Union of Welsh Independents (UWI) General Secretary Rev Dyfrig Rees has expressed the wish of the Union “to fund churches through innovation for innovation”, through the upcoming ‘Investment and Innovation Programme’.

In UWI’s Spring issue of Union Matters, Rev Rees wrote about how “the phenomenal growth in the activity of some churches on social media attests to the number of Christians experience a new rebirth in a world of alternative activity because of the virus.”

Having turned its chapel into a screen and its congregation into faces upon it, the Church has revealed more than its ability to use the latest technology for new ways of worship and giving testimony.

Traditionally, churches had been “tied to their buildings and confident in their pulpit ‘six feet above any criticism’”. With the boundary between the sacred and the secular blurred, churches have “chosen to put themselves on the same level as others, through the medium of the world wide web, and to consider the whole world as the field of all their endeavours”.

“As with our Lord, the church itself has reached the real world and there it will become a presence working for truth and a voice to announce life in all its complexities to the whole of creation.”

Believing that “this new activity is symbolic of a far more substantial and deep movement in our midst”, he appealed to them to not “revert to the usual, like people who have made a wasted journey and not learning a thing” after this time of illness and contagion has passed.

“Our days should be a matter of lifelong learning if the latest technology and gadgets become an integral part of our efforts to promote our work and our mission,” he said.