Can the online church really be the church?

This new book by Douglas Estes, SimChurch: Being the Church in the Virtual World, tackles the brewing questions surrounding the legitimacy of an online church. Many church leaders are discerning and discussing the "what is the church?" question that's been going for years, and now, growing numbers of church leaders are asking it in the context of online worship experiences and forming relationships and communities virtually.

The book's official website poses the question as: "Church on the Internet? Seriously?" This is the question many people are asking as more and more people chose to congregate online, and more and more churches look to launch internet campuses. But are these internet churches real? Are they healthy? Are they productive for faith? This is a conversation you can't afford to miss as together we ask, "What does it mean to be the church in the virtual world?"

The official website links to a number of commentaries, including these positive ones: Internet Campuses from A Multi-Site Church Roadtrip, Responses to concerns about online church by Tony Steward, and A lesson from history for doubters by John Saddington; and negative ones: There is no virtual church by Bob Hyatt, Is Online Community real Community? Questions about the Virtual Church by Drew Goodmanson, Limitations of online church by Bobby Gruenewald.

As I've started reading through the book, I appreciated the author not taking a cautionary posture, throwing up warnings and fears of how technology could be misused. Estes digs behind the assumptions and cultural lens we have about being present with one another in inter-personal relationships. This is excerpted from page 60-61,

"If we want community to flourish in the virtual world, we'll need to scrutinize our learned understanding of presence. Most people raised and educated in the Western world think of presence or being present as a physical act... Though defining presence simply as the location of our bodies is one of the foundational bricks of modern Western understanding of the world, it is not a God-given or biblical idea." [emphasis added]

I think the book makes a compelling case for how relationships can occur through telepresence, and that a biblical community and a biblical church is not limited by the geography of a physical location.

And, last week, a SimChurch blog tour connected bloggers with reviews, commentaries, and interviews:

• Theology and the SimChurch [a chat with Douglas Estes] at Dan King's blog, BibleDude
• SimChurch Blog Tour Discussion and Can a Church Exist in Cyberspace? at Chad Estes' blog, Captain's Blog 
• Book Review of SimChurch, plus questions about WikiWorship at Eric Nygren's blog, Returned Sheep
• SimChurch and Typical Churches at Mark Robert's blog, MarkDRoberts.com
• Intro to Online Churches at Cynthia Ware's blog, The Digital Sanctuary
• Discussion on the Advantages of Virtual Churches at Kent Shaffer's blog, Church Relevance
• Book Review of SimChurch at Dave Bourgeois' blog, Lessons from Babel
• Plus an unofficial post on the blog tour, my myth-busting In Defense of Virtual Church over at Christianity Today's blog, Out of Ur

While I'm not so sure the discussions and reviews will change a lot of minds at this stage of the dialogue, I do think this book is one to be reckoned with. Where are you at with your thinking about the church in the virtual world?

-- DJ CHUANG, Director at Leadership Network  [disclaimer: I received an advance reading copy of SimChurch from the publisher]

Comments

[www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=506791464]

I appreciate the need to be a presence in cyberspace and making use of every technological advantage out there. Yet, there seems to be a louder cry for a disengagement from this technology because of the electronic overload that ensues. We are, as Leonard Sweet aptly puts it, a high-tech, low-touch society--leaving many in our culture feeling empty and deprived.

So while I believe this can be a supplemental tool to the church, it should not be seen as replacing a local body of believers present (in person, not virtually) with one another, living out the "one anothers" with each other (Hebrews 10:23-25).

I will be very interested to see how this thread moves along. Good post!

Matthew Perry, Pastor
Boone's Creek Church, Lexington, KY
http://www.boonescreekchurch.com
http://gbtg.wordpress.com

[Tim Bednar]

To my mind, this question has been answered like a hundred times.

Not having read the book; I am interested to know if it brought anything new to the table.

From my point of view, the church has existed online since the first two Christians used the Internet to communicate for the Kingdom.

The online church is not a site or an app or a domain or a service ~ rather it is people doing the work of the Kingdom on the Internet.

In fact, if you are reading this ~ we are engaged in online church right now.

Lifechurch.tv and all the other online campuses are just instances or hot spots of the church; they neither need to justify their existence anymore than a Christian needs to justify their use of email or instant messaging or Twitter for Kingdom work.

I would like to see more than what has come to be more or less "interactive TV".

To my mind, the more interesting and elusive question is how using the Internet changes our theology and praxis. For me, this change is profound while what the latest online church is "doing" is well a bit tired.