Church, online or off, is about the middle

I’m a fan of Seth Godin’s pithy wisdom along with thousands of other people.

I like him most when he pops bubbles, as he did with this comment over the weekend on The Paradox of the Middle of the Market.

The middle of the market is a paradox because of the inherent contradiction between the ease of reaching the nerds and the geeks and the need to reach the middle.

The solution, if there is one, is to enter a market to the enthusiastic cheers of those in search of the new, but to build a product/service that appeals to those in the middle. After the initial wave of enthusiasm, you hunker down and ignore those that first embraced you, obsessing instead on the needs and networks of the middle. It’s a difficult balancing act, but it’s the only one that works.

Ultimately, you end up disappointing the hard core that first found you, but because of their initial enthusiasm (and more important, because you designed your work for the masses in the first place), your product crosses the chasm and reaches a larger group. The formula starts with a service or product that’s purple enough to spread, but not so hyper-fashionable that it merely entertains the insiders.

Over the first several months of the NewSpring Web Church experiment, there’s one common denominator I’ve observed:

Almost all the people who are committed attenders, volunteers and those who depend on the Web Campus as their only form of church aren’t techno geeks.

Most are ordinary people who “need a job done.”

Most are, in a lot of ways, old school.

They’re not into pioneering a new form of church. Or rebelling from traditional church.

They’re just craving the word of God preached passionately, and they’re wanting to live out their faith in whatever environment helps them do that best, and according to the personal situation they are in.

That’s why our team works hard to resist adding layers of bells and whistles to the NewSpring Web Campus.

And why I personally think about my mother-in-law before I even make any suggestions about changes. (She is a new believer in south Louisiana who never thought about using twitter or Facebook or chatrooms until it became vital to living in Christian community on the Web Campus.)

How simple is too simple? How techie is too techie?

And how do we know when we’ve struck the right balance?

Filed under: web campus , community management, web campus

Why hold web church to a higher standard than other churches?

By now, you probably know that I’m pretty serious about exploring whether the church can be the church online.

I feel like I’m called to that purpose, and I feel like we need to be brave enough to try things that we aren’t entirely comfortable with in order to “by testing discern what is the will of God.” I have plans to take Mark Driscoll’s critique of the Web Church and offer my view of whether his theological points are sufficient to disqualify the web church at this point in its maturity.

I don’t want to be an uncritical apologist for the Web Church. There are many aspects of the Web Church that I’ve got personal reservations about, and many others that I think need to be tested before we can claim that it can fit within Biblical orthodoxy.

But what does bother me is that so often the critiques are coming from the point of view that the web church is a church expression that is incomplete, artificial (p.14 of link) or limited.

To which my response is: When has any church at any time not struggled with those things in one form or another?

Overall, it just seems like the church — even the early church! — was and is always and gloriously in the process of reaching toward the full expression of God’s grace and glory in the world — and failing backwards and forwards.

Why should the web church be held to a higher standard?

Filed under: web campus , theology, web campus

Can churches deny human choice?

A lot of the critical and necessary debate on this blog comes around one way or the other to: How does the church handle the rising tide of consumerism in its expression?

It’s not an accident: The web has empowered the individual like no other time in history, and the act of accomplishing ministry in this context is bound to flirt, sometimes dangerously, with abetting the self-seeking, vain, prideful human heart without God, rather than calling it to repentence in light of the manifest glories of God.

It seems to me that man has always seen himself at the center of all things. This is not new. What is new is the extent to which man can now do it in almost all phases of life. And the remedy for this heart sickness is and always will be the cross of Jesus.

So here’s my question: When God calls you to salvation, do you really have a choice to “opt out” of the body of Christ? Is it not one of the most magnificent promises of scripture that it’s not possible?

Only “Christians” with unregenerate hearts go shopping for God “experiences,” rather than surrender to him.

Only “Christians” with no understanding of Lordship believe that God is a vending machine of blessings.

Only “Christians” who have never heard the truth will allow themselves to be swayed by every wind of doctrine.

Is it not the gospel, the good news, the freedom from captivity, that human agency, human choice, for the regenerated heart, is always for good?

Our hyper-consumerist society is still relatively young, probably 100 years old at best. And for the church, for thousands of years a local phenomenon, our history with it is even shorter. Perhaps 50, if that. And i think that, if anything, there is a reckoning coming for the church as it wrestles with this, which probably explains some of my passion for the Web Church: It accelerates the urgency of figuring this out.

I submit that the battle is not between consumerism and whatever some Christians think can control it — authority structures, whatever. The battle is to get anointed, gospel-saturated teaching that places the supremacy of Christ above all things into earshot of as many dead hearts as possible so they can be convicted and awakened to life in Christ.

We need to make sure that people choose the church rather than Oprah, Dr. Phil, Tom Cruise and every other self-help guru who is leading people dancing and singing straight to the gates of hell.

Only then will they know difference between a true and false gospel.

Only then will they know the difference between a life that glorifies self and a life that serves God

Only then will they know that Jesus’ call to total surrender can not be resisted except with tears.

