Let’s not try to get to scared about this. Change comes and goes. What was once “crazy revolution” becomes normal after a while.

In the book of Acts, the followers of Christ waited in the upper room for the Holy Spirit to fall. This was a departure from doing your spiritual business at a synagogue.

If you consider that Christianity was illegal the first few hundred years, the early church most likely met in people’s homes. That would mean that the model of meeting in a central location once a week was a departure from the norm.

Heck, we practice the “Sabbath” on Sundays, the Jews always did it on Saturdays. Yet another departure.

God is bigger than any change in format. He moves and intervenes in things when there appears to be no way to do so.

#5 is also encouraging because maybe we will see the social bomb throwers that have the money and the platform finally lose their voice.

Additionally, there is the problem of identifying what we mean by ‘church online.’ There are, I think, four schools of thought: (1) some advocates argue that church online is meant strictly to enhance and extend traditional, bodily church experience and mission. In unique cases, like invalids or those travelling, it may function as a replacement for normal fellowship. Broadly, the internet is a meeting place where the Church can engage the world and so extend itself ‘online.’ (2) The second slot on the spectrum belongs to those who think the online experience of corporate worship is and can be normative, and that the goal of such online communities is to encourage and culminate in offline interaction, either on a regular basis or occasionally. Here “church online” seems to mean the corporate gathering of small communities in diverse geographical regions, and is in some cases a temporary arrangement. Communion in this case often remains a physical and social act that occurs in small group gatherings. (3) Third, some argue that both corporate worship and weekly fellowship exist online—with the hope, but not the requirement, of meeting locally, and with the caveat that baptism and communion will be done bodily, but not necessarily while gathered in the same physical location. (4) There are a few extreme advocates of online church who argue that the offline interaction is never going to be necessary, and that communion and baptism can both occur in some disembodied, virtual form.

I enjoyed your session. I think it’s good for us to wrestle with these things. Thanks to your links to the posts I wrote as I wrestled with them. I have a lot of posts in the works that are the fruit of the Christian Web Conference.

Hope you see you again soon.

Blessings,
-Paul.

Dave

http://www.reachingtheonlinegeneration.com/2009/09/17/church-online-and-the-lord%E2%80%99s-supper/

http://www.reachingtheonlinegeneration.com/2009/09/16/baptism-and-church-online/