A lot of churches offer online services that people can watch from wherever they happen to be on a Sunday morning. It’s a great service that provides people a lot of flexibility when planning their weekends.
Now you can watch church while tailgating at the football game.
Now you can watch church while having a relaxing spa day.
Now you can watch church while snoozing through the alarm.
Online church is remarkably convenient but does it really qualify as church?
Most Christians understand that the church isn’t the building but the people gathered within the building. And the church really isn’t just the people gathered within a specific building, but all followers of Jesus everywhere. The church is the collected body of Christ and there is power when we gather together.
Online church is like the foot of the body of Christ deciding that it wanted to be someplace else and participate remotely. My foot can’t participate independent of my body; it can’t do what it was meant to do by itself.
When we sit at home or on the golf course and watch church online, we’re not really doing what we’re meant to do with the body of Christ. When we sit by ourselves with our computers, we’re not really gathering together – we’re a severed foot hanging out by ourselves.
In order for the church to be the church we need to gather together. We need to participate in corporate worship and sit at the Lord’s Table together. That corporate identity is something that can’t be found in online church, regardless of how engaged online attendees are with a chat room.
Online church definitely meets a need for people who are incapable of leaving home. It also meets a need for people who just can’t make it to service one weekend. Online church, though, can and should never replace actually gathering together to celebrate as the corporate body of Christ.
Obviously the Internet and social media are changing how we do church and reach out to people. Anything followers of Jesus can do to get more people to follow Jesus should be explored. We just need to make sure that whatever methods we use are true to scripture and don’t take away from our identity as the collected body of Christ.
How can the Internet and social media draw us together as the body of Christ?
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