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“Cyber-Church”: Will it Change the Way Church is Done?
Orginally published on Sunday, June 12, 2005 at 2:36 PM
by Todd Rhoades
CharismaNow.com recently featured a story on the ‘cyber-church’… here’s part of it. Tell me, what do you think? More and more people are pointing and clicking their way to God from a home computer. Internet church - or virtual, Web or cyber church - is the real thing. Virtual church may be in its infancy and largely experimental, but some believe the Internet has the potential of being at the forefront of church growth in the next decade.
The idea of worship and fellowship online is enough to cause some, especially those grounded in traditional styles, to crash their spiritual hard drives. In its rawest form, Internet church is a webcast of a service, a Christian chat forum or an online prayer board. At its most innovative, it's a fully interactive experience."All churches need to have a strategy for the Internet because people's spiritual needs do not fall into a neat slot," Alyson Leslie, former pastor of i-Church (http://i-church.org), a Web congregation based in the United Kingdom, told "Charisma" magazine in the June issue, out now. The full article on Internet churches can be found in the magazine.
I am one of the biggest proponents of using the internet to it's full potential for ministry's sake; but I'm not sure where this 'trend' is going. Can the internet take the place of us physically meeting together for worship & edification? I hope not (and I doubt that it can in most instances). However, different forms of the 'cyber-church' can and will have signicant impacts on the church. For example:
Web church is also opening doors for the gospel in the Islamic world. "The Holy Spirit is at work," said the leader of an Arabic virtual-church project in the Middle East, not named for security reasons. "Almost every person in the Middle East can easily access the Internet. This is our opportunity now, as the church, to enter every home."
Great use of technology there! But will the 'cyber-church' really be able to make a dent in people, say, here in the states, who don't attend worship? According to Stephan Goddard from "Ship of Fools" a ground-breaking UK virtual church: ""We're concerned that many of the people coming to Church of Fools are not [finding] meaningful church offline." That is something that is yet to be seen.
How do you see the internet being a part of your church's future? Have any of you harnessed the power of the internet in a great way in your current ministry? I'd love to hear your stories!
You can read the whole article at Charismanow now! 
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Hi... I'm Todd Rhoades. I'm a Christ-follower, husband, father and I love to connect leaders with other leaders. Hopefully you'll find something here at MMI you like and will return often. If you want, you can find out more about me or follow my every step on Twitter.
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Tuesday, June 21, 2005 at 12:41 AM
Post Your Comments:I am in the process of helping a small group study set up a systematic approach to an interactive study built on “homework” tools to enhance the actual study.
For example:
When we meet for the small group study we provide the partcipants a username and password to the site that they can access.
Each week we give online assignements for them to search and research study helps for our group study.
One person might be assigned the task of searching the culture’s mind set on sexual immorality or moral conduct during the time the Scripture was written.
While another person might be asked to look up the greek (or Hebrew) translations for many of the Words we’ll be going over.
Keep in mind, this isn’t the “101” Christian study, these studies are designed for the Christians who already have a strong Biblical foundation of knowledge and understanding and already know how to formulate a study. BUT
These same steps and tasks can be learned and applied to a basic Bible Study course.
The point? It “trains” men and women how to look deeper into the Truth of God’s Word and many times, it makes it very fun and illuminating (also, it tends to separate the pretending christians out).
Our intent is to eventually take an entire study through a book of the Bible and make the entire process from beginning to end available online for others to use and try.
Our Hope is to create a strong desire in the heart’s of God’s people to really “study to show themselves approved”.
It goes well beyond the “sermon notes”, audio file, video file, etc.
another way I’ve seen “cyber church” done - although I don’t think I saw it included in this article is to have a pastor “be” in several places at one time.
The service I participated in was a “traditional music” service. the pastor was right downstairs in a more modern service and we watched the sermon via video. It was interesting, we connected to the people in that room, even mingled with the people in the other room after, but we only worshipped with the ones in that upper room.
It was interesting, but I didn’t feel connected with the pastor.
Yes, Ellen… this is known as the ‘video venue’ format. (See another of my websites at http://www.churchvideovenues.com); but I wouldn’t really classify this as part of the cyber-church that this article talks about.
Thanks!
Todd
I highly recommend the radio interview with John McArther about Emerging Churches, he has a great piece in there about video venues and how they’re even used for “commercials” promoting the mid-week services.
Thanks, BeHim… but let’s get back on topic… the ‘cyber-church’… computer church; internet technology, etc. rather than video venues. We’ll save that topic for another day.
Todd
NP Todd, you brought up the video venue, I was only pointing to a great audio tape about the subject.
CyberChurch is growing! As more churches learn the technology and how they can reach more people I envision them one day using data-mining techniques to reach their own members and virally reach the lost.
no, I’m the one that described it, Todd just put a name to it.
I’ve watched sermons over the internet - I’m dating a man long-distance and I’d go to my service and then watch his via computer. After his service, we’d be able to discuss it.
Used for that reason, it was pretty cool.
Personally, I believe the internet may be the only way to reach people who, for whatever reason, won’t come to a real-life church. At http://www.infinitechurch.com, a unique internet-only church, we’re finding that the anonymity that the church allows is just the ticket for people to feel comfortable opening up with their real issues. It’s the perfect venue for the disabled, snowbound, geographically disconnected, and even the self-conscious pregnant teens to worship.
We’ve also made online baptism reality. Our environment is a graphical chat room where users walk around in different rooms of a church. We have a baptistry, and we animate the user’s character being baptised in the presence of other witnesses. I can tell you it’s a moving experience. My comments on the validity issues are at http://www.infinitechurch.com/online-baptism.html along with some pictures. I’d love to hear your comments!
-Chris
For the past several years I’ve had a longing to go to church. I’m partially disabled, meaning some days I feel totally disabled, and other days I feel like I can do just about anything. However, I don’t drive, I don’t own a vehicle, and getting someone to “take” me to church is easier said than done.
I spend the majority of my time in front of the computer. I have found a lot of spirtual and Christian material that have helped me along the way.
While it’s not the “real thing.” It’s an ok substitute and it fills in the gap.
There’s nothing like feeling the power of the Holy Spirit where two or more are gathered. Yet I still feel the Holy Spirit working when I read my Bible Software or when I read some Christian literature online. I also watch some tv sermons.
I think internet churches are a great supplement to offline churches, but all in all I don’t believe it should be a replacement.
Beckie
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