Visiting Online Church E-Book

Peter DeHaan

• Herausgeber: Rock Rooster Books
• Kategorie: Religion und Spiritualität
• Serie: Visiting Churches Series
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 141

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2021

Beschreibung

Online church is the new front door to visitors. Is your church connecting effectively with people behind the screen?

When the pandemic forced congregations to set up online services in record time, people thought it would be temporary. But for too many, online church has become a staple, the new front door for visitors.

But what does this mean for congregations who struggle to effectively reach online guests? Is it possible to create a connected virtual experience that fosters Christian community and enhances our faith?

In Visiting Online Church: A Journey Exploring Effective Digital Christian Community, Peter DeHaan spent months attending thirty online churches when the pandemic hit, documenting the challenges, approaches, and successes of each one. With fresh eyes, he sought to understand what made for a dynamic online service, while evaluating the limitations and giving practical tips to maximize the virtual experience. If you want a primer on the vast creativity and diversity in online churches, this book details dozens of examples for you to learn from.

Through Visiting Online Church, you’ll discover:

 - why virtual church should be part of your outreach strategy

 - how online church reaches forgotten people who can’t attend in person

 - the necessity of online church in the digital age, even when it’s not your personal preference

 - three dozen key principles illustrated through real-world examples that help you engage with your online congregation in fresh ways

 - what online attendees really think about virtual church ministry—what they like and what they don’t

Visiting Online Church will help you discover new ways to effectively reach people for Christ while holding firm to your church’s distinctive values and traditions.

An advocate for significant church experiences, Peter DeHaan, PhD champions meaningful Christian community recognizing the importance of both in person gatherings and online ones.

The need to create a dynamic online church is vital to today’s spiritual seekers. As you journey through Visiting Online Church, you’ll uncover how a life-giving virtual church not only is an essential tool in today’s digital world, but a growing necessity to bring together congregations during turbulent times.

Get a copy and discover how your church can effectively engage with visitors through the digital church experience.

Leseprobe

VISITING ONLINE CHURCH

A JOURNEY EXPLORING EFFECTIVE DIGITAL CHRISTIAN COMMUNITY

VISITING CHURCHES SERIES

BOOK 5

PETER DEHAAN

VisitingOnlineChurch: AJourneyExploringEffectiveDigitalChristianCommunity

Copyright © 2021 by PeterDeHaan.

VisitingChurchesSeries, book 5

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, disseminated, or transmitted in any form, by any means, or for any purpose without the express written consent of the author or his legal representatives. The only exception is short excerpts and the cover image for reviews or academic research. For permissions: PeterDeHaan.com/contact.

Unless otherwise noted, Scriptures taken from the HolyBible, NewInternationalVersion®, NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.comThe “NIV” and “NewInternationalVersion” are trademarks registered in the UnitedStatesPatent and TrademarkOffice by Biblica, Inc.™

Library of CongressControlNumber: 2021912833

Published by RockRoosterBooks, GrandRapids, Michigan

ISBNs:

978-1-948082-61-7 (e-book)978-1-948082-62-4 (paperback)978-1-948082-63-1 (hardcover)

Credits:

Developmental editor: KathrynWilmotteCopy editor/proofreader: RobynMulderCover design: TarynNergaardAuthor photo: ChelsieJensenPhotography

ToGabeHartfield

Series by PeterDeHaan

VisitingChurchesSeries takes an in-person look at church practices and traditions to inform and inspire today’s followers of Jesus.

40-DayBibleStudySeriestakes a fresh and practical look into Scripture, book by book.

BibleCharacterSketchesSeriescelebrates people in Scripture, from the well-known to the obscure.

HolidayCelebrationBibleStudySeriesrejoices in the holidays with Jesus.

Be the first to hear about Peter’s new books and receive updates at PeterDeHaan.com/updates.

CONTENTS

Why Online Church?

A Quick Pivot

Adding Layers

Replicating a Live Service

Church in Your Home

Church Attendance

Livestream

Maundy Thursday

Easter Sunday

Online Participation

Virtual Community

Engaging and Effective

Powerful and Professional

Drive-in Church

Mother’s Day

Reasons for Attending Church

ASL and Other Online Options

Variation and Innovation

First Midweek Outdoor Worship

Second Midweek Outdoor Worship

A Holiday Weekend

Perspectives of Online Church

First Outdoor Service and Online

Canceled / Not Canceled

The Dog Days of Summer

Labor Day Weekend Rerun

Preferred Online Format

Transitioning into Fall

In-Person at Last—or Not?

Providing Options

Livestream at Last

Back to One In-Person Service

Plans Change

Closed Captioning

Returning

Plans to Return

One Year In

An Online Discussion about Online Church

Online Church Options

Churches Covered

What Book Do You Want to Read Next?

For Small Groups, Sunday School, and Classes

About Peter DeHaan

Books by Peter DeHaan

WHY ONLINE CHURCH?

We just spent a year with much of the world subsisting in various degrees of lockdown, isolation, and social distancing. In response to this, many churches went online to serve their congregations remotely. We hope we’re moving out of this phase to return to normal, or at least a new normal that’s not so objectionable.

