The rise of net campuses: Are local churches on the ropes?

Andy Stanley’s NorthPoint Community Church yesterday joined other progressive, nationally-known ministries in jumping on the internet campus trend.

I think it’s safe to say that what started out as an outreach experiment has quietly become a “standard” part of the modern technomedia church, which includes vodcasting and podcasting, streaming video of sermons, multi-site video teaching and the various social media efforts, including twitter, facebook, and community infrastructure.

Not only am I pumped for the good folks at NorthPoint, including John Saddington, Jeff Henderson, and Los Whittaker who are behind the initiative, I think having several heavyweight ministries exploring this terrain is only going to speed up our learning about how best to grow strong churches online.

This tweet about the news did catch my eye Tuesday, and I thought was worth commenting on:

Lifechurch, Central/Vegas, NewSpring, et al w/ net campus; now Saddleback & Northpoint…local churches better figure out a reason to exist. @BrianConard

For the record, I don’t think local churches will ever be replaced by cyberchurches.

But I think it’s already true that ubiquitous access to skilled, accessible and powerful preaching from the super-ministries of Perry Noble, Mark Driscoll, Andy Stanley, Matt Chandler and Francis Chan and others, along with their church “life” that can be shared through and in other media and online venues, are transforming people’s expectations of how a local church fits in the modern Christian life.

Especially if that local church is mediocre, passionless and tone deaf to the culture we live in.

I think it will “raise the game” for every church, since every demographic is adopting technology at a rapid pace, and the acceptance of modern worship (including web worship) is accelerating daily.

If anyone wants to bet against this culture shift, they should take a lesson from the demise of the newspaper industry, speaking as one with a foot in both cultures. (The traditional church and the traditional media are both presumptuous about how well they know their “audience” and are meeting their needs. Both have a deathly tendency toward believing that their audience isn’t smart enough to know what’s True and what’s good for them. And both like to arrogantly assume that their people “aren’t going anywhere,” despite the mushrooming number of choices around them.)

Small local churches will close. Large ministries will grow larger.

Only the excellent will survive.

The bigger question for the health of the church is how well this bridge generation — US — will develop the new leadership structures and new community structures that will provide the bone and sinew of “membership” of a “body of believers” in this new era.

Thoughts?

Filed under: community, ruminations, web campus , community management, culture, ruminations

Whatever happened to the sacred?

My ministry is the web church, so it’s not surprising that my heart skips a beat when I come across critiques of what God laid on my heart to do.

I actually welcome criticism, partly because I love God too much to be outside his will, and also because I want to be humble about what I think I know about the majestic God that I worship with my life.

In one such critique below, there was one point (or maybe I’m misunderstanding?) that made me pause: Can we truly experience the sacred online?

[the cyber-church] … risks the danger that in the electronically mediated virtual world the experience of the holy will become visual and secularized. It also faces the danger that the Word of God pervading the depth of the soul will be changed into the on-screen messages of the electronically reduced multimedia.”

– Yuang Han Kim (HT: Tall Skinny Kiwi)

The concept of reverence seems stuffy and unfashionable. I get that. And I know all the theoretical and theological stuff about God being part of your everyday life, God being your friend.

The problem for me is that there are just too many words like “awe” and “fear” and “glory” and their synonyms in the scriptures to not believe that the question of sacredness is valid.

Growing up Greek Orthodox, I was clueless about a lot of things, including Jesus, but I definitely knew the moment that I stepped foot inside the church that I was supposed to feel oh-so-small and unworthy in the presence of a Holy, Holy, Holy God.

In megachurches like NewSpring, the lights, the music and the sheer size of the congregation help build that sense, I think. But that doesn’t really transfer on the web.

Of course, God being God, there are times when the move of the Holy Spirit is dramatic and unmistakable no matter what environment we’re in.

Such as when RoseAngela breaks down while singing the old hymn “Softly and Tenderly”.

Or when evangelist Clayton King decides to make an invitation before a single word is preached and sees hundreds declare Jesus as Lord and Savior. (Watch at least part of the 20-minute portion of this service, beginning at 21:30)

What do you think?

Filed under: ruminations , ruminations, theology, web campus

Christina Aguilera is a messenger of God

NewSpring Worship Creative Arts Pastor Shane Duffey and Worship Leader Lee McDerment talked about their philosophy on using secular music in the worship service in an interview with Tony Morgan Monday.

The purpose of a worship service is that “the end result is salvation and repentence and that only comes by the hearing of the word … Everything else around that is preparation of and cultivation of people’s minds and hearts to receive Truth.

