At CMRC, David Michel, from Dalhousie University (Canada), told his story of a small conservative Christian community on the Atlantic side of Canada, who wanted to go live online, by video-streaming their services.

One of the big questions affronting the small congregation was what could be in the view of the camera, and what would be shielded from the eyes of viewers online. Some people believed there were parts of the inside of the church that shouldn’t be seen by people who weren’t in the building. Others believed their were sections of the service where private information about members were shared, and also shouldn’t be seen by those participating through computer screens. For David, but more so for me who listened to his story, it raised questions about how people negotiate private and public in a church community, and how people consider the internet as a public space.

It seems, by the small introduction to the church community that I was given, that the notion of the church service as a public event had been eroded away among its members by its recent history. In the years where the congregation’s numbers dwindled, and where one-time visitors were seen increasingly seldom, the church service was conducted among people who “knew” each other to the point where being together was a private event. Even if there were people present at a service whom congregants did not “know”, at least congregants were fully aware in the space of who their audience was, to the point of better control over how to present information and themselves in a setting that appeared private.

Yet for the congregants, the Internet was seen as the opposite. Going live through video-streaming was, for them, like placing themselves in a panopticon, a Big Brother House where *everyone* could see them, and they could see nobody in return. Going live online for them was a test where the search for new and distant friends and fellow congregants required the relinquishment of control over their own church environment.

Somewhere in this dichotomy of “landline church = private” versus “online church = public” is the reality, which deserves further exploration and requires time and experimentation. I wish them luck.