Rethink Mission: Inspiring gospel-centered missional churches

By Jake Johnson

The Physical Limitations

The last post discussed the cultural implications of the Internet as a communications medium, and proposed that we think more carefully about how it may be a tool that marries Christianity and Western culture, effectively rebirthing colonialism in a new digital format.

This post is concerned with the very real physical limitations of the Internet and the growing “digital divide”.

I think most of us would agree that one of the biggest challenges the Western Evangelical church faces is one of comfort. Many of our churches (not all!) are very wealthy and rarely expose themselves to the outcast, poor, and dejected of society. We build large, sickly expensive buildings (compounds) in suburban enclaves and interact with people who are much like us: middle-class.

Practically speaking, how does Internet church fix this?

The reality is that the disenfranchised of our society have little-to-no access to a computer on a regular basis. Forget about access to dial-up or broadband Internet access (which is a necessity for Internet church).

Consider these top factors positively correlated with access to broadband Internet according to PEW Internet:

• Income (household incomes greater than $75,000 annually)
• Having a college degree or more
• Parent of a minor child in household
• Married or living with partner
• Employed full-time

And now the top negative factors:

• Having less than a high school degree
• Senior citizen
• Living in rural America
• Having only a high school degree
• Being African-American

According to an article from the Buffalo News, “Internet use in particular and technology use in general are lower among the elderly, the poor, those who didn’t attend college and those who live in rural communities, data shows. ‘There are socioeconomic and demographic factors that are intertwined in people’s use of the Internet,’ said Aaron W. Smith, a research specialist with the Pew Internet and American Life Project. Experts say this gap in technology use, often referred to as the ‘digital divide,’ makes it more difficult for those groups to participate in modern society and the global economy.”

I don’t think I have to go into proof texts on the Church’s mission to the poor and disenfranchised. Does holding church in an “environment” that is inherently exclusive (and will continue to be so for the foreseeable future) help or hurt the church’s ability to fulfill its mission?

The implications of this apply not only to online churches but also churches that are by their nature intimidating and exclusionary in a physical sense to those same disenfranchised people groups.

That these churches exist in the physical world is again not reason to justify the conception of Internet churches. It is a call to reform the way we do church in the physical world.
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See: In Defense of Physical Community – Part One, Part Two & Part Four.

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 Tuesday, November 3rd, 2009 at 7:35 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.