Whether it is a song written by Christina Aguilera or Chris Tomlin, it is our job to prepare people’s hearts … Hurt focused people’s minds in a very dynamic way … to prepare them to hear the truth. We will sing anything at any time that we believe will do that so salvation and repentence is a result — Shane Duffey

Here’s the song they’re referring to:

Lee followed up that thought with a critical caveat: Context is everything.

What that means is that the song clip I just shared isn’t really completed (and redeemed) until it’s framed by the word of God and pointed toward him.

Here’s the point for me: For too long, the church’s engagement toward culture has revolved around borrowing reference points and packaging. What we can and must do is add back the sacred dimension to whatever secular culture has emptied out and turned on its head.

That’s what makes the difference between a culturally engaged church that’s confronting culture and bringing people to salvation and repentence.

And just another hip church.

Thoughts?

Filed under: evangelism, ruminations , culture, evangelism, ruminations

The tears in church are just as real on the web

The NewSpring Web Campus launch was thrilling. You can read the official account at the Web Campus blog, including video.

But what blew me away was not the number of people that were gathered. Or the fact that people from all over the world worshipped with us.

It was that amid all the philosophical and theological debates about the Web church and whether web community is real and whether sacraments can be rightly administered, we forget that real people need us to make this work.

They are in real pain, they have real souls, they have real lives and real eternities.

Perry brought a tough, intense sermon today. He challenged people to totally forgive. He asked thousands in the auditorium on the Anderson Campus to write names on sheets of paper and to tear them in unison as they were set free from Satan’s grip.

Everyone heard that sound. It brought Perry to tears. And it brought the Web Campus to tears. It drove many people to seek help in our live prayer. And for one reason or another, these people were not in a local church on the ground in their neighborhood.

Sure, we could try and persuade them that physical attendance is the “right thing to do.” We could even take a crack at justifying why they should attend a local church.

Even if they are not being challenged and stretched spiritually.

Even if they are not in fellowship that encourages and strengthens them and that can hold them accountable.

Would we be successful? I doubt it.

But here’s the thing: They were at church. It was just online. And they need the church to stop arguing about whether they were really there and just figure out how we can be the church online for them; how we can help each other love God, love others and make disciples.

It’s time to stop talking about bit-rates, and web design, and the latest, shiniest new tools and to start talking about how we build genuine, Christ-centered community for the long haul.

The web has changed social arrangements forever. We cannot argue about that any longer.

In post-Christian Europe, local churches everywhere are being shut down and turned into luxury condos or bars. Physical, bricks-and-mortar church holds little to no meaning other than prejudice and anachronism for hundreds of millions of people.

We would be sinning against Christ and his sacrifice on the cross to turn our backs on them.

I plan to charge the gates of hell with our Web Campus. Who’s with me?

Filed under: community, discipleship, evangelism, ruminations, social media, web campus , community, culture, discipleship, evangelism, ruminations, social action, theology, web campus, web campus rollout

Don’t lose sight of basics in the tyranny of the new

I have a confession.

It’s been just four weeks since I took on this role as Internet Campus Pastor, and God’s already teaching me some hard lessons about how I view success and what I’m trusting in to achieve it.

God showed me my fallen desire to “prove myself” in this new, breathtaking world of church possibility when I should be letting him focus my heart on reaching and deeply touching people who desperately need to know more of Jesus.

On three different occasions in one week, God showed me that I shouldn’t be relying on innovation to have an impact in my ministry.

• The first came last Sunday during LifeChurch.tv’s beta test of its new icampus. We noticed that all the main components of the site we were building were practically identical, right down to the open, public chat and the map showing global attenders.
• Then came word on Tuesday that Mars Hill Church’s On The City community building application had been bought by Zondervan. That reminded me that in spring 2007, after at least two years of envisioning what I call the “networked church,” I submitted a plan for such an application to E.W. Scripps Co.’s enterprenuer fund. They loved the concept. They just couldn’t see a way to make money at it from churches.
• And then today, LifeChurch.tv debuted its new icampus, with a post-service live show webcast using Mogulus. Yup, you guessed it: We planned a live show to start just a few weeks after our Internet campus launch. I referred to in this post as a “distinctive.”

I should have been happy that two leaders in the Internet or Internet campus church movement had affirmed our strategic direction and gut instincts. Instead, I was worried that we’d look like copycats.