And only then will the Holy Spirit magnificently insist that the appetite for seeing, savoring and treasuring the joy of Christ be fed insatiably.

I ask again: Where does the path lead for Christ-centered churches who work in this “crooked and twisted generation” without an understanding of choice?

Filed under: discipleship, evangelism, ruminations, web campus , culture, discipleship, evangelism, theology, web campus

Web church success may be tied to customization

I’ve been looking at the Hartford Seminaryanalysis of megachurch attenders because I think it could be useful in understanding the Web Church’s potential mission field and how it can extend what we’ve learned from modern church methods. You can read past posts in this series here, here and here.

One of the study’s most dramatic conclusions was that:

involvement at these (and perhaps all) churches may be less about creating an idealized plan to move someone toward commitment and more about providing many ways by which people could craft their unique, customized spiritual experience to meet their needs.

It’s logical that the Web Church respond to this apparent desire for customizing church experience. Web culture, after all, is about empowering individual choice, and letting you set the terms of your engagement with content and people.

Many NewSpring Web Campus attenders are already actively engaged in designing their own path to spiritual growth and assembling the building blocks of an online church life, spurred on by the breathtaking amount and quality of podcasts, books, and blogs that fan the flames of someone’s spiritual fires on demand.

There’s no reason to think that wouldn’t extend to all aspects of church life as they migrate online. Someone could choose one church’s online worship experiences, another’s online small groups, yet another’s online discipleship program etc. and another’s online outreach and missions program.

I think the megachurch lesson here is that offering many paths for spiritual exploration and engagement and involvement could be the Web Church’s supreme value proposition.

That could include providing social guides or personal recommendations toward other trusted, high-quality content. Or it could be offering opportunities for spiritual growth in partnership with regional, national and international ministries. It could even be providing the support systems, resources and “open access” to the Web church’s people to build new ministries and recruit for them across the web.

A believer’s attachment, then, to a Web church might not be traditional “membership,” but in the personal relationships with individual believers as they come across them in different ministry area.

What do you think?

Filed under: community, discipleship, evangelism, web campus , community, discipleship, evangelism, icampus, web campus

Web church can support believers through life’s seasons

The Hartford Seminary megachurch study illuminated, among other things, the fact that their appeal was dramatically greater among the young and the mobile. In fact, the study found that it was precisely that demographic that was missing from more traditional churches.

So what happens when these highly mobile individuals decide to, well, be mobile?

I think it’s obvious that the Web Church can provide a home to those “young and mobile” individuals, especially if there’s no megachurch-like environment where they live. It’s a demographic primed to adopt technology and most interested in redefining their engagement with church.

But the web church can also help this mobile group avoid the potential for Christians to fall out of fellowship and find themselves outside the church for months or years as they move from place to place — more than enough time for Satan to attack and potentially shipwreck someone’s faith.

What I’m calling the “seasonal audience” could be huge for the church: Those people in every demographic who find themselves unable to attend physical church regularly because of chronic illness, relocation, work schedules or a myriad of other artificial barriers. Some of those barriers may originate from poor Lordship or discipleship, but the church must be open enough to work with people where they are — and encourage them to grow into who God wants them to be.

In being able to “take your church with you,” believers can maintain the healthy connections and the spiritual family that has helped believers grow as lifestage and lifestyles change, or at least until they are in a position to plug in at brick and mortar churches.

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

The Web church could lower barriers of entry to Christian faith

The megachurch study by the folks over at Hartford Seminary has grabbed my attention, largely because I think it proves that “church different” has created a new “market” of believers.

The study’s authors marvel at the megachurch’s role as an “assimilation engine,” taking people from every demographic, religious and cultural background and helping them connect and integrate within the Christian faith.

They found that 25 percent of attenders were new to church. And 28 percent of all attenders had recently relocated — representing 40 percent of all those who had church background.

The lesson here is that traditional churches apparently carried a lot of cultural and even “theological” baggage that turned people off and created barriers to entry.

I think the web church, as the megachurch has done, can remove artificial, and largely cultural barriers to Christianity and allow for sampling of the experience on an attender’s own terms.

There are many hundreds of millions of people worldwide, but especially in the post-Christian west, who don’t have any real understanding whatsoever of the basics of Christianity and would simply not see the point of going to church at all.

The Web church could be ideally positioned to create a new type of experience that intentionally refuses to trade on old and outdated assumptions about faith and its centrality to one’s life, and instead chooses to address spiritual seekers and immature believers head-on. (The megacurch study found that only 6 percent of attenders were new converts, so there’s lots of progress to be made in that area.)

Web church worship environments tap into the spirit of our technological, experiential, explorational age. And the web church can dovetail nicely with personal and relational evangelism that can overcome hostility to institutional church and “organized religion.”

Given that personal invites were, by an overwhelming margin, the No. 1 method that megachurches attracted attenders, I think there’s reason to be optimistic that Web churches, properly positioned, can truly take advantage of the Web’s network effects.

