In order to be effective at all, online discipleship requires some of the same things that offline does. Accountability and relationships were modeled by the first disciples in fairly small groups. Can a large online church audience effectively be discipled?
Browsing: technology
In last week’s poll we asked people:
What is the biggest hurdle facing online churches today?
The results were a little surprising to me:
The opportunity to reach people that offline churches currently aren’t reaching with the gospel is probably the most compelling and oft cited support for online churches. Do you see evangelism as one of the greatest opportunities for online churches? Are there any hurdles or difficulties with evangelism? Have you got any stories to share of people who came to Christ through an online church?
One of the less glamorous jobs God has given the church is to stand up for truth and integrity. Some say accountability in the online world is difficult, and if an online church leader confronts a person about false doctrine or sinful behavior they will just run off to another online church that won’t confront them. Is this true?
Community is a critically important part of any church. At my offline church we define community as a place where you can know and be known, love and be loved, serve and be served, celebrate and be celebrated.
Is that possible in an online church?
One of the biggest obstacles online churches face is figuring out how participants can serve one another. Is physically serving one another essential to being a “real church?” Can online churches do these things? If so, how?
When discussing online churches that never gather in one physical location, two questions that often come up are
How do you do baptisms?
How do you celebrate communion?
In SimChurch, Douglas Estes does an excellent job of looking at the various options online churches have for the sacraments. He breaks them down into 4 categories.
Which if any of these expresses of baptism and communion are (most?) biblical and why?
A new study published on emarketer.com indicates “The anonymity of the Internet leads people to behave differently than they do face-to-face.” Sure you could take that to mean people feel empowered to misbehave online, but it also indicates an opportunity to meet new people and have spiritual conversations with people who might be reluctant to do either in an offline setting. What do you think?
In the discussion surrounding Online Church Part 1: What is a Biblical Church? it seems that everyone agrees that for a church to be a real, biblical church it must gather together regularly to worship God. The question for today is…
In what ways can online churches excel at gathering for worship and where are there difficulties?
As mentioned yesterday, we’re kicking off an in-depth conversation about online church. I think the place to start this conversation is by looking at what specifically an organization must be and do to be a “real,” biblical church whether online or offline. Which of these do you believe is necessary for a church to be a biblical church? And why?