Online Worship: Our New Normal?
Photo by Philipp Katzenberger on Unsplash
To write this piece feels a bit like throwing cold water on a situation where everyone else is having fun. I promise, I like technology. Just ask my wife. I am a master at coming up with excuses to buy new technological gadgets. I also really appreciate creativity and innovation. I love it when the church tries to find ways to share the gospel. I also recognize the wisdom that has led many churches to suspend in-person gatherings at different points in this pandemic. None of what follows is a disparagement of that choice in these unique circumstances. I am truly grateful for the options technology has allotted during this time.
Even so, I am concerned by the widespread adoption of online worship when presented as an equal substitute for in-person gathering. I am troubled that we are not thinking carefully enough about the theological implications of current online practices once we are beyond these pressing pandemic considerations.
The idea of online worship and streaming church services is not new, though the global COVID-19 pandemic escalated its adoption at an incredible rate. Numerous popular ministry articles express the same sentiment as this story from UM News, "Virtual worship is here for good." The assumption is that, since we have opened up this option for most churches, online services will be a key feature for all churches going forward. There is an appropriate place for streaming corporate worship gatherings online. My concern is that this trend is driven by pure pragmatism, without careful reflection on how online worship forms people or what it says implicitly about how we understand the nature of corporate worship.
Church guru and online ministry advocate Carey Nieuwhof writes regularly that online church is the “new normal.” In one article entitled “The New Characteristics of Churches that Will Be in Decline Five Years from Now,” he writes,
It’s not that most churches won’t have an online ministry. Almost every church does now thanks to COVID-19. It’s just that in the future, declining churches will see it either as an afterthought or a lesser form of ministry. I know there are genuine theological questions that have yet to be answered. And we’ll figure that out as we go along. If that statement bothers you, just read the New Testament. The Gospel moves forward, and the leaders figure out what it means in real-time.
Yet Nieuwhof misrepresents what we see in the New Testament. Paul, for example, is making real-time theological course corrections for the church. He sees pragmatic realities, whether syncretism or disorderly Spirit-filled worship, and addresses them from a place of practical admonition that is shaped by deep theological roots. Paul seems deeply concerned that the practices of the church are in alignment with sound teaching. Theology and practice cannot be separated.
I am not suggesting that the church bury her head in the cultural sand. Yes, the church ought to be nimble and innovative in our mission, but we must simultaneously think carefully about the implications of the decisions we make. Jesus does not come across to me like a “shoot first, aim later” sort of guy. There is deep intentionality in how he goes about calling and making disciples. It must be the same for us in the 21st century.
I’ve written previously about the dangers of purely pragmatic decisions with regard to the church growth movement and the way our church methods shape people. We have to make sure our primary reasons for existence are not being undermined by the methods we choose to employ. Is there a chance that offering online worship as an equal substitute to in-person worship strongly reinforces the commodification of worship seen in the attractional tendencies of the church growth movement? Without a doubt, yes. Watching a worship service, on a screen, in your pajamas, while sipping your morning brew… this epitomizes American consumerism. If consumerism is antithetical to discipleship, why would we intentionally elevate a model that reinforces it?
Resisting Cultural Inertia
Churches utilize online services in many different ways. Some simply offer streamed services as a point of connection for those who may be homebound for health reasons, or for regular in-person attendees who are out sick or traveling. Often these online offerings are also watched by guests as a preview before attending in person. These are appropriate and useful ways to utilize online services. We stream worship weekly at the church I pastor for these very reasons.
Yet many churches now identify an “online campus” complete with an “online campus pastor.” This approach suggests that you can attend online as your primary form of worship, regardless of need, and still be fully engaged in the life of the church.
Others go still further. I recently learned of a new United Methodist church plant out of the Western North Carolina Conference called Checkpoint Church. This new church, which appears to be receiving denominational backing and funding, only exists on gaming and social media platforms. There is no intention, nor any mechanism, for congregants to meet in person—ever. The goal is to gather an online community from around the world. This disembodied form of “church” raises many questions: How do you become a member of a church that literally cannot baptize you or your children? Is it a good idea to join a church where you have no intention or opportunity to meet another member face to face? How do you care for the dying in this church? Do you set up a screen at the funeral home so the pastor can deliver the homily? Some have lifted up this new model as an example of brilliant creativity and leveraging cultural opportunities, but I must ask, “to what end?”
This extreme example is the logical conclusion of the pragmatic worship practices we are so readily adopting. If online worship is equal to in-person worship, why have so many churches at all? Playing out this scenario to its fullest trajectory, a friend of mine sarcastically suggested we just have one church for everyone. Find the very best preacher in our denomination, find the very best praise team, and just form one virtual megachurch. People can join Zoom small groups and call it a day. Why waste time and money on local congregations at all?
Earlier this year Apple CEO Tim Cook said in a scathing rebuke of Facebook related to privacy issues, “the path of least resistance is rarely the path of wisdom.” I believe this is true and it’s exactly how I feel about online worship in the church. It may be the trend with the greatest cultural momentum, but this does not mean it is the wisest path forward. Discipleship is supposed to be costly. Pursuing the most convenient and comfortable way for people to attend worship should immediately cause us concern. Pure pragmatism can become a cancer in the church. When we do what we do simply because it is the most obvious, easiest, or instantly gratifying course of action, we may set ourselves up to undermine our mission of making disciples.