So why publish a book about virtual church experiences and recommendations when we don’t expect to need it anymore?

First, though we hope to move forever past the need to attend church remotely, we may one day find ourselves back there. This may be due to a variant strain of the virus reasserting itself or an unknown threat emerging that forces history to repeat itself. We hope this will never happen. But if this does occur, we should be ready to react fast and respond well.

Second, and more importantly, we must acknowledge that a subset of Christians cannot attend church in person. There are many reasons for this. This may be due to a lack of transportation or the absence of a church nearby. It may be for medical reasons, either to protect themselves from the germs of others or to protect others from a condition they carry.

Some people grapple with time conflicts—often work schedules or caregiver responsibilities—that keep them away while others meet. The aged and infirm may face challenges that make attending in person too challenging. Still others struggle with social anxieties that hinder their face-to-face participation.

In too many instances—even before the pandemic—these folks have gone forgotten and underserved. This has happened for too long. For them, and all those who will follow, we must persist in providing a quality and accessible online church experience.

Finally, some fear that we will never again gather in large groups for any sustained period. A worst-case scenario is that online church and online spiritual community will become our new normal. Today, we must prepare for that possibility. ThoughI pray we will never realize this future and think it’s an unlikely development, we must acknowledge that it could occur. If it does, may the church of Jesus be ready.

That’s why we need a book exploring the digital, virtual, online church.

Regardless of what the future holds, we turn it and our concerns over to FatherGod. May the lessons we’ve learned now about online church empower us to meet the needs of all of Jesus’s followers going forward, no matter the situation.

This narrative focuses on the human aspect of online church to help us most ably meet people where they are and form a best practices paradigm. As we do so, we’ll see online services falling into two categories: custom content produced for an online audience, and streaming or replicating an in-person service to watch over the internet. Both options have their strengths and weaknesses, along with diverging viewer expectations.

ThoughI’ll cover some technology tools used for online church, due to the rapid changes of innovation, consider these resources as generic directions to pursue and not specific recommendations to implement.

Now, let’s visit our first online church.

A QUICK PIVOT

SUNDAY, MARCH 15, 2020

It’sSunday morning and time to go to church. But my wife and I don’t head to our car. Instead, we make our way to our living room. We sit in front of the TV in expectation of watching church online. We wait with excitement, anticipating a fresh way of encountering God. But we also mourn that we’ll not experience sweet community with our friends, fellow followers of Jesus.

This year began like most others, full of promise for a new beginning, a fresh start for the coming year. Brimming with expectation for the potential that 2020 held, people everywhere planned as they hoped for what the next twelve months would offer.

Yet soon after we turned the pages on our calendars to the month of January, we heard rumblings of a distant threat from a faraway land. As the days marched on, the rumblings grew louder, and the menace moved closer. Week by week, the enemy approached us in the UnitedStates, just as it encroached on every other country in the world. Information and misinformation abounded. Experts contradicted one another about the severity of this unseen enemy and the prescription to deal with this unprecedented virus. Colleges sent students home. Those sporting events that continued often did so without the presence of fans. Decision-makers everywhere wrestled over how to best respond to something that no one fully understood.

Our church leaders grappled with this too, desiring to determine the best response to keep our church community healthy and safe. Four days ago, they announced their decision: “We have decided to move our Sunday services to an online format for the next two Sundays (March 15 and March 22).”

So we spend Sunday at home. We’ll watch church online this week and next, resuming services as normal by the end of March. This announcement carries a link to our church’s Facebook page. Candy, my wife, fiddles with her smartphone, trying to connect the tiny image on social media to our television set, something we have never done but know is possible.

An unfamiliar interface thwarts what should be a simple task. After several minutes of frustration, we consider retreating to my office computer and huddling in front of the monitor. Or we could watch the event separately, each on our own phone. Instead, she perseveres, hoping to accomplish our goal of experiencing church from the comfort of our living room.

Of course, this is a recorded video and not a livestream, so we can watch it at any time we wish. I should be more patient. I’m not. Growing in frustration, I pursue a different solution.

At last, I find a link to the recording on Vimeo, which is easy to cast to our TV. Soon the image of two familiar faces appears on our television. Recorded in a church office, our worship leader, standing next to our senior pastor, welcomes us to a new way of doing church. The next couple of weeks will be online to keep the most vulnerable in our community safe.

Though we aren’t meeting as a large group, our lead pastor encourages us to gather in our homes and experience community, albeit in a smaller context. This could be with our small group, extended family, neighbors, or friends. But for this week, it’s just Candy and me.

Although changing the format of our Sunday service for a few weeks, the rest of the church staff will function as normal. He concludes his introduction by saying, “Stay tuned as we figure this out as we go.”

The next segment is just with our senior pastor. He outlines the schedule for today: a short teaching, a worship set (with the playlist on Spotify—though I don’t understand how we are to use it during the service) and questions for us to discuss. He gives some announcements and shows a short video about an upcoming event. He prays and is ready to begin his teaching.

