We recently set up an IT working group which includes the website in its remit. Outside the institutional church, many individuals are pressing ahead vigorously. Davy Mitchell, an Internet programmer from Monifieth, near Dundee, runs a Catholic contact site and e-mail forums for those considering a vocation, and for anyone interested in Catholicism in Scotland. Its relaxed style and thoughtful content now draw up to 3500 visitors a week. The advantage of the WebChurch is that visitors can work at their spiritual life in their own time and in their own way.
Churches tend to present a package that is an attempt at consensus.
Through the Internet you can cater for the diversity of people's experience and longings. Leslie rejects the argument that conducting this transaction electronically makes it less real. Unless you consider that prayer itself is a pretty ethereal proposition, there is nothing virtual about the local network of more than 40 people, aged from 12 to 82, who pray for the WebChurch, for visitors to the site, and for the many people who e-mail specific requests. They're co-ordinated by a trainee United Free Church minister, Derry Meredith, who makes sure requests are responded to within 24 hours. People believe you can't have genuine contact over the Internet, but I don't doubt for a moment that we have more fellowship with people all over the world than you will find in a lot of churches at the average Sunday service.