Church ... Virtually - Christianity Today

It’s Sunday morning at one of today’s most innovative and fastest growing churches. Coffee is served. Ambient music fills the room. A screen displays a countdown clock announcing the service will begin in five minutes. People chat in the lobby while others sit in prayerful silence.

The worship leader appears and greets the congregation. A woman turns to her husband and says, “I can’t hear. Would you turn it up?” He obliges, clicking his mouse to increase the volume of his laptop speakers. She gives a nod of thanks and settles in to worship.

Welcome to virtual church.

Recently a number of churches have made the leap beyond multi-site and satellite campuses. They have launched internet campuses, making every living room, dorm room, or coffeehouse with wi-fi an extension of the church.

The trend started in 2007 with a handful of churches and has grown to dozens of congregations today. Some are large and highly visible churches, such as North Point Church near Atlanta, while others are small, but the momentum will likely lead to the launch of hundreds of virtual churches in the years ahead.

Online church is not simply a streaming video of a sermon or a podcast. Worship services have scheduled times so that attendees engage simultaneously. Efforts are made to ensure the experience is more interactive and less passive than you might imagine. Brian Vasil, who oversees the internet campus of Flamingo Road Church near Miami, says the aim of their internet campus is identical to that of their physical campuses.

“We want to help people take steps toward Christ. We do not want them to just consume good teaching, but to engage and connect,” he says. “Many people hear of internet campus and think that it must be pretty passive—people sitting in their pajamas watching a video. But we have leveraged technology to provide a chat room where worshippers mingle and talk with one another and with me, their campus pastor. We also have online Bible studies and online programs for teens and kids. Through the week, our internet campus offers forums, book studies, leadership studies, and small groups. We take prayer requests online—about 150 each week.”

With any new movement, it is wise to ask questions and probe the underlying values, theology, and implications. Even church leaders who are not planning to start an internet church can benefit from these questions. For example, virtual churches force us to rethink long-held assumptions about what church is, the impact of technology on the soul, and what it really means to participate in a spiritual community. The advent of virtual churches may cause many traditional churches to reexamine their own ministry values.

Leveraging Technology

One of the first to venture into virtual church was LifeChurch.tv. After being planted in 1996 near Oklahoma City, it quickly grew using a multi-site strategy. LifeChurch.tv now has over a dozen physical campuses from Arizona to New York. On Easter 2007, LifeChurch.tv went from adding campuses to multiplying them. With the launch of their online campus, they set into motion a movement that has allowed them to reach people anywhere on the planet with an internet connection.

Bobby Gruenewald is the one at LifeChurch.tv who helped launch their online campus and now oversees the expansion of their digital ministry.

“Church Online reaches about 5,000 people each week through 22 scheduled online experiences,” he says. Like others in the internet church movement, he admits that exact numbers are hard to determine, but reports that each week there are over 50,000 unique IP addresses logging in, with roughly one in ten staying for the entire service.

Gruenewald says Church Online is a significant part of LifeChurch.tv’s overall vision. “Our desire is to leverage technology to connect people to Christ, to each other, and to their community.” And rapid expansion is a big part of their strategy.

“We are actively seeking to grow the ministry. We have bought Google ads so that when people search for ‘church’ or ‘online church’ and even terms that have nothing to do with church, our online church will be one of the options they see.” Gruenewald says the church plans to expand to 50 weekly services in early 2010. Their eventual goal is to have services available 24 hours a day in multiple languages.

Sim Sacraments

Seacoast Church in Charleston, South Carolina, also tries to make all aspects of physical worship services available to online congregants. Brad Singleton directs the ministry. He says Seacoast’s online worshippers can light a candle, write a note of confession or prayer and nail it to a virtual cross, pray with Brad in a private chat room, tithe, and even take Communion. He admits that last one is a bit difficult.

“No, we don’t have digital juice. We just point out that Communion is a meaningful way to respond in worship and encourage people to find a way to take the elements if they choose.”

The impact of virtual church? Vasil says Flamingo Road Church is seeing the same signs of life change among online churchgoers as those at their physical campuses—confession, prayer, commitments to Christ, and even baptism.

