14.09.2023

Digital Ministry

Learning together: An important part of the workshop was the exchange of Best Practices. Here Naomi Priska Simanjuntak from GKPM* (left) in conversation with Muliadi Simpatupang from GKPS*. Photo by: Ridho Simamora, UEM

“Even after dinner, people would keep sitting together. They talked about their issues and challenges in digital work and started solving them together!” Dennis Kahl still is excited when he tells about the workshop in Gunungsitoli. He is the IT Team Leader at UEM. From August 21 to 24, a total of 17 people from Indonesia and Sri Lanka met on Nias Island in the west of Indonesia. They were hosted by UEM member church BNKP*.

At home in their respective churches, they are responsible for things like digital infrastructure, computer based accounting or online communication. Especially during the pandemic, their work had become essential for their churches’ ministry and life. Now in Gunungsitoli, they came together to learn and discuss what might improve their work in the future. They heard introductory lectures by Dennis Kahl and Leonard Efapras, who studied IT and is now teaching as a Theological Docent at UKDW Yogyakarta, Indonesia.

They sat together in small groups to share experiences and solutions they had worked out themselves. In this way, it was also the experts from the churches who taught each other and got into conversation.

UEM is a Communion of Churches – and in the 21^st century it is becoming a digital Communion, too.

*BNKP = Banua Niha Keriso Protestan (Christian-Protestant Church on Nias Island)

*GKPM = Gereja Kristen Protestan Mentawai (Christian-Protestant Church on the Mentawai Islands)

*GKPS = Gereja Kristen Protestan Simalungun (Christian-Protestant Church of the Simalungun)