-- Text of Tueday's morning chapel --

 I am working at home, daughter sees I ‘m on Facebook and says

 ”Dad, I ‘m better than you.”
"Why?"
"I have more friends - and your friends are not real friends, only colleagues from work"

Pastor Martin Hoegger, ecumenical officer of the Reformed Church in the Canton of Vaud, preached the following sermon during the opening service of the 19th European Christian Internet Conference, at the Ecumenical Institute Bossey, 2 June 2014.

I. Jesus, the open communicator par excellence

The theme of this conference is "Open Internet, Open Church, Open Source."

I would like to meditate on that little word "open".

Here is my presentation.

Some thoughts:

Who of you listeners owns a mobile phone? Everyone of us are carring a small computer all the time, but question is who control this device?

Why software matters?

Because there is so many computers in every home

Opening Keynote: Open internet, open church? New community structures in the global church - Roger Schmidt, Digital Encounters (Hexagone)

Roger Schmidt took us for a tour de force of the history of the internet.

There is expectation in the air. Only two weeks left until the 19th European Christian Internet Conference starts.

Webpastors, webworkers and webdevelopers will meet from 2-5 June at the Ecumenical Institute in Bossey, near Geneva. We are looking forward to inspiring networking, new ideas and interesting discussions. 

Registration is now closed. If you were planning to join the conference, but haven't registered yet, please write to info@ecic.org to check whether you can still participate.

You can now register for ECIC19. The conference will take place  2-5 June 2014 at the Ecumenical Institute of the World Council of Churches at Bossey, Switzerland.

Take advantage of a special early registration price of €490 by booking before 15 March. 

Make sure you've read the conference information, then head straight to the registration form!

Ciarán McMahon described to ECIC participants some features of cyberspace, as well as its effects on the human mind. A key message of the lecture was to highlight the virtual reality as a unique operational context rather than as a mediated fantasy land. Cyberspace was described as a reality with its own inherent rules and characteristics. This all is shaping who we are as humans both online and offline, face-to-face. The person you are online is not necessarily the same as you are offline.

The workshop on Ethics in Social Media gathered together on a sunny Wednesday afternoon in Dublin. Ralf Peter Reimann, the facilitator of the workshop came up with three relevant topics of discussion, which the group commented on and prioritized, subsequently adding a fourth one. (Votes In quantity.)

Sigurdur Hafthorsson, communication officer of the church of Sweden had a presentation on the online counseling. He told about the road of the church to online crisis counseling services.
Church of Sweden's online crisis counselling service is reaching out to people where they are at. Suicide prevention is the main task.

The goal is that Church of Sweden is active in digital media. Counseling is available for all Swedish speakers in the internet.