jordanabina
I was sitting on my couch on a Sunday, sometime in the Spring of 2020. It was a beautiful day in the city I lived, and my kids were already outside in our backyard playing. Sounds of laughter, birds, and peace permeated my ears. Sun was pouring into my front living room window and I remember thinking how wonderful this day was shaping up to be. It was one of the first times in over a decade that I found myself in my own home on a Sunday morning, not feeling sick.
As a pastor, Sundays are the day. Sunday is the day we worked toward and the day we rest from.
For me, I had either been leading worship or speaking every Sunday for the last 12-13 years of my life, so to be at home, on my couch, in my sweats, was a feeling I wasn’t accustomed to. If you had asked me in that moment, I’m not sure I would’ve even have been able to recall a moment like the one I was feeling, ever. I’m an early bird, which basically means my kids get up early and get me up, which was the case this morning as well.
This had to be at least a couple of months into the quarantine in California and also a couple months into church being online. Here’s what that meant for me. It meant my team and I had already recorded the music set, the sermon, and produced the service for an online platform. It had already been uploaded and ready for streaming on all platforms since Friday evening. My job at this point was complete and I was free to enjoy and participate in the service from my home.
This was the rallying cry in the beginning wasn’t it? Since we couldn’t meet in person, we took advantage of the technology afforded to us and streamed the service online. Churches and pastors all around the country and world worked hard to get something made to feed the spiritual need in our congregations. There were many brainstorming meetings and there were ideas born from those meetings that have shifted the way we’ve done ministry work this last season all over the country. It will be a season of the Church that will be looked back upon throughout history, I have no doubt of that.
There were still a couple hours until the service streamed straight to my smart tv so I tried to do my normal morning routine as best I could. I showered and got dressed, I even picked out clothes that I would’ve worn to the normal in-person service. Fifteen minutes before service began, my family was seated together on the couch ready for worship. To be honest, I felt pretty good about it. I was proud that even though things were different, we were going to still draw near and put ourselves in a place to receive a word from Jesus and enter into worship.
Sixty minutes later, it was done.
It was then, in the few moments that followed, that I noticed a change in my behavior. The thoughts that were running through my mind were foreign to me, they were not something I was accustomed to. It was a similar feeling to having just finished a show on Netflix. Basically, just wondering what I was going to do next. I couldn’t get the thought out of my mind, that it didn’t feel like church. Don’t get me wrong, it was great and all, but something was missing. And, after about 10 minutes, I was watching football. Didn’t those first few weeks and months feel so strange? I felt guilty, but not sure what about. I felt like something was missing, but not sure what it was. To be honest, it felt really awesome too, but that made me wonder about whether or not that was okay. Was God okay with me turning on the church service and without moving from the same spot, turning on a football game?
The question I have been wrestling with, as so many things have changed in the last year is this: am I comfortable leading people into a connection with a local church that exists primarily online?
Let me exaggerate something for a moment. Recently, I’ve been thinking about why Jesus came when He did. Have you ever taken a moment to consider why Jesus came when He did? I’ve heard many teachers weigh in on this question and most of the arguments I’ve heard make sense. It was the perfect time in history because of the Roman empire being as strong as they were, so therefore the gospel had a sort of highway to of networking to go on, but this theory has holes in it too. Some think the time in which Jesus came doesn’t matter and would’ve made no difference if He came then or any other time. To that I say, maybe. But isn’t it interesting that Jesus chose such ancient and simple times to come to earth? Think about all the time periods Jesus didn’t come. More specifically, have you ever thought why Jesus wouldn’t have come in an age like this?
Why wouldn’t Jesus have chosen to come today?
Think about it, Jesus never really traveled too much further than where He was born, He really didn’t have a cross-cultural ministry, very rarely speaking to people from other countries and continents. Jesus really only had like 12, really 11, people who followed in His footsteps. I would venture to say that if Jesus would’ve chosen to come today, there is a chance He could get His message out to more people quicker than He did when He came in the 1st century. Think about it, YouTube, Twitter, the internet in general could stream the actual words of Jesus live from His mouth. Think about how many views it would have, instantly.
Ah yes, views. I wish I never would’ve met this word, at least not the way we all seemed to in 2020. What is an online view? A view is a numerical representative of a person watching a video online for varying amounts of time. As 2020 progressed, and we were forced to creatively present our services to an online audience, we had no choice but to begin counting views. And quite frankly, there’s nothing wrong with that, you should count views and try and do your best to figure out who is watching these services. The question that I am wrestling with, is whether or not this is what Jesus had in mind, counting views.