“Most of the people who accept Christ through the internet campus travel to our main campus for baptism,” reports Vasil. But on a few occasions they have conducted online baptism. “We ask the person being baptized to find a believer who will serve as my hands for the service,” says Vasil. “I say the words via the web as the believer baptizes the person in a pool or jacuzzi. It’s very meaningful and we take it seriously. We’ve even sent video crews to film the baptism so the whole online community can bear witness.”

The Human Touch

Douglas Estes, author of Sim Church, estimates that the Christian church currently is engaging less than one percent of the 70 million people who are active in the virtual world. According to Estes, that makes web inhabitants the largest unreached people group on earth. But is the digital mission field for everyone? Vasil says that not all churches should engage in virtual church.

“First of all, a church needs total support from its most senior leadership. This cannot be a side effort of a few techies who just want to stream a worship service. The lead pastor must be 100 percent behind it.” While a virtual church does not require a great deal of money or technology, Vasil reminds us that it is resource heavy, using many volunteers and calling on non-virtual church members to support the effort.

Another consideration centers on the technology-relationship dynamic.

“A big mistake is to think this is a technology thing. It’s not. This is a people thing,” says Gruenewald. “If a church focuses on the technology and the tools, they will likely fail. Whether it’s a physical site or virtual church, it’s all about relationship.”

Vasil agrees. “This ministry requires somebody who is passionate about being a pastor first and can use the technology second.”

Seacoast’s Singleton also says that relationships are required to keep a virtual campus thriving.

“We tried really hard to use the internet to impact military bases and firehouses, but found those efforts lacked the support of an insider who could own the ministry and help it grow.”

Meanwhile, Seacoast has seen surprising growth among house churches who use the internet worship feed as a vital part of their church’s life. Home-based congregations from California to Maine to Greece worship online via Seacoast’s website.

But is it Really Church?

For all the good intentions, a basic question must still be asked. Is virtual church really church?

Bob Hyatt, pastor of The Evergreen Community in Portland, Oregon, sees some danger in the move toward virtual church. Evergreen has three services at multiple locations and leverages technology in a number of ways. But the church has intentionally avoided video preaching or online campuses because they feel they are inherently unhealthy.

“Virtual church has many of the problems of mega churches and video venues,” says Hyatt, “but virtual church takes those problems to the absurd extreme. They create distance between leaders and the led, the teachers and the taught, and the serving and the served. While having real community can be difficult in a megachurch, it’s impossible in a virtual church. Not only does virtual church fail to form us in necessary ways, I believe it has a malforming effect because it’s just communal enough to provide some of the easiest and most instantly satisfying pieces of community without the harder, more demanding parts.”

A lively debate has ensued about the quality and legitimacy of community that is fostered by Facebook, MySpace, blogs, and other social networking media. This debate is at the heart of virtual church considerations.

Pastor and author Shane Hipps explores the topic of online community in his book, Flickering Pixels: How Technology Shapes Your Faith. While online community has benefits, Hipps holds that it is not as good as what he calls “unmediated community.”

Virtual community, he says, “is mostly a disembodied, and largely a cognitive connection” that occurs on only one frequency of the human experience. “It’s just not as valuable as unmediated community, which involves the entire range of the human experience—physical, non-verbal, intuitive sense, subtle energies, visual cues, acoustic tones, etc. These are extremely powerful things that should not be quickly dismissed as ‘nice but not necessary.'”

Mark Driscoll, pastor of Seattle’s Mars Hill Church, uses video venues and shares his sermons via podcasts, but sees such technological efforts as supporting the true church, not replacing it. Driscoll refuses to confer legitimacy on virtual churches because there cannot be giving and receiving of Communion, baptism, or church discipline, all of which require the physical presence of believers.

In his book Vintage Church, Driscoll writes, “In today’s Facebook world, electronic meeting can be a precursor or supplement to an actual gathering, so it seems a reasonable way for a seeker to check out a church …. But these cannot be a substitute for personal gathering if we follow God’s command in Hebrews 10:24-25.” For Driscoll, virtual church can be a worthwhile ministry of a church, “but cannot be the fullness of the church.”

