Opportunity or Threat?

 It's amazing to still be hearing some church and ministry leaders talk as if online is a threat to church as we used to know it!

The reality is that church as we used to know it, pre-Covid has gone. Online was not just something we did for the pandemic, but is here to stay. Yes there is a danger that it creates consumers and spectators, but then many of our models of church were doing that anyway.

Part of the issue, I think, is the rush to equate online with streaming what happens in the building. The rhetoric then becomes around those who can't or won't  return (and I have heard it said with an slight air of superiority, are too "fearful"). But digital engagement can be so much more, an opportunity to connect in new ways, to communicate beyond our boundaries. As Brady Shearer and others have said, Social Media is not about advertising ministry, it is ministry.

So what if we stopped talking in terms of threat and started thinking in terms of opportunity. What if the whole disruption of this season truly does move us away from Church=Sunday + Building+Services, towards more holistic, Biblical models of discipleship. What if online and digital is part of that?

Yes we have an embodied faith, meeting together matters, but let's look forward in mission and faith, rather than backwards.