Chris Brogan is among the most respected social media gurus around. Last fall a group of us blogged our way through his book Trust Agents here on Christian Web Trends. Chris describes himself as “not religious, but I’m certainly curious.”
So, yesterday he visited LifeChurch.tv‘s online campus and blogged about it.
There continues to be a lot of debate about the pros and cons of online church. We did a 9 part series about online churches in the fall. Lots of churches are launching online campuses. One influential church shut down its Internet campus. So, I was very curious to read Chris’s thoughts about his online church experience.
My 2 main take-aways are…
1) Because of LifeChurch.tv’s internet campus he had the opportunity to check out a church and hear the gospel.
Here’s a guy who describes himself as spiritually curious, but it wasn’t likely he would step foot in a physical church building because his previous church experiences were not that great. He wrote “Being raised as a Catholic, I felt that religious music was mostly people repeating very brief verses in horrible singsong with an organ.”
In his book The Tangible Kingdom, Hugh Halter defines evangelism as “changing people’s assumptions.” Thanks to bad church experiences, bad press, and misguided Christians, millions of people have negative assumptions about Christianity and the church.
I’m trying not to read too much into Chris’s post, but it sounds as though he went into LifeChurch.tv assuming worship services are mostly bad music and boring, irrelevant messages. He came out describing his experience as “two rocking songs,” a sermon that “was interesting,” and a community that was “VERY alive.” This wouldn’t have been possible if LifeChurch.tv’s online campus wasn’t so easily accessible and engaging.
2) Because of Chris’s experience others were invited
58,000 people subscribe to Chris’s blog and 147,000 people follow him on Twitter. Those people trust Chris. Many of them are spiritually curious just like he is. When he writes in his post “Check out LifeChurch.tv for yourself, should such things be of interest to you,” many of them will.
Additionally, the post has been retweeted more 300 times already.
You can read Chris’s post here.
What are your thoughts on Chris’s visit to LifeChurch.tv? Does it change or reinforce any of your thoughts about online church? Does it change or reinforce any of your thoughts on the power of blogging and social media in Christian ministry?
6 Comments
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Interesting, I went to LifeChurch via internet yesterday for the first time too. Craig's experience was pretty similar to mine. Great lively worship songs. The sermon was bang on, making great points and challenging the listener. I was really impressed and will probably attend another service sometime in the future. For specific reasons, I don't belong to a physical fellowship so this gives me an option without upsetting unsaved family members.
Cool! What a great "coincidence."
I love following Chris Brogan. He is living proof that church needs to be all things to all people to be effective. I think Lifechurch.tv is awesome in that they are willing to go out on a limb and differentiate themselves from others, which makes them successful. And that success is that they are filling a void for God. It's not WHAT they're doing, it's that they found something that fills a need and went after it instead of just imitating everyone else. Hats off to them!
Very interesting and exciting aritcle!
I attend a home church as much as possible. However, as one of the Sandwich Generation, caring for elderly parents and helping with grandkids, there are plenty of times one of them and/or I are sick and can't make it to church. Those are the times I love to listen to a podcast of a sermon by a favorite pastor, plus listen to favorite praise and worship music – all on my ipod. For me, audio is easier. My senior mom prefers to watch a church on TV. And I know many techy caregivers who would prefer the whole church, but on their computer – a perfect fit for LifeChurch.
My old church's pastor recommended the pastor from LifeChurch to us and as a result I've enjoyed one of his books and listened and enjoyed some of his sermons and recommended them myself.
I just appreciate that God gives us so many ways to worship Him and learn about Him – providing opportunities for all our different personalities and special needs, and giving even more opportunities to share His awesome Gospel with others! 🙂
We thank God for livechurch.tv. As Christ Ambassadors we should us commend good things and conduct our lives in such a way that our life bring glory to God.