Brandon Buckner, internet campus director of McLean Bible Church near Washington, D.C., recognizes the limits of online churches while still advocating for them.

“The internet campus is not an end, but a means to the physical campus,” say Buckner. “There is real value that comes from being a part of virtual community, but it’s not a replacement for the church. We think it’s great for people who cannot be in attendance for whatever reason, but we would not be pleased if someone only worshiped in the virtual world. We want them finding community online and also coming to church and connecting in the real world.”

Bobby Gruenewald disagrees with the critics of virtual church.

“It’s neither better nor worse than churches who meet in physical space. Each expression has limitations and each has its own set of opportunities.”

Flamingo’s Vasil says the criticisms of virtual church can apply just as easily to physical churches.

“People complain that internet church attendees can hide behind anonymity,” he says. “Of course they can, but so can someone sitting in the back of a physical worship service. Or they say that church discipline is difficult, but that’s also true in every other church in America.”

A Call to More Church, not Less

Vasil’s point reminds us that the ministry assumptions driving virtual churches are also driving many “bricks and mortar” churches. These assumptions include the primacy of content, the value of individual preference over community, and deemphasizing church accountability and discipline. If church leaders have no qualms about these assumptions, online church might become the pinnacle of contemporary church philosophy. But for others, the virtual church movement serves as a magnifying mirror that reveals how prevalent these assumptions are in their own churches.

It’s not enough to simply accept virtual churches on the basis that they are “no worse” than physical churches. A more helpful approach might be to examine the challenges in both the virtual and physical world so both kinds of churches can be more faithful to Christ’s calling.

Here are some shifts that may begin to address the challenges faced by virtual churches and the more traditional congregations most of us lead.

Informing vs. Forming

Sound preaching and teaching are essential in the kingdom of God, but in many churches, dispensing content, sometimes in highly entertaining forms, becomes the core aspect of church life. If the primary purpose of the church is simply delivering information, then an online video feed is sufficient. But if the formation of disciples requires more than content, if it also requires community (knowing and being known by other believers observing your life), then how we use technology needs to be reexamined.

Simultaneous vs. Together

Lots of people each eating bread and sipping juice in his or her own home simultaneously is not what Bonhoeffer had in mind when he titled his classic book about the church, Life Together. Of course shallow discussions in a Sunday school class or the Teflon politeness that marks many churches in the real world fails to meet Bonhoeffer’s criteria as well.

The biblical image, “the body of Christ,” means more than people doing Christian stuff at the same time or under the same roof. Whether online or in a building, the goal is not simply simultaneous experiences but noticing and loving each other in real community.

Virtual vs. Physical

Virtual church practitioners exhibit great zeal for sharing Christ and drawing people to God. But in that zeal we must not forget that the medium does matter to God. John declared that the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and his letters have harsh words for anyone who says Jesus did not come in the flesh because the flesh (the physical) is real and it is important. God could have simply sent a text or a vision. But he didn’t.

No husband would want a virtual bride; no mother would want a virtual child. Yet our union with fellow church members—other interdependent parts of Christ’s body in Paul’s language—is of greater importance than union with family. Our churches have to go beyond words and reclaim the importance of physical acts of obedience, service, and worship.

Commitment vs. Fleeting Choice

Choosing a church, or “church shopping” as it’s often called, is a part of today’s religious landscape. In a virtual world, church shopping (or “surfing”) means someone will be able to close the window of one church when the music segment is over, and open the window of another to enjoy a preferable sermon.

Rather than adding to the hyper-choices consumers face, perhaps we need to send the message that being part of a church involves choosing to give up choices in favor of commitment. As another church leader has noted, there is something forming about being a part of a community that meets at a place, at a time, and with a people not of one’s choosing. Virtual and physical churches might consider finding fresh means for establishing orders, rules, or other high-commitment agreements among disciples.

Whether or not your church launches an internet campus, we can all thank the virtual church movement for forcing us to reexamine what it means to be church. A thoughtful theology of the church, and an honest look at what values are guiding our approach to ministry, will help us move wisely into the digital world and perhaps regain traction in the real world as well.

Chad Hall teaches at Western Seminary in Portland, Oregon.