We’ve batted around the how, why, pros, cons, and even a little glimpse into the process of what it takes to do a streaming service online. But, now to the real question at hand:

“Is the ‘online church’ experience- church?”

It depends. But in most cases- No.
Weighing the pros and cons against scripture leads me to believe a few things about solely attending an online service:

1. The Definition Of Church: The definition/picture of the “church” according to scripture points to live, face to face, living life together, rubbing elbows in service, worshiping the Creator together, kind of interaction. This does not happen with “online church.” Though some will debate this fact. There is no substitute for the local church. Now whether it takes form in the idea of “house church” or “congregational gathering style church,” this local gathering paints a clearer Biblical picture of how God’s church should move and breathe in the community.
2. The Accountability Of The Live Interaction: Accountability is almost vacant if not totally unavailable. Too many people we encounter through the ministry God’s called us to do here are introverted by nature and would attend online without ever saying a word, chatting a phrase, or interacting with the people involved. The argument could be made that these same people wouldn’t walk through the doors of your church. We have TONS of introverts and new people who attended every week. It’s all about the environment/culture you create. They won’t stay anonymous for long in a building with friendly people prompting them to move to another level with God.
3. The Practice Of Spiritual Disciplines: The practicing of spiritual disciplines is difficult even within the local church being together weekly and seeing one another face to face- with online church this grows exponentially. This new embodiment of the “online church” can restrain many  people from freely expressing and flourishing in their spiritual disciplines. Loving, giving, serving, worshiping, community, communion, and the list goes on. These are things done with others. Now granted being online, you have “other people” in the experience, but you are not interacting with them in the same way face to face discussion happens. For instance, I love my wife. We talk every day. We also use Twitter, Facebook, and texts to communicate. If I cut ties to all face to face interaction with my wife and just use technology- our relationship will fade (and I will fade). She is built for physical interaction and I cannot fulfill my duty as a husband if we’re cut off face to face. I cannot practice it. Likewise, I am built for acts of service and I cannot serve her the way God built me if we do not see one another. Our disciplines as a couple work better and we grow in them when we are interacting in real life. Online church does not afford people the opportunity to  flex their spiritual muscles and do what God built them to do.
4. The Idolatry Of The New & Improved: I love technology, but even in my own life I have to weigh the amount of time, energy, and resources that are being placed on computers, cell, mp3 players, TV, DVD’s, etc. It could go on forever. As we grow as a culture and advance ever so quickly into new and exciting technologies, my fear is that we could be whisked away by the shiny new toys of a culture heading away from the Creator. Now, I’m not saying any of these “things” are bad in and of themselves, but when we begin to rely on power, bandwidth, site analytics, user patches & updates, and tools that are supposed to make our lives “easier” instead of relying on the one and only God of the Universe… we are walking on dangerous ground. As a church we flirt with this technology line on a constant basis and have really had hard talks about what it looks like to scale back things so we can always know we’re relying more on God than the almighty Apple Computer. It’s a tough place to be in a “show” and “special effects” culture. People are waiting to see the glitz and glamor of something amazing, and as leaders many are trying to feed them what they “want.” but what if we stepped back and focused more on what they “need?”

I know some people who are doing streaming services and people’s lives are being changed. I think that is great. Any time people can encounter God- that’s a good thing. But, my fear is that we might be chasing the trends too closely and it could backfire on us as we try  to do the work God has called us to do. We should weigh everything against the Bible and see where it stacks up. As for Forefront Church, we won’t be going the live online route. In times of a crunch we will use technology as a way to keep the message from not being heard at all, but nothing can imitate or replace the local church.

Jason *over and out*

*I’ll take questions via Twitter, Facebook, & the blog and do a wrap up post from things you have interest in talking about

We’ll get to the conclusion in a bit, but we received a few emails asking what videos we played besides the live feed- and how did we do it? Well, Livestream allows you to insert your own videos (1gb or under) as well as YouTube video content. You insert those into a playlist and bounce between those and your live feed(s) you have coming in.

Oh and here are the videos we used during the online service:

We played this video after talking about people being home in their PJ’s, enjoying breakfast, eating bacon… MMmmmm, bacon!

We played this video right before taking our online offering (http://giving.forefront.org) and afterwards talked about our small groups, we call the “Gel Groups.” The promos like these are always fun and create a buzz about small groups that more often than not leads someone to check out a group for the first time. It can be pretty intimidating going into someone’s home you don’t know and sharing things about your life you’ve never shared before. Our prayer is that things like this take the edge off of their worries (we know people will say evil things [and have] about our church for showing/making commercials like this- luckily, God knows our hearts and intentions, so enjoy).

We’ve rattled off some of the pros of streaming church online, but what about the cons? We had overwhelmingly strong/positive feedback from our experience with it, but it still begs to answer the question:

“Is the ‘online church’ experience- church?”