Filed under: evangelism, web campus , evangelism, web campus

Megachurch study filled with positives

Mention the word “megachurch” and the chances are the response won’t be positive.

But a close reading of Hartford Seminary’s analysis of megachurch attenders — the most comprehensive to date — offers plenty of reasons to think that these large, Christ-centered, culturally-relevant congregations might have proved critics wrong.

The study found:

Megachurches widen the funnel for people to come into the Christian fold. More than a third of the congregation was young and/or single — a demographic that is more or less absent from traditional churches — and 25 percent were new to “church” as a whole. So much for megachurches just stealing attenders from other churches!

Megachurch attenders are active and engaged. More than 70 percent of attenders described themselves as “active participants,” and nearly half of attenders who have been at their church longer than 2 years report that their involvement increased.

About 20 percent of surveyed attenders said they weren’t active participants in church life outside services, and yet they exhibited strong signs of personal, spiritual development, with a fourth of this group praying and reading the Bible daily, 40 percent worshiping weekly, and three fourths having invited people to services. So much for unengaged, passive consumers!

Megachurch attenders are growing spiritually. Three-fourths of all attenders say they read the Bible and pray daily or often during the week. After 10 years, half or more of megachurch attenders are tithers, compared to only 34 percent at traditional churches. So much for megachurches being breeding grounds for a weaker, watered down Christian practice.

There’s other great stuff in there, too. You should read the whole thing.

I’m guessing that the same dynamics that led to criticism of the megachurch will be leveled at the web church once it, too, is firmly established as a new expression of church.

And the study might offer hope to the Web church that it is adding to the fullness of Christ’s kingdom positioned as a complement to other church expressions for those who Bobby Gruenewald <a href=”http://swerve.lifechurch.tv/2009/06/11/who-are-you-reaching/”>defined recently</a> as “distant, mobile, curious and digital.”

Thoughts?

Filed under: evangelism, web campus , evangelism, web campus

What about the one-anothers on the web?

I dropped this note on the blog of my good friend, Nathan Edwards, who I met through this blog and the NewSpring Web Campus.

“One-anothering is the essence of church as the body of Christ … I think there’s a lot of traditional physical churches that are resisting innovation on the web because they worry that the one-anothering will be harmed. My view is that they have an outsized and unrealistic understanding of how much one-anothering can or will people do in person these days, and an undersized and equally unrealistic view of the possibilities of one-anothering online.” Comment on “Why the web church sometimes does church better.”

Discuss.

Filed under: community, discipleship, web campus , community, discipleship, web campus

Is your web campus embracing your physical church attenders?

A church would be foolish not to see a Web Campus as a key to its growth at physical locations.

And a Web Campus would be foolish to ignore its church’s physical worshipers as a way to be successful.

One of the most biggest realizations we’ve made through the first few months of the Web Campus ministry is that our campus serves many different audiences.

Our Web Campus primarily targets the unchurched and the dechurched. People who have been relocated from your church who can’t find a good, Bible-believing church near them. Maybe people who are searching for God or for a church and seem to “connect” to NewSpring’s vision and theology.

Then there’s the sizable number of our attenders who are connected to our Anderson, Greenville and Florence campuses and are sick or out of town or just aren’t able to make it to church that week. It’s wise not to overlook the power of that second constituency to the Web Campus ministry.

No. 1In the mobile society that we all now live, physical attenders are bound to have many family and friends spread across the nation without access to a church like NewSpring, and who have been impressed by the ministry during visits or through casual conversations.

As we know, the power of personal ministry is greatest in relationships of deep love and intimate connection, and it’s in these family connections that a web campus or web ministry can best flourish.

Each family member or friend can have a shared experience — whether during the service in the chatroom or private IM or in conversations after the service. And the friend or family member can provide the instant and extended support and ministry needed by every believer to flourish in the Lord.

No. 2. Those physical attenders exposed to the Web Campus, have a natural opportunity to share a “preview” of the NewSpring experience with those that might be skeptical, reluctant or intimidated so that they can then be invited to a physical church location.

And to prove this isn’t just theory, here’s a story that providentially dropped into my email box Sunday:

I normally attend the Greenville Campus and serve on the care team. I was really bummed this morning because I had a terrible migraine and would not make it ! Thankfully I was able to attend today’s 11:15 service on the web. What an amazing experience! It was awesome to have a chance to interact with everyone in a chat room environment during Perry’s message.

After the service I came into contact with two people who have been wanting to attend the Greenville campus but didn’t want to go alone. I look forward to meeting both of them there this Sunday!

I also posted a link on my Face book profile at the start of the service . I received a reply from one of my contacts thanking me for the posting. She and her husband attended the Anderson campus last week and were looking forward to this Sundays service. She had fallen ill and couldn’t attend. Thanks to the web campus they were able to hear Perry’s powerful message today! I never ceases to amaze me to see how God move’s in our church. I can’t wait to see what’s next !

Got a take on this? Got a story or several of your own?

Filed under: community, discipleship, evangelism, social media, web campus , community, discipleship, evangelism, social media, web campus

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