Doing Church Online: Three Types of Churches

The great, frustrating, and occasionally hilarious paradox of doing ministry online lies in the fact that while there is a low bar to entry, to do this thing correctly requires far more skill and deliberation than one might otherwise expect.

For example, when the novel coronavirus pandemic first gripped the world, every church from podunk Arkansas to downtown Tokyo had to do what they were always going to eventually have to do anyways; they grabbed the nearest millennial and shouted "MAKE INTERNET MAGIC HAPPEN, COMPUTER-MONKEY!" Now, your average millennial has some basic tech knowledge, understands social media to one degree or another, and perhaps can even figure out how to record some music, build a website, or put together a service recording.

But church is more than that. And church online goes even further beyond. To be an effective church online, we have to figure out not just what kind of internet presence we have, but what kind of internet presence we need in order to move forward.

When it comes to church presence on the internet, there are effectively three categories of church. Each category of church understands and uses the internet in different ways, and for different purposes.

The first category is what we can call an Archiving Church. This kind of church records parts of their physical, communal life (usually sermons, worship music, entire worship services, and/or some bible study content), and uses the internet environment as a location to store that data, and make it available to anyone who wants to review it at a later date. For a church like this, the whole of their existence is a physical one, built around their church building and the people who attend it in person, most Sundays. This category encompasses the vast majority of traditional, mainline, community-centered congregations.

The second category is what we can call a Fusion Church. This is a church that uses the internet as a means of not just storing content, but sharing content. This type of church uses social media more readily than others, promotes activities and events through Facebook, Instagram, and other platforms. Their leadership is typically active on Twitter, and maybe even Reddit. Their worship services are recorded live, or even livestreamed and, while the majority of the congregation worships in the physical space, there are some people who depend on this church's online presence (both through shared worship and through contact via emails, facebook/forum conversations, and other means) as their sole connection to this church's community.

The third category is what we can call an Online Church. This is a church which does not have, or does not have any significant, physical presence at all, and instead exists almost entirely in the digital realm. Churches like this communicate almost entirely through email, text, forum posts, and online messages. Fellowship happens in Zoom meetings, forum threads, Facebook conversations, and group chats. In addition to a Sunday worship service, churches like this typically branch out into a wide variety of other content like short videos, TED-style talks, podcasts, and others. The community arises out of a shared culture, much like one would see in a physical congregation, but without being bound to a specific geographic location. In practice, Online Churches function more like fandoms than geographically-bound institutions, and their content often reflects this distinction.

As a church, once you identify whether you have been an Archiving, Fusion, or Online style church in theory, we can look to accepting some hard truths, one of which is this:

In the age of coronavirus, ALL churches are Online Churches now.

Our buildings are closed, and our sanctuaries are empty. There is nobody in the pews. Whether we like it or not, our membership is, for now at least, either with us online, or no longer with us at all. And if we want to figure out how to ensure it is the former, rather than the latter, we will have to start thinking like Online Churches, and focusing our efforts on understanding and utilizing the internet as a very real space, rather than "just that thing where the local boys put up funny pictures about the church from time to time."

In the next post, we'l take some time to explore just what this new environment means, how Online Churches form their fandom-esque communities, and what we can take from this which we can incorporate into our regular practices if, and God willing when, life returns to some semblance of normalcy, at least as pertains to physical contact and shared space.

So, let's slap on our combadges, dust off our visors, and start thinking like fandoms.