That’s when it helps to have a friend and colleague like our Creative Director Joshua Blankenship. “Who cares?” he said. Thanks Joshua.

Living in the online world carries a certain slavery to it. Be new. Be original. Be innovative. Be successful. Be discussed.

But those can be huge, distracting temptations if you’re not holding every tool, every platform, every community building strategy captive to Christ and the work he wants to do through them in people.

What’s new quickly becomes old.

There’s nothing new under the sun.

When it comes to online church, what counts is the quality of our attenders’ devotion to Christ and the depth and durability of their relationships to each other.

Tools are just tools. It’s how you use them that makes the difference. An eternal difference.

For internet campuses, offering an excellent, authentic experience of the love of God and the love of his people is infinitely better than making your site shiny and slick and original.

I need to remember that.

Filed under: community, web campus , community management, ruminations, web campus, web campus rollout

The digitally networked church is a dangerous church. If not now, when?

Christians hate to play catch up with culture. They just hate to admit that, more often than not, they missed the boat because they weren’t as smart, imaginative or innovative as the world.

And too often, when then they do see value in a great idea or technology, they’re more interested in the way it can provide “a safe alternative” to a secular phenomenon or a social support for the (typically personal) challenges of Christian life, rather than the ways it can be used dangerously for the Kingdom.

There’s a lot of buzz about the sale of Mars Hill’s On The City community building application, which boasts “real not virtual community for Jesus Fame.”  The buyer, Christian media powerhouse Zondervan, is likely hoping for mass adoption by churches.

I’m predicting a lot of uber Christians have already decided to dismiss On the City as “just Facebook for Christians.”

In my view, that fatally misunderstands what On The City is about.

And if we keep rejecting the fundamental premise of the digital revolution as “just another social network,” we’ll just delay building massively influential networked church bodies that will be empowered and seen to do incredible, dangerous acts of God.

Distinctly Christian community is important and indispensable. One of the most powerful theological premises of our faith is that everyone can contribute and must contribute to building the kingdom of God.

From a spiritual perspective we can’t be faithful, powerful and influential Christians unless we are surrounded by encouraging, disciplining and inspiring practical wisdom about how to “work out salvation.”

From a practical perspective, we need to be aware of the gifts, abilities, and resources of other Christians in order that we can work together with them to help a hurting world for God’s glory. No matter whether you are in a small town or a big city, you can live out your God ordained role in the Church.

Distinctly Christian community is not a substitute but a supplement to broader community. There is no doubt a danger that Christian community could become a “holy huddle,” but that’s only if it’s oriented solely around fellowship in a kind of social “bunker mentality:” keep me safe and affirm me.

Create a different pivot point, and everything changes.

The fact is, in the networked world, all of us belong to multiple communities right now – for work and for fun. If the Christians in our churches use the opportunities of the digitally networked church poorly, it is the fault of individual Christians and their pastors, not the potentially life-enhancing technology.

A networked church is a healthy church. A digitally networked church body can be present to itself at all times in all locations, providing instant support and giving the devil much less of an opening.

And a digitally networked church body allows a large and wide range of its social interactions to be transparent to everyone, making it easier for church members to recognize a need for help and guidance, and for church leaders to provide correction and discipline.

On the City has many if not all of the elements of the four principles of healthy church life. It’s not the ultimate church utility, but it’s a good starting point. And it’s way more revolutionary than the new trend of icampuses.

• Engage: The detailed user-profile features allows you to make connections between like-minded churchgoers so they can develop their own sub-networks, where all the real social and spiritual change happens offline and online. If you could have the ability to declare your gifts and resources (time, money, possessions) and enable others to search for instant matches for whatever burden or vision the Lord gives them, that could be truly revolutionary.

• Endure: Offering daily bible readings, journal space, and groups feature offers a chance to make learning social (and therefore easier and more pleasant) in self-selected groups that are much more cohesive and productive than those created more or less arbitrarily. Imagine a YouVersion social Bible or a social Bible study guide combined with the power of multiple video chat? That would be a powerhouse for discipleship.

• Enable: Its events and marketplace features when combined could form the core functionality of a service application, where any community member could take on “project manager” responsibility for a service project, large or small, identifying, gathering and deploying Christian resources for God’s glory.

• Enlarge: Any amount of digitally networked social activity creates a media overflow that can be displayed, embedded, and discussed across the full range of the secular social media landscape. We know that when Christ is lifted up, he draws people to himself.

What’s your take on On The City? What other functionalities would make the ideal church utility?

Filed under: community , community management, ruminations, theology