Let’s look at some of the cons many people have debated for a moment:

• Gives people the opportunity to be completely anonymous. This allows the individual no accountability for things going on in their life. I’ve met one too many people (within the church who attend regularly and are engaged in ministry) who have a hard time with accountability. Amplify that exponentially when someone is sitting alone in their living room with no one to talk to except a chat client, Facebook, or Twitter.
• Lack of true community/gathering of the saints. This is where it gets a little tricky. The definition of “community” is being debated quite a bit in the Christians circles with the birth of social media. In my study of the Bible, where two or more are gathered, God is in their midst. That being said, online interaction is not the same as physical handshakes, face to face convos over coffee, discussions in a living room about faith, or worship service/gatherings where a collective body engages the living God. There aren’t many trying to argue that online services are “more engaging and impacting” than a live physical interaction with a church. It’s like the birth of “E-Readers.” I love the idea. Carrying around my entire library with a small device and read them whenever I want? Awesome! But, there is something about a physical book. The feel, pages, smell, turning to a new slice of information, the cover art, etc. It just gets me. The reading experience is more engaging to me with a physical book. In many ways, I lose the story & lifeblood when I turn to the “techno version.” In the same way, we lose a great deal of the engagement factor when we attend “online services” as opposed to a physical campus. We also turn away (to what extent is up the person) from the early church’s example for us to gather together weekly for communion (breaking of bread remembering Jesus’ death) and the Apostle’s teaching (Biblical doctrines for the church body, taught in the Bible). See here and here.
• Temptation to give in to your ADHD. You know it’s true. You watch some, pay a bill online. Watch some, check a few emails, update Twitter status, view friends statuses on Facebook. Watch some… you get the idea. One of the comments we got back was that the chat client to the right of the video was pretty distracting. Through the music portion we aimed at asking people questions about the songs and how God was moving in their lives. During the message we stepped back to we could… engage with the message. That is when the chat client went a bit out of control. People would hop in and it was like a scene from Cheers, “Norm!” the chatters would rave as people jumped in. Part of it was cool because it was a Forefront love-fest, with all kinds of comments about how “cool” “rad” or “awesome” the church is. I enjoyed that, but that is not why we are the church. Church moves, lives, and breathes to be about God and about others. And with the temptation to go to ESPN.com, check your online banking, or order a pizza to be there by the time service is over- it can be a bit too much to handle for many people. The focus can get lost. That is never good. God tells us our worship should be orderly (1 Corinthians 14), because everyone there might have something to say, a song to sing, a word to preach, etc. Let’s do this in a way that isn’t distracting the others around us. “Online services” have the capability (not always, but they can) to do just that, distract us from the true message.
• Confines people from truly practicing spiritual disciplines. I  might get blasted for this one. We were built to love, serve, give, and worship. A computer screen does not provide the same environment and place to express those. Want to serve in an area of ministry? A computer screen makes it difficult to serve. Want to love someone else who is having a hard time across town? It’s hard to know about it when physical proximity is only through a LAN connection. Want to worship God through song? Many find it awkward to sing to their screen, turning what is supposed to be our engaging with the Creator into a “spectator sport” much like the Super Bowl or the next show at the Norva (venue here in the 7-5-7). This was not meant to be. Want to give to the work of God’s church? Well, statically speaking- online services don’t produce much/if any giving by their weekly attenders (via LifeChurch.tv seminar with 4 leading churches doing web-based services on a weekly basis). We saw this to be true when we did our online service. Our weekly average giving is $9-10k a week to rent facilities, pay staff, rent office space, reach our community. When we looked at the final numbers, we received roughly 1/4 of that number. OUCH. How do we reach our community? Pay staff? Rent offices, etc? The trend with online services is that it deprives people from experiencing the full potential of practicing the spiritual disciplines God calls them to. We were built to love,worship, & experience God and spiritual disciplines allow us to move closer to God. They are not what save us, that’s God’s grace alone, but these practices help us draw near to Him.
• Stretches the definition of church to a place that is fairly uncomfortable… for many. With the things mentioned above, it begins to paint a picture of what the church is supposed to be (according the the Bible). With video venues, online services, and new technology birthing every day- we are going to see the definition of church discussed, debated, tampered with, and trampled on.

So, we still haven’t said one way or the other… “Is the ‘online church’ experience- church?”
You’ll get my conclusion in the next post.

Jason *over and out*

We’ve covered the why and how we ended up streaming our Sunday service online, but we’re still trying to get to the answer to this question:

“Is the ‘online church’ experience- church?”