What difference would it have made in the world if the sermon on the mount was documented live on Twitter while it happened? What if the crucifixion was live on YouTube and the aftermath of the resurrection was something you could tune in to on your favorite news station? Do you think that would’ve made any difference?
Because Jesus came in the first century, it forced Him to do ministry a certain way. He had no choice but to be entrenched in human culture and more specifically the Jewish culture. He was a home-grown teacher from Nazareth, which, as we read the New Testament, seems like it has a small-town kind of vibe (John 1:46). There was a size to the work and ministry of Jesus and by all accounts it was not big. There were times where Jesus found Himself in front of thousands, but this was largely to do with the food He was miraculously providing, which Jesus even says Himself (John 6:26). His ministry was small and supernaturally effective. Those disciples were people who were given the front row seats to the life of Jesus and it changed them forever. He was different than anything and everyone they had ever met; His words pierced their hearts and transformed their minds. Jesus was unlike anything they could experience anywhere else in their life. Spending time with Him forced their lives to be led differently than the direction they were headed without Him.
For me, Christianity has always been something that represented a disconnect from the world around me. As I began to follow Christ as a young man, I began to sense that there was something wrong with the world. The hate we have for one another, the question of purpose that plagues the human condition, and the constant hope we search for; when I met Jesus, I began to see that He had something to say about all those things. Jesus had something to say about everything. I began attending church, bible studies, and small groups, and slowly but surely my life began to change.
Over time I realized that choices in my life were changing as well. The Spirit had thoughts on what I watched, where I went, how I spoke, and how I spent my time. Did you notice this in your life too? It is a wonderful aspect to living for Jesus and a difficult one as well. I don’t believe Jesus is supposed to fit in with the rest of my life, He is Lord of my life and gets to determine the aspects of it. We shouldn’t fear this or feel in bondage to Him because He leads us to green pastures and blesses us in our obedience. Freedom from Jesus is slavery to the world.
I’ve been wondering if something has been happening, right underneath our noses, during this time of COVID accommodations. Over time, churches have begun to open, and people are beginning to trickle back in to the building, but not everyone. As discussed in the previous chapter, for some, there wasn’t enough depth between them and the Father, so the closing of local churches became something they couldn’t recover from. For others, the church they returned to no longer resembled the church they left and what once felt like home felt foreign.
Either way, these are people Jesus loves and we must go after with the heart of the shepherd who looks for the one lost sheep. However, there is a third group, that needs our attention as well, and is the focus of this chapter. This group represents those that after spending their last season at home watching church on their smart devices, have decided that watching church from home will be their new normal.
It dawned on me, as I sat on my couch that Sunday morning, that it was going to take a lot of work to get people off their couch and back into community. I say that purposely, back into a worship community, because that is the emphasis I want to make, not just back into a building. As I’ve said previously, the goal of the local church should be to equip and build disciples, therefore, strengthening the global Church. We don’t want people back in our churches to fill empty seats, we want to invest in the kingdom of God.
After watching church on my television and then changing the channel to football, I realized we may be doing something to hinder the growth of people in our churches, and sure enough, people have already began choosing online church instead of some sort of gathering. They are now an online view. How do we feel about this? Think out, five years from now, ten years from now, and so on, where does this path lead? Do we believe that encouraging people to choose between staying home or coming to a worship gathering is the best path? We must take time to answer this question, because if we don’t get it right, I wonder if many people will be missing out on so much of what it means to be a Christian.
For instance, there are 59 “one another” statements found in the new testament. 59 statements spoken to push believers towards one another in love and affection. Here are just a few.
“Wash one another’s feet” – John 13:14
“In humility consider others better than yourselves” – Philippians 2:3
“Forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another.” – Colossians 3:13
“Confess your sins to each other.” – James 5:16
“Pray for each other.” – James 5:16
“Offer hospitality to one another without grumbling.” – 1 Peter 4:9
Most of these statements, if not all of them, will be impossible to obey and see in our lives without an opportunity to gather as a body of believers in a healthy worship community.
I think at least one reason Jesus didn’t come to earth in the age of technology is because this is the most over-saturated, overexposed, and overwhelmed generation to ever walk the earth.
We want everything and we want it now, myself included. Is it possible that in the midst of filling a need we inadvertently put a hurdle up between the people of God and the lifestyle God has called us to lead? How do we feel about a tithing church member who watches the service exclusively from home? How do we feel about the person who comments online how much they love the sermon but never gather in Christian community?
Now I now there are exceptions, health, age, and other aspects to life I’m not mentioning. But those are not the people I’m talking about. Are we the people that have decided to become online church members because, quite frankly, it’s more comfortable? Sunday morning comes and we tune into a 60 minute online Christian presentation while we cook breakfast? How do we feel about this? How do we think Jesus feels about this?
