Thanks very much for referencing my ramblings over at my blog on this topic. I think Shane Hipps has some very interesting thoughts on this topic when he talks about the importance of the incarnation. God could have chosen any medium/age in which to reveal himself, and yet, he chose to come as a human in the middle east 2000 or so years ago before mass communication on the scale we know it was even imagined.

I’m paraphrasing Hipps here, but he says how do you do something that is in its essence incarnational in a non-incarnate environment. Also, Steve Timmis has some good things to say as well in his book, Total Church, about the importance of local community.

In the third post of my series, I’ll be digging into my thoughts on online churches, but the gist of it is that I think we need to decide what we mean by the church. How do you generate the kind of community we see in the New Testament regarding church in an online environment where people are spread geographically, often by thousands of miles?

To me the fundamental question is not whether or not we can/should be doing church online, but rather, are we creating disciples through online church. If not, then what’s the point? I don’t have a definitive answer to this question, and hope to continue a meaningful dialogue on this topic that, let’s face it, is really in it’s infancy practically.

Thanks again.

I’m personally VERY in favor of Church Online for tons of reasons. The biggest is that I have grown more through my Church Online experience than I have in the past 2 or 3 years in a “traditional” church. And I’m seeing how God is using it around the country and around the world for real kingdom impact – and at least as far as I can tell, that is what really matters, and not the tools by which it happens.

The hottest part of the debate around online church seems to center on the idea of calling it church and the question,”Is it really church?” Meaning, can or should the entire physical service experience we know as the “assembling of ourselves together,” be replaced by a virtual church experience.

Some are taking that approach. Others are indicating that their online services are not meant to replace getting into a local fellowship at all.

The power coming from interactivity and virtualization are key aspects of the debate. When it comes to delivering the sermon, however, the Internet is just another medium for distributing the gospel, like radio and television.

Christian leaders will continue to wrestle, as they should, with the “church” question and the importance of “meeting together.” The answers will come. Pastors and church leaders had similar debates about radio and tv nearly 100 years ago. They figured it out.

In the meantime, I’d like to pick up on a point Gabe made. I believe “the other 6 days,” represents the greatest area of opportunity for church communications.

For the first time in history churches are in a unique position to develop their own, continuously operating, multimedia outreach ministries. The tools are there. The costs have become manageable. God is calling people with the necessary skills to help.

This outreach, in all its innovative forms, can take place on a 24/6 basis. These church based media ministries can be given any name that fits. A ministry doesn’t have to be called church for it to be a work of the Church.

Church communication strategies that are Biblically sound, uniquely matched to God’s local vision, and that fully maximize the potential of technology, can grow churches in ways never before possible.

Meaning, more lives changed for Christ. There shouldn’t be a lot of debate about that, whatever the outreach it’s called.

i have a few thoughts:
1) I have an issue with the verbiage being used. What does it mean to “have church”? To me, a better way to put would be to “be church”. To “have” seems possessive, owning something and consuming/enjoying it. to “be” is an action… to live out… and as we are “being the church” that means a lot of giving away and pouring out….into each other and into the least of these. I think a lot of people’s view of “having church” boils down to sunday worship services and maybe some token mission trips (if you’re “radical”). it’s basically turned into an interactive event. and to say you can fit that “online” proves it.

2) to say that you have “have/be church online” is weird to me. I agree with Matthew’s comment above. it seems very limiting to me. you take away the full human body experience. I think that any technology can be used as a TOOL… but when you subject your way of doing things to a tool, you are limited by that tool. DON’T LET TECHNOLOGY DICTATE CHURCH!!! Do I think churches can utilize the latest and greatest technology to enhance community and communication? ABSOLUTELY. But to say anyone can “have/be church online” is going too far and it’s a red-flag to me that either A) they have a very limited view of what church is OR B) they’ve bought into our cultural vocabulary that doesn’t make sense to me.

3) re: generational tension – i guess i’d have to agree on this one. I’m 28, and the thought of “online church” is a turn-off to me.
with that said, i’m a very “online” person and i’m more technologically/culturally savvy than most common people. My church pastors tweet… we video podcast… yada yada. (aka we use online technology but we don’t do “church online” if that makes sense)
continuing… most 20-somethings (and young 30s) i know are also very turned off by the thought of “online church”. But i see a lot of older 30-somethings and 40-year olds going nuts over it. I think it’s a very Generation X thing, from my perspective.

