By Rev. Dr. Jim Lawrence
The Swedenborgian Church of North America has supported a denomination project for an online community that collapses geographic separations. For two decades, with the work and support of many laypersons and under the leadership of three ministers, the denomination’s project has steadily grown and evolved in its skills and practices of reaching out and connecting with people no matter where they live.
In 2004, under the leadership of the new president Christine Laitner, the General Council launched a research project to explore the vision of an online ministry connecting people living far from existing churches and also to serve as an outreach ministry to the world. A research committee was appointed for this project, and in the summer of 2005 the General Council accepted a proposal to establish an “online-only outreach and connectional ministry.” The new ordinand Rev. Sage Cole was recruited and served as minister in the initial startup phase through 2007 when she decided to give a more full-time effort to her new work at the Wilmington church on a team ministry with Rev. Randy Laakko. That shift led in 2008 for a Steering Committee of Susan Wood-Ashton, Sue Ditmire, and Barbara Cullen for what was being called “The Cyber Ministry Project” arranged to hire Rev. Dr. Wilma Wake, who would then take the ministry into a decade-long development that became known as and officially called the Swedenborgian Community Online (SCO).
During the decade from 2008–2018 the SCO was especially Facebook-based and featured real-time weekly worship services by Rev. Dr. Wake but also often including guest ministers and speakers, and there were many programs of spiritual growth group discussions. In all events there was a lively chat section that built relationships and community. Content for the website grew with hot links and an archive of reading materials. Website usage data showed steady growth in regular participants and new visitors with an overall growth of 150% for one four-year period as probably 300% overall.
After a decade of robust development, Rev. Dr. Wake felt ready to retire from the project, and the ministry’s Central Committee hired Rev. Cory Coberforward the summer of 2018 following his ordination. Cory possesses a high level of tech skill that includes a year of graduate school in computer science, and he had also been active on the Swedenborg Foundation board learning from the OffTheLeftEye video project that had reached an enormous audience. He facilitated a name change to Spiritual Sunshine for a stronger public attraction and began working heavily with videos. Spiritual Sunshine under Cory’s leadership has focused its mission of connecting people across the world to our denominationally shared spirituality by connecting on many fronts, from YouTube to TikTok to email conversations on the SwedenborgianCommunity.org website.
YouTube has become the most effective growth driver and point of connection, and Cory can more readily stay on subscriber growth with YouTube which is particularly important. For example, he notes for this edition of my president’s message that in the last twenty-eight days subscriber growth numbered 258, which was “108 more than the usual 90–150” according to YouTube. In the last ninety days, the subscriber growth shows 765 new regular viewers and for the past year subscriber growth numbers 1,830, which is 71% more than the previous 365 days. It is working.
Cory adds, “One initiative that may drive future growth is our recent efforts to create shorts from our longer-form videos, which have seen good engagement. We also are starting to do various things to make our content more digestible, such as adding chapters to our recent videos and built-in closed captions on our shorts. Although my half-time position somewhat limits our ability to continue to expand our offerings, as I am the sole editor, minister, and techie, etc., we hope to still be able to deepen our ability to connect and introduce people to their inner light and the wider Swedenborgian world by working smartly.”
In featuring our history of “cyber ministry,” I rejoice at the vision and hard work of so many laypersons and clergy in helping to take our special brand of Swedenborgian spirituality to people without geographic boundaries and to provide untold meaningful experiences for so many. May our vision continue and our yield increase.
—Rev. Dr. Jim Lawrence
Read the full issue of the November/December 2024 Messenger
Meet Jim Lawrence
Rev. Dr. Jim Lawrence is the president of the Swedenborgian Church of North America. He was the dean of the Center for Swedenborgian Studies for 21 years prior to being elected President in 2022.