Online church isn’t the enemy, but it sure isn’t as simple as streaming your service into people’s homes. We aren’t just called to reach people; we’re called to make disciples. Have we thought out how to make a disciple from an online viewer? If you knew that you could effectively make more disciples by turning off the live stream, even if that meant less reach, would you do it?
When I say reach, I’m relating it the number of viewers and how far it goes online. I do not in any way mean that we should not be evangelizing, because now is a season where people are seeking hope, now is the time to evangelize. But in addition to this, I’m asking whether or not we believe that our church can do both online, and are we encouraging the online viewer to unplug and connect to some form of Christian community?
I think Jesus came in the 1st century because there was nothing helping the message except real life change. Right? That has to be at least a part of the reason, there had to be real life change for the message of Jesus to get this far. I think the great message of Jesus has traveled the furthest when it’s stayed small.
The message of Jesus is always at its most powerful state when it’s being shared from one person to another. Face to face, life to life, and heart to heart. There’s no fame in it, there’s nothing sexy about it, but it’s the way Jesus did it and it’s the way we’re supposed to do it too.
Am I saying we shouldn’t continue to stream our services? Not entirely. I’m asking the question, are we satisfied with the results of that streaming as long as they are viewing? As a Christian, am I satisfied tuning into service and sending my tithe every month? Is that what this has come to now? Have I asked Jesus what He thinks about it? It’s been said that the online service is, for many, a window into the church and a way for people to get to see who we are. I get this, I really do. But can I put another question on the table?
Would you rather your online service be the window into your church or the people who attend? The service may be something that initially hooks them, but it’s not what makes them stay. If you agree, what are we doing to fight against an attitude that sees the church as something we can tune into?
I recently visited a church that was having an in-person service that was also being aired online and I thought the pastor had a wonderful perspective on moving forward. As he was beginning his sermon he looked into the camera and addressed the online viewers. He said he was so glad they had joined that morning for service and that he was so excited to have them back soon. He was calling them back, encouraging them into a worship community, and made it clear that they weren’t complete without them. I loved it. In a way that was filled with grace, he made it clear that the online experience was not the desired destination for those who called that church home.
If most of our efforts have gone into finding a way for our church service to viewed, what efforts are being made to know the viewer and disciple them? Jesus is extremely clear about His command, make disciples. If we cannot make disciples out of our online audience, then maybe it’s time to turn it off. If the church is reawakening, rising from the ashes of the COVID season, we must call people back to worship communities. We must not allow the viewer mentality to come back.
That means intentionality. It’s been over two years and we need to unlearn somethings. This is an opportunity to get back to the basics, of everything. Let’s dive into the one-another’s again. Our time with Jesus can’t become one of the things we do on Sunday, it can’t be a channel we watch, that’s crazy. Maybe the only way to break that spell is to turn off the live stream and call your people back? Maybe it’s time for real small groups? Maybe it’s time to send our worship leaders, our prayer teams, and our pastors into homes and businesses?
So many churches and leaders have done so much to bring worship and the word to their communities on Sundays through a season of absolute chaos. Pastors and lay leaders have shown such courage and grit to be able to still encourage and equip their members. 2020 and even now has been a season like no other that many churches have navigated with an amazing spirit and effort. With that said, we must reflect, and then we must look forward. As we rise again in many ways from the ashes of quarantine and COVID, where do we want to go and who do we want to become?
Is the answer streaming everything to everywhere in hopes to get the most views and reach? What would we do if the choice was made for us? If we lived in a communist country and the ability to stream anything religious was stripped from us, what then, where would we go? I don’t want to believe that day is coming, I pray it doesn’t.
Is it possible that in the midst of our work to keep reaching people, that we may have also created a form of connection to our churches that doesn’t bear fruit?
I look forward to what, in my opinion, is the inevitable shift that comes in the next 5-10 years, where churches all over the world, turn off the live stream. There will be a new sense of call to those who wish to be in community. I already here it from people I speak to, there is something about being with other believers in worship or in small groups that can never be replaced. I would happen to agree.
I don’t want the live stream to be the way people get introduced to my church, I want to be the way they get introduced to my church.
It’s funny to think about now, but one day the cool thing will be off-line services.
It won’t be the popular opinion now, but I’m wondering if we should unplug the church and plug back into disciple making and disciple sending. It’s much harder, much slower, but much more effective. We need a community of believers and we need to continue to call people back to them.
I don’t want to get comfortable making church comfortable.
We are more than views. We are people on journey with Jesus and we need each other.
We have names.
We have stories.
We need each other.
Lord, give us wisdom, in whatever culture and context were in, to follow You into Your will and the future you have for Your Church.