Americans are conditioned to consume things on screens. Tablets, TVs, laptops, and smartphones dominate our lives. A report in 2016 found that Americans spend on average 10 hours and 39 minutes every day consuming media on screens—more hours than we sleep. During the pandemic it has only gotten worse. Much of this screen time is logged on social media presuming interactions with other people. And yet, by many assessments, we are experiencing a plague of loneliness in this country.
The church is called not simply to be carried away by this cultural inertia but to offer a better way. Christians have the theological tools to diagnose our technological disease and to lead people into embodied practices to help to remedy this situation. Unfortunately, it seems our tendencies are to ride the latest wave of consumerism and provide additional reasons for people to log more minutes on a screen.
Christianity is an Embodied Faith
Fundamentally, the Christian faith is an embodied religion. We are not Gnostics. The Bible starts on page one with the creation of a physical world that God calls good. The Bible ends with the final restoration of a new physical heaven and earth where humans live an eternal embodied existence with God. Everything in between hinges on the pinnacle of our faith, God himself taking on the embodied reality of human flesh, dying a physical death, and being raised to new life in bodily form. While on earth Jesus instituted the sacraments of baptism and communion which have sustained the life of the church for 2,000 years. These foundations of Christian worship are tangible. In baptism we are submerged in water, reemerging with the grace of God dripping from our face. In communion we encounter the mystery of bread and wine becoming the body and blood of Christ, and we ingest that physical reality into our bodies. In prayer we are instructed to lay on hands. We anoint heads with oil. On and on it goes...the physicality of Christanity is astounding. God loves the physical world. It was his idea after all.
Corporate worship must be built on this truth. The incarnation is not tangential to the practice of our Christian faith. It was the ultimate plan of God to become enfleshed. Thus it matters whether believers gather together physically—in flesh. It matters whether I can hear my voice mixing with the voices of other saints in the room also singing adoration to God. It matters that I can hear a brother or sister say amen in response to the preached word, or at the end of a prayer. It matters that I receive a smile or handshake from a spiritual family member before service. It matters that I can go forward to pray at an altar, to receive Communion elements from another human being, to light a candle that others will see. Corporate worship without these things is not corporate.
Our practices of worship form us. The weekly rhythms of worship are fundamental to our learning to live in the way of Jesus. We need constantly to rehearse the story of our faith alongside others. We need the weekly proclamation of the Gospel as a reminder of our need for grace. We need regular exposure to other Christians in order to war against our isolationist tendencies. We need the experience of praying together in unity, of laying hands on the sick, of reciting the creeds in one voice with others. We need embodied corporate worship.
Perhaps this is why the writer of Hebrews says so clearly, “And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds, not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another—and all the more as you see the day approaching (Hebrews 10:24-25). Perhaps this is why sisters and brothers around the world in persecuted countries still risk their lives daily to gather physically with other believers. Gathering physically matters. The Holy Spirit first descended on the gathered body in the upper room. Jesus’ instruction was not for believers to go to their own homes and wait independently. No, Pentecost fire was designed by God to fall on those gathered together physically.
Conclusions
There are good and appropriate uses for forms of online worship, but we need to think more carefully about them. Here are a few suggestions for ways we should think about online engagement.
First, we should view online worship more as a front door to your church and less as a final destination. When someone shows up at our building, we don’t leave them standing in the entryway. Hopefully we have members or assigned greeters that help lead a new person into the place where the worship service actually happens. What if we thought about online services in this vein? Rather than creating an online environment that is an attempt to replace in-person worship for those who choose that “campus,” we should do everything possible to lead people who first attend online to join the church in person. The reality is that the average church guest today does watch online first. We need to think strategically about how to lead such persons into the full and real Christian experience of worship with the gathered community. Online worship might be a good virtual window into your church, but it cannot replace the sanctuary.
Second, it is helpful to think about online ministry as a form of evangelism. Drawing upon our own Wesleyan heritage, I would propose using field preaching as a metaphor for online engagement. Wesley and his followers would never have dreamed of suggesting that those gatherings should replace corporate worship and full engagement in the life of the church. Rather field preaching was a method of engaging people with the gospel who may otherwise never enter the doors of a church building. I propose we start thinking about ministry online as marketplace evangelism. Online venues are indeed places where we can interact with the lost and offer the hope of Christ to people who will not wander into our churches.
With this evangelism approach in mind, we need to disciple our church members towards a more Christ-like witness online. Ten seconds scrolling through my Facebook feed reveals an obvious conclusion. The church has done a very poor job of teaching people how to be Christians online. I think one of the greatest opportunities for impact in our current digital age is teaching our congregants how to be actual witnesses for Christ in a digital space. It is clear that many folks in our churches do not mind being a witness for political views online. What if instead our churches were full of people exhibiting the fruit of the Spirit in online interactions and speaking regularly of testimonies to their faith?
I do not have many answers to this online church phenomenon, but I do have questions, and I am afraid we are moving forward without asking important ones. Online worship is fundamentally not the same thing as in-person worship. To pretend that it is sells short the Christian faith. By leading people to believe worshiping online is just as good as in person, we lead people into an anemic understanding of God’s kingdom.
Can someone meet Jesus online? Absolutely. I pray the church gets better at representing him there. Can someone experience the fullness of the Christian life in the absence of physical community with other believers? Absolutely not. Let’s stop pretending otherwise.
Matt Reynolds is the Founder and President of Spirit & Truth, a Wesleyan-minded equipping ministry that offers hands-on training, online resources, and opportunities for global partnership. Firebrand is a ministry of Spirit & Truth.