One of the advantages of living in Mexico is that you are in the same time zone as much of the USA. For NBA and NFL fans, this is good news. Last week, I discovered another advantage: the Gospel Coalition was holding its annual conference in Chicago, and was streaming the sessions live. Throughout the day and evening, I could listen to the likes of John Piper, Tim Keller, Mark Driscoll and Ajith Fernando in real time. Apparently, about 3,500 people attended; who knows how many watched like I did!
But as good as it was (the technical production was brilliant, and I could see and hear everything—maybe better than some of those attending), it wasn’t the same as being there. This got me wondering about the concept of cyber-church, e-church, virtual church or whatever you want to call it. Will it ever work? Should we try and make it work? Are there essentials of meeting together that the internet just can’t provide?
Here’s a few reasons why watching the conference on the internet wasn’t the same as being there:
- I got distracted in ways I wouldn’t have if I had been in the auditorium. While Ajith Fernando was speaking, I did the washing up! A couple of emails arrived during Mark Driscoll’s talk (which I read), and during the panel discussion on the last night, I had a skype chat with the Sydney Church Missionary Society (CMS) office. During one of the sessions, one of my kids needed help with his homework, and a guy came to the door selling brooms. Sure, I could have locked myself away and avoided all those things, but if I had been in the auditorium, I would have avoided them as well.
- I didn’t get to hear the banter before each talk. You know, the pre-talk introductions, the unplanned personal reflections, the jokes—this all adds up to help us to know the speaker and connect with him. Those of you who attended the 2009 CMS New South Wales Summer School will remember the fun, but really personal and revealing interactions between Al Stewart and William Philip. They were great fun, but they also made us love ‘Woollie’ and listen to him more closely. I missed that from Chicago.
- I didn’t get to sing. I assume there was music at the conference—there was a drum kit and assorted instruments on the stage—but I didn’t get to be a part of that, and even if the invitation had been made, I might have felt a bit weird doing it alone in the privacy of my home.
- I wasn’t part of the corporate prayer—especially when we were encouraged to pray with the people around us in response to a particular issue. It was just me and our pet tortoise at that point.
- Perhaps most importantly, I didn’t get to engage in fellowship with other conference attendees. How many of us go to church or go to a conference, enjoy the teaching and benefit from that teaching, but the icing on the cake is who we spoke to afterwards, who we prayed with, the conversation we had with that new person, and the person who said that kind word to me in my time of need? Maybe we also caught up with some mates we hadn’t seen for a while, or we were able to ask that question that had been bugging us. In watching the conference in my lounge room, the cake had no icing. Sure, there are the post-conference forum discussions, but a few typed paragraphs back and forth just doesn’t cut it in terms of real fellowship value.
I reckon that when the writer to the Hebrews said, “Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching” (Heb 10:25 NIV), he really meant meeting together face-to-face.
For me its simply summed up in 2 John 12. Fellowship is best done face to face. I mean, it doesn’t take much mature Christian reflection to see that we’re created for real-time, real-life fellowship, does it? I’m staggered that the virtual church thing is actually taken that seriously by people.
Yes- it is just as well that the Son of God didn’t contact us virtually, but actually came and tented among us, in the flesh! A model for our preference in human interactions perhaps?
A few random thoughts…
A Christian brother and leader who recently visited our shores with a call to increase our efforts in church-planting has himself recently launched the global arm of the church he leads. The preacher will be beamed in for 40 of the weeks of the year on video screen. I heard someone comment that when he speaks of the need to screen planters (for their suitability) he really means to plant screeners!
I think Heb 10:24 is helpful in thinking about the benefit of meeting in the flesh which is the ability to stir one another up to love and good works. It’s much easier and practical to do this in person than via email.
I am voting for the terms e-Pastor or iPastor.
The local pastor knows the uniqueness of local concerns.
The greatest loss in beaming in our iPastor is we are unable to see their life and doctrine matching up. The benefit of proximity allows us to witness if they practice what they preach, which is easily seen in smaller congregations with your traditional flesh-pastor (I have reservations about this description). Yet even if (God forbid!) our churches grow and we don’t have a deep personal relationship with the Bible teacher we still see them as a husband and father, the car they drive, the type of person they are drawn to speak with after church, we meet with people that do have a personal relationship with them and so gain an understanding of if they are respected, we meet people converted through their ministry. We see not just their doctrine, but their life as well.
Michael,
And the Word became binary code, perhaps?
I am a bit worried about this younger generation…..
30+ years ago I knew a lady who was 80+. Her only ‘church’ contact was whatever church service was on TV. This is 30 years ago and I have no idea what the Bible teaching was like but as far as I could know she was trusting in God.
