Online Church Part 3 "Traditional Cages"
Traditional Cages
As most churches make the move to online services, they are doing their best to replicate the way they have always done things. This is a mistake. The online service is a wholly other thing. Rather than try to replicate the normal service into an online experience, we need to be asking, “What are the goals of our service?” “What are the goals of our church that are met by the services?” “How can we better accomplish those goals in this new format?” Some things won’t work online, so we need to scrap them and (perhaps) replace them with something that will. Other things, we may discover, are now available to us that would never work in a service!
For example, they will not be able to worship as a congregation at home. How can you help a family alone at home learn to worship as a family? This will be a strength and a win in the long run! Also, in traditional services you can’t readily have people discuss the sermon as a congregation and make commitments to apply the teaching. (Yes. I know in the Statas there is a very formal “invitation” at the end of the service.) But, when people are at home, prepared to do things in a completely new way, you have an exciting new opportunity! Deliver a sermon. (You might make it shorter and get to the point more quickly. People aren’t trapped in a pew where they mentally check out but are at home where they can literally check out!) Then supply your families with a discussion guide and questions that will help them figure out how they need to apply the sermon to their lives this week. That can and should be a regular component of the online service.
As most churches make the move to online services, they are doing their best to replicate the way they have always done things. This is a mistake. The online service is a wholly other thing. Rather than try to replicate the normal service into an online experience, we need to be asking, “What are the goals of our service?” “What are the goals of our church that are met by the services?” “How can we better accomplish those goals in this new format?” Some things won’t work online, so we need to scrap them and (perhaps) replace them with something that will. Other things, we may discover, are now available to us that would never work in a service!
For example, they will not be able to worship as a congregation at home. How can you help a family alone at home learn to worship as a family? This will be a strength and a win in the long run! Also, in traditional services you can’t readily have people discuss the sermon as a congregation and make commitments to apply the teaching. (Yes. I know in the Statas there is a very formal “invitation” at the end of the service.) But, when people are at home, prepared to do things in a completely new way, you have an exciting new opportunity! Deliver a sermon. (You might make it shorter and get to the point more quickly. People aren’t trapped in a pew where they mentally check out but are at home where they can literally check out!) Then supply your families with a discussion guide and questions that will help them figure out how they need to apply the sermon to their lives this week. That can and should be a regular component of the online service.
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