community. Half of the provinces in the Anglican communion are connected to EcuNet.
And it's not just other Anglicans people are talking with over computer networks. Most systems linked to AngliNet can also send and receive e-mail with people on the Internet, also known as the "Information Superhighway." It is estimated twenty million people have access to the Internet worldwide -- one half million of those in Canada.
Back at the Vancouver School of Theology, Rob Domaschuk reflects on what could quickly become a new way for Anglicans to keep in touch. "The possibilities for the greater church in having instant worldwide communication is absolutely mind-boggling."