4) look to other cultures’ ways of doing church. You will see that the way we do things is in the extreme minority. I just got back from Africa… China a few months ago… Indonesia & Thailand last year… etc… It’s ironic…it seems the less a church has, the more freed up they are to actually BE the church. In America, we have become BORED WITH CHURCH. We are fascinated and sometimes even worship technology (myself included)… what i fear is happening in our church culture is called “syncretism”… the merging of religions to form a new one.
If you want to see the Church on fire and moving like nothing you’ve ever seen before, go to Asia.
Now am i saying to abandon the American Church and do things like the Chinese church? no. but LOOK at them and get to know them… it will put things into perspective and cause you to wonder why the heck we are doing things the way we are doing them.

I just got off the plane from Africa yesterday, and church last week was AMAZING (watch my blog Sunday). One revelation i took away from this trip was that the more i seek to understand other culture’s ways of being the church and worshiping, the more i understand and see how Satan attempts to subtly deceive my own culture’s church.
bottom-line, every time i hear about doing “church online” … i don’t know, but there’s a subtle catch in my heart about all this.

There’s no reason, I think, for this issue to be as divisive as it sounded like it was at CWC (though not in my session, which was relatively tame). Usually division happens when people are uncharitable and don’t make proper distinctions. The clearer we are about what ‘online church’ means and what’s at stake, the easier it is to have reasonable discourse.

I think Doug’s book does a great job of making those distinctions, and so is very helpful. I attempted to do the same. However, I disagree with John that these are simply issues of “generational tension.” At the core of the Church’s relationship to technology is a question about anthropology and ecclesiology–what does it mean to be human, whether the Church is a place where our full humanity is realized, and what the Church is at all. The specific questions about the form of church may have changed in 20 years, but the same questions will be around.

I love this conversation, though, because it forces people to articulate WHY the baptism that Flamingo Road did didn’t “count,” which exposes all kinds of assumptions about our theology (including some possibly problematic ones).

I think if everything moves online, the distinction is one that Christian’s ought to preserve. Isn’t moving our whole lives online at some point a minimization of the role of the human body in the human experience? That’s the basic worry, I think, that traditionalists have (that I have, anyway). In that sense, ‘online’ and ‘real world’ are not made up distinctions, but rather point to the necessity of human reality to be embodied and to the disembodying effects of technology.

As someone pointed out after my session, Barnes and Noble is more real than Amazon because I can encounter flesh and blood there (even by accident, which isn’t insignificant), while I can’t at BN. As such, the brick and mortar stores will always be more real.

More thoughts to chew on. I hope I’m not being divisive on this issue, but I think there’s quite a bit at stake.

Highest regards,

matt

20 – 30 years from now (one generation) we won’t be having this discussion as you’ve said. Not sure about your accelerated generational tensions theory but can tell you from my experiences at the conference – there are 3 categories of thinking:
* you can have “church” experiences on the web
* you can not have “church” experiences on the web; it’s illegitimate
* you can have “church” experiences on the web if they are directionally focused on leading to face to face (read: real world) encounters where traditionally defined Biblical community can occur.

An insightful post on this third perspective (held by many people) with scripture references is provided by my good friend & colleague, Drew Goodmanson, here:
http://www.goodmanson.com/church-technology/is-online-community-real-community-questions-about-the-virtual-church/

Today’s “polarizing and controversial” issues surrounding on-line expressions of faith will be forgotten 20-30 years from now. I would offer that what we’re experiencing are not fundamental spiritual issues but rather accelerated generational tensions.

How many teens do we know who don’t consider virtual communication and relationship integral to their community experience?

The sacraments are definitely being performed online (SimChurch has examples) during online services. In fact one of the most controversial conversations that came up at the CWC ‘09 was when a photo of a Flamingo Road online baptism was shown by Drew Goodmanson – oh, the controversy that arose!! Some people have even concluded that the person was not really baptised. These are some of the many questions we’re wrestling with.

Douglas – I loved your book and have marked up every page! Thank you for stretching us as the Church to peer into tomorrow.