Recorded at a different time, he reads from Matthew 8:23–27, when Jesus calms the storm and rebukes his disciples for being afraid. Our pastor closes his teaching on fear by praying for God’s blessings as we go through life’s storms, just like we’re experiencing today. His message takes twelve minutes, much less than his typical thirty to forty-minute sermons.

The third segment is just our worship leader. With only an acoustic guitar and his voice, he leads us in two songs to worship God. As the sound of the second song fades, our lead pastor steps into the shot to wrap up the service.

Calling today an “experiment” about how we gather and engage online, he leaves us with three questions. Candy jots them down. The whole service takes twenty-two minutes.

I’m most impressed that in only a couple of days they pieced together a meaningful service for us to engage with, using the tools and resources available to them without having much time to research and plan. In seven days, we can expect to encounter the next iteration of online church. I’m excited to see what it will look like.

I turn off the TV, and Candy reads the first question. We discuss it at length and move to the second and then the third. We enjoy an engaging conversation, enhancing the service we just experienced.

The time spent to connect to the recording, watch it, and discuss the follow-up questions is just over an hour, about the same length as a normal church service, minus travel time.

We eat lunch with much to contemplate.

With in-person services, our pastor sometimes sends us home with one question, but Candy and I seldom discuss the subject. By the time we wrap up our interactions with others and drive home, the question has faded from our memories, and we don’t think to check our notes for a reminder.

ThoughI always try to talk about the message after the service, too many times I forget, and sometimes my efforts fall flat. But occasionally an insightful interaction takes place. Having probing talking points to use facilitates meaningful discussion which, with online church, we can consider right away.

Takeaway: What if we left every Sunday service armed with a couple of talking points—and then remembered to discuss them? This would require the minister to form the questions and us to remember to use them.

ADDING LAYERS

SUNDAY, MARCH 22, 2020

Much has changed in the past seven days. This week we learn that online church will continue through April 5, lasting four weeks instead of the initial two. Instead of the church staff continuing to work as normal, that has changed too: “We will not be holding any public gatherings, our offices are closed, and all of [our church] staff are working from home,” says the email.

Once again, we go to church in our living room. Once again, Candy struggles to project Facebook on our TV. I admire her tenacity since I’m nowhere near as patient with technology.

Once again, Vimeo offers a simple solution. I appreciate our church’s use of Vimeo as opposed to YouTube. ThoughYouTube is the second-most-used search platform and would offer greater discoverability, I see Vimeo as the safer option and the wiser destination.

While starting the video, I spot something we never know in advance when attending in person: the length of the service, though we can expect it to last from an hour to an hour and fifteen minutes. This recording is thirty-one and a half minutes. So, I know just how long church will take—or at least I think I do.

Our pastor of care and discipleship opens our service with a welcome and update. It looks like he recorded this segment in his home, on his phone, while holding it in selfie mode. I don’t even notice this the first time I watch, so he pulls it off well, with no hint of awkwardness.

Despite our physical isolation, he says, it’s important to know that “we are not alone.” He invites us to like and share the post on Facebook so others can learn about our online service and join us—so that they will not be alone. He prays for the service that’s about to follow.

The next segment is our senior pastor. He’s also in his home, but he’s not holding his phone. A stationary video camera captures him speaking, leaving both his hands free as he talks. He previews what to expect. An interesting addition is his plan to “create space with our morning today to share some time and engagement to interact as families.” I’m intrigued.

He encourages us to bring ourselves fully into what unfolds online and interact with the service. He reminds us that email is now our primary way of communication. Those not receiving email updates should contact the church to join the list. He also mentions a podcast he started of a daily reflection to help us process this journey we’re on. These options will enable us to stay better connected.

Before he begins his message, he asks us to share something from the past week that brought us joy and another item that caused us fear. I pause the recording so Candy and I can process what happened and share with each other. It’s a significant way to move us into connecting with God. We resume the recording, and our pastor prays for the service and our community as we gather online and worship.

After the “amen” to his prayer, we jump to another segment, recorded at a different time and in another room of his house. I like the variety, but before he teaches, he asks us to again pause the video and discuss, “What does church mean to you?” Candy and I have an insightful time sharing our thoughts about church. Then we resume the recording.

“If your answer was that church is a place where you go for one hour on Sunday,” says our pastor, “then church is nonexistent for you. Instead, let’s talk about how the church is to treat one another,” he continues, noting that fifty-nine times the Bible instructs how we are to treat one another. He starts with “love one another.”

As instructed, we pause the recording a third time to draw a map of our neighborhood and list the neighbors we know by name. We don’t make our map, but we do list our nearest neighbors.

When we return to the recording, he reads from Luke 10:30–37 about Jesus’s story of the good Samaritan. Love is not how we feel about what we do. We love through our actions. To apply this, he refers us to the map we made earlier about our neighbors. “What do you know about them? Who is in need? Who is God leading you to pray for? Commit to pray for them every day this week. How can you engage with them and love them in a safe way?”

He gives us the option of pausing the video a fourth time to discuss this. Or