Doing it differently

December 29th, 2011Church Online, Featured1, Ministry0 comments

I’m reading a book at the moment which I’ll keep quiet for now.  But the basic premise of the book is learning to keep things simple, especially in the church.  And I couldn’t agree more.

Let me preface what I’m going to say here by first saying that I love the church.  But it’s because I love the people, not because I love the institutions that we’ve created to serve our ideas of church.  In fact, I’ve come to almost despise the latter.  Why?  Because of the toll its taken on myself, on my soul and on my family at times.  Does church really have to be so complicated?

So, in the search for simplicity, I’ve begun to fully engage on a journey to discover how we can use online space to be the church.  Now some may say, simple?  Isn’t that just more complicated.  Well, that depends on your definition of simplicity.  You know, technology doesn’t have to be complicated.  What if we threw everything else out, just for the moment?  Forget about all of the programs, the meetings, conflicts, obligations, positioning, budgets, buildings, campaigns and everything else that comes with the territory.  And what if we just for a moment thought about church as two things…the Gospel and people.

Now I’m not calling the old ways evil.  But what if there was a simpler way, a more streamlined way.  I’m pretty passionate about the fact that there is one central theme that matters most in the church when it comes to people, and it’s the one thing that I’ve noticed most churches lack.  Community.  And it seems we never really ask ourselves these questions.  Do bigger buildings encourage community?  Do more programs build community?  Does “more” technology build community?  Do cooler, slicker services or gatherings build community?  Do bigger budgets build community?  Do more campuses build community?  If we’re honest, the answer to all of these questions is no, or some version of no.

So what does this have to do with church online?  Well let me throw out one of the primary differences between church online and church in a building.  What if instead of spending millions to reach thousands, we could spend thousands to reach millions?  Seriously.  Look around.  The world we live in today is not only tech savvy, but online and mobile.  And most of the energy being spent by everyone who’s anyone in the industry is on trying to figure out how to leverage that technology to not only communicate to people, but to connect people.  How much more should the church be concerned with the real potential to reach and to connect more people than was even possible only 20 years ago?

I’m convinced that people want to be connected with one another.  People want community.  I’m also convinced that given the tools, resources and the opportunity that people can create meaningful and even more effective communities in their own space outside of an institutionalized setting.  How does technology play a part in all of this?  It’s the means.  Technology can provide and deliver the tools, resources and opportunities.

Let’s change the paradigm.  Let’s rethink what we’ve always thought to be true.  Let’s dare to do things differently.  But most importantly, let’s keep things simple.

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