Rethink Mission: Inspiring gospel-centered missional churches

by Jake Johnson

Scriptural and Ecclesiological Considerations

The last post explored the physical limitations of the Internet as well as the “digital divide,” the disenfranchisement of the poor and minority from the digital environment.

In this last post, I want to consider the scriptures and what they say about church.

In my study, I’ve come to believe that the church is defined by:

• The preaching/teaching/proclamation of the word
• The administration of the sacraments (in my view communion and baptism)
• And the fellowship of the saints

As seen in Acts 2:42, “And they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.”

I don’t think there are too many people who would argue with such a definition. The real debate comes when we start asking whether this type of community can be done in the digital world.

Can the sacraments, for instance, be rightly administered online? Some people think so, as evidenced by Flamingo Road’s Internet baptism as posted on Church Crunch. How about communion? Can that be administered online and still embody the New Testament concept of “breaking bread together”?

To this Doug says, “Every virtual church I’ve encountered has worked hard to put into place ‘regular’ aspects – from baptisms to small groups to mission trips – in order to help build real community across the board. Critics aside, no virtual church I’ve ever met is trying to be virtual-only.”

If Doug is truly implying that virtual church is really not virtual at all but rather a mixture of online teaching and physical community, then I’m on board. But I’m pretty sure that is not the end of the line for virtual church, but rather the beginning of an erosion of physical community all together. There will be a day when virtual church is just that, a completely autonomous congregation interacting solely on the Internet. And Doug seems to leave room for this as a valid expression of church. I cannot disagree more. As John Stott said over 27 years ago:

“In such a dehumanized society the fellowship of the local church will become increasingly important, whose members meet one another, and talk and listen to one another in person rather than on screen. In this human context of mutual love the speaking and hearing of the Word of God is also likely to become more necessary for the preservation of our humanness, not less.” (Thanks to Justin Taylor for pointing me to this quote via his blog.)

The Purpose of the Church?

In looking at the purpose of the Church, I believe that it exists primarily to:

• Equip the saints for the work of the ministry (Ephesians 4:11-16)
• To make disciples (Matthew 28:16-20)

These commissions are best accomplished by preaching, teaching, and proclaiming the word and by doing the word. As James says, you cannot do one without the other, “But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves.” And while some are called expressly to do the teaching and preaching (Ephesians 4:11-12), we are all called to proclaim the gospel and to do it.

When thinking of the purpose of the church in the context of Internet ministry, it’s easy to see how it is useful for proclamation – the preaching of the gospel. In that sense it is an excellent tool. It becomes harder to think of its usefulness in discipleship and in being a catalyst for bringing people beyond hearing the word to doing the word. This is because the Internet is an uncarnate environment that is inherently geared towards engendering a people who consume rather than pour out. Yet, as a community of believers, we are called to do just the opposite – we are called to incarnate the gospel to the world.

The biggest challenge I see in the future of ministry is the pervasive acceptance of digital interaction as true community, replacing, not supplementing, physical community. Yet, in a Christian context, it is the daily interactions between believers that leads to discipleship. As Tim Chester and Steve Timmis write in their book, Total Church, “In becoming a Christian I am a disciple, but that is an identity, not an event. I never stop being a disciple, and I never reach a point where I no longer require daily discipleship by the gospel word in the gospel community.”

Event Driven Church vs. Rhythm Living

Ministries that are diving full force into the Internet by forming Internet campuses, doing online administrations of the sacraments, and more, are indicative to me of the more American expression of Christianity and church, which is an event driven model. For many people, church is just one of a many obligations or events that must be attended, consumed, and completed – an X on the calendar. It’s easy to say you go to church and believe you are part of a church in an online forum if you believe that church is about the Sunday event where you sing some songs and hear a sermon.

But that is not church. If anything that is evangelism, which to be clear is very important. But it is not true Christian community. It provides no true venue for discipleship, or the rhythms of Christian life that are depicted in the New Testament (eating together, praying together, serving together, etc.).

When you approach church as an event, it is easy to leave that church if the pastor says something that pisses you off. It’s even easier when all it takes is a click of a mouse, where no actual physical connection is severed. A rhythm centered approach to church where people are eating together in homes, giving to and taking care of those with need, discussing the scriptures in late night gatherings over coffee or a pint, serving arm-in-arm in doing the word and incarnating the gospel, creates bonds that are not easily broken – and ensures that if a fellow believer is straying, you have a real, valid, and tangible means to confront him or her in love.  Above all, it presents a visible, incarnate, and clearly counter-cultural community that provides hope in an increasingly individualistic and consumerist culture.

“A rhythm centered approach to church where people are eating together in homes, giving to and taking care of those with need, discussing the scriptures in late night gatherings over coffee or a pint, serving arm-in-arm in doing the word and incarnating the gospel, creates bonds that are not easily broken…”

Conclusion

Steve Knight has written about the importance of reverse incarnation in the digital age. In that sense, the Internet is useful. But in reality, reverse incarnation is simply a fancy word for what we’ve already discussed is part and parcel with being the church – proclamation. We are to preach the word and proclaim the gospel in the digital world. But the digital world cannot replace the incarnate body of believers gathering together in community. You must have both.

I find it hard to understand how we can theologically justify purely online Internet campuses as autonomous and fully functioning churches – if they never gather together physically (and no, Doug, I don’t mean a building when I say that). Many will speak to practicality, but we must be cautious when we move to speaking pragmatically without undergirding our pragmatism with theology.

In the end, the Internet is useful, but it can also lead to a disembodiment of the church that is not biblical. It is my prayer that as we move forward we don’t wholesale dive into new technologies because our culture demands it, but that we carefully, prayerfully, and with measure engage new technology in a way that continues the Church’s long and grand tradition of being in the world but not of it.
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See: In Defense of Physical Community – Part One, Part Two, & Part Three.

Jake is the Communications Director at Praxis Church in Tempe, Arizona, and a freelance writer and editor. He enjoys long walks in the park, glorious sunsets, romantic poetry, and snarky bios that make people wonder if he’s serious. He’s also trying by God’s grace to be a good dad and great husband. He blogs at www.thejakers.com.

Tags: culture, leadership, technology

This entry was posted on Thursday, November 5th, 2009 at 8:34 am and is filed under church. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.