20+ years ago there was another lady aged maybe 60 years of age who I think was converted by watching a children’s christian TV show on in the afternoons called ‘Sing Me a Rainbow’. (Clifford Warne, magic tricks…..)
And of course there is the era of those Dr Knox talks on radio. More imagination needed for the visuals but just how many were fed the word of God?
Another man we met was experiencing lots of face to face in a church but seemingly devoid of christian fellowship in Christ for probably 20 years. But he was hanging on to Christ through the reading of an old worn Billy Graham pamphlet (think DVD)
And then there are all those converted and encouraged through the landline screens used By Billy Graham.
I wonder how many other people have come to know the Lord Jesus Christ via the screen and had for many reasons remained isolated.
Today the technology is so accessible. The opportunities are overwhelming when one starts to dwell on them.
A ‘virtual’ church or a ‘virtual’ conference can lead to real conversion, encouragement, exhortation……
And as much as we would like to forget, there are examples from Hitler, Stalin and Mao – all big screen users!!
Let’s not underestimate the impact of the ‘virtual’!!
Di
I think “virtual church” is a lousy idea. But virtual conferences are great, especially if you can’t get to Chicago.
Michael, I wonder if your example almost proves the opposite point though? Because only the first disciples knew Jesus “in the flesh”. Yet we modern folk have a true (not virtual) relationship with him, even if we don’t know him face-to-face.
It seems to me that conferences are a place to receive whereas church is fundamentally a place to give (i.e. “It’s not about you ….. as per http://solapanel.org/article/the_five_word_antidote_to_grumbling/).
It’s not just the dissimination of information.
So, as others have effectively said, echurch really wouldn’t be a church.
Hi Izzac (or should that be iZzac!)
I’ve been wondering about the ‘video iPastor’. On one hand I have no problem with it – as long as there is a local ‘pastor’ and people who are gathering to serve one another in the local setting. As long as there is a Christian community gathering to use the ‘resource’ of the iPreacher, then maybe it might work.
But on the other hand I agree with your question about having a relationship with the pastor – being able to see his behaviour, see the car he drives, see how he treats his kids etc. There is no question that seeing the life of the pastor is a critical aspect not only of his leadership, but of our (as congregation members) learning to what it means to live Christian lives as it is modelled to us.
It also raises the question of the nature of the sermon. Is it a specific talk for a particular group of people at a particular time? Or can it been listened to more widely than that? When I was preaching regularly I certainly always had the congregation who I was preaching to and their situation in mind – this would be difficult for the beamed in sermon – for a whole lot of reasons.
Pete
Hi Di,
I reckon ‘beamed in stuff’ is great – in whatever form it comes. Radio, TV, booklets, pamphlets – whatever. Thanks for the reminder of those precious servants.
In fact at the moment ‘beamed in’ is pretty much the only ‘external’ feeding I get as I can only understand 1 in 20 words at church.
I too have met many people – through Katoomba Men’s Convention etc who are isolated and rely on external sources for food.
However I think I also want to say, while its good, its not the best. The guys I meet at MKC all tell me they love coming to the conference ‘live’ because they get to rub shoulders (quite sweaty shoulders often) with other Christians. They say the same about church – they’d love to have peers to meet with every week – to build relationships with, to encourage, to serve etc.
So I want to agree with you – and say lets not underestimate the potential of the virtual – but I also want to say – lets acknowledge that its not the best, and where possible we should be going for the best.
Pete
Greg,
Good observation – thanks.
But interestingly – even as a mode for ‘receiving’, I think my ‘reception’ wasn’t as effective as it could have been if I was there in the auditorium with the others.
Pete
Peter – I was one who was present, face-to-face at the Gospel Coalition conference, and the points you note are precisely what I would highlight. The singing of 3,000 plus people, the praying of a John Piper, these are things which are simply cannot be reproduced in cyberspace. The sharing among conferees was yet another thing of special significance for me. I was one of the “old geezers” at this conference (I’m 55). There were many 20-something pastors and seminarians, some of whom I had wonderful conversations with. The visible look of the ballroom with these younger brothers was a tremendous encouragement to me personally – again something never, never to be experienced by computer.
I think virtual church could be as good as church done badly.
Maybe it’s an indication of how badly we do church that we can even think about it.
How can virtual church:
discipline members?
disciple members?
baptise members?
etc
Virtual church could be an important part of a real church, but it can never be church.
Isn’t church inherantly a ‘gathering’?
God Bless,
Michael Hutton