Let’s look at some of the pro’s for a minute:

• Easily accessible to anyone with an internet connection
• Saves money on building/facilities (assuming you are in a mobile environment like we are), because some of your audience will opt for viewing online instead of attending a physical campus
• Allows you to capture the live feel without having to drive or go to a physical building- and save it for future viewing with many of the online services available
• The amount of volunteers for Sunday mornings (or whenever you do this) greatly decreases with minimal set-up, no classes, no greeters, no ushers, etc.
• People can share their worship, thoughts, feelings with others during the service via chat, Facebook, Twitter
• With being home (or in your selected environment) you feel more comfortable and possibly more open to what is being said/communicated during the service
• People who are far from God are more apt to tune in and check out the service if they don’t feel threatened or pushed into attending (they can be anonymous for a time if they choose, which helps some people ease in to experiencing God)
• If you decide to do both (live site and stream online) people can check out the church (preview it) before they actually come and check it out on a Sunday morning at a building
• Technology advancements have moved so far, so fast- that almost anyone can do this at next to nothing when it comes to cost. We used a free service (livestream.com), some gear we had for band practices, and computers we use for Sunday mornings
• Engaging people using this medium has become the new norm. From Netflix streaming, YouTube, Hulu, Vimeo, Ustream, etc.- people are getting their information via video and much of that is by using the internet
• Fill in the blank: “One of the pros of having church streamed online is _______ ?”

Those are just some, but let’s hear what you have to say and next time will jump in with the “cons of online church.”
Until next time-

Jason *over and out*

My good friend, Aaron, will be discussing the idea of church online at his blog this week. He was spurred on after tuning in to our online webcast Sunday.

I love Aaron and his family and completely respect his opinion.
You should check out his posts as well, and be nice over there.
I’d hate to drop the hammer on some unruly blogger comments. Plus, he’s HUGE and could destroy you with some old school WWF style moves that would leave you laid up in bed until you meet your maker. In all seriousness, he wouldn’t hurt a fly (his bark is worse than his bite).

Jason *over and out*

The East Coast got hit with a pretty decent snow storm. Here in Va Beach is was the largest amount of snow we’ve seen in 20 years. With inclement weather on the verge and needing to make a decision, we knew getting people on the roads could be a bad idea. As a leadership, we began to brainstorm and talk through some of our questions:

“How do we still engage people?”
“Do we just not do service all together?”
“What are other churches doing? What about the larger churches in our area?”
“How does this affect the weekly budgeted needs?”
“How long can we wait to make this decision?”
“If we cancel, how many people will get mad? How many will be thankful?”
“Is there another way to do this and still connect with people?”

Dozens more questions ran through our heads and passed over our lips. It was an interesting time of juggling it all over a couple of days. When we recently had a large Nor Easter and the power outages all across our area, the high school we meet at was without power. We discussed back up plans then and someone mentioned using a streaming service to do everything from our warehouse space. It was entertained if need be, but the school received power back just in time. Well, discussion and weather collided and we decided to go for it-

we’ll have an internet service this week.

We chose Livestream.com to go with for our web/internet service. It’s free, pretty reliable, and you can customize the interface  for the viewers. We’ve used it to bring staff members into meetings if they are out of town, training volunteers from the comfort of their home, and recording our creative planning meetings for series to go back later and see anything we might have missed. It is a great tool and has served us well in other areas.

So, here is what we used to make it all happen (techy stuff): 1 Sony HVR-Z1U camera, a MacBook (second edition white model), 5 mics, a power mixer, some garage shop/work lights, and a firewire cable to connect the camera to the laptop. Here are some photos & video of the set-up:

We loaded the videos we need for the day (opening service video, sonic commercial spoof, and a small groups promo commercial) into the interface, wrote up the order of service, prepped, practiced, and launched it at 10am EST last Sunday. Before the service began, quite a few people were in the chat interface making friends and getting to know one another a bit more. It was plastered all over Facebook, Twitter, and MySpace. People we didn’t even know were promoting it, other churches were directing their people to it since their services were canceled. “No pressure,” I told our team as we an hour before we went live. Friends from Texas, SC, NC, CA, and DC tuned in as well to join in the experience. All in all, we were pleased with how it went. When our choices were gathering as a body and putting people’s lives in danger, not having services at all, or doing things online- I’m glad we made the decision we did.

Here were some of the responses:

• “very cool thing this am.. was very thankful you all put this together, and so fast!! Our church rocks!!”
• “I LOVED it!!! Forefront Rocks…and James gave a great sermon!”
• “Awesome job on the online service guys. Although Jason didn’t look any better in HD … LOL ”
• “Very impressed with the Forefront Service…..good job guys”
• “WOW! What an unusual Sunday………….first church on-line, thank you Forefront”
• “I’m eating a bowl of cereal and Watching Forefront Church @livestream”
• “We are having church on line….pretty cool to sit at home and still be able to go to church…”
• “I thought you guys did an awesome job putting things together. Everyone was on point. I will have to agree about the chat feature, it was cool during the singing and before and after the service, but a little distracting during the message.”
• “Caught a few minutes of it, and I dug it. I’m not a big fan of internet campuses, but in the work I do to pay the bills (hospice chaplaincy), I can totally see this working in facilities or homes of people who can no longer make it out to church–and “old school” churches wouldn’t have to change how they do a thing. Just invest in some technology.”
• “It was awesome! Everyone in my house was tuned in. We even had some friends in TX join too! Very great outreach for those who aren’t sure or aren’t comfy attending a service yet. Not to mention sick, shut-in, etc! Amazing!!”
• “I was impressed with how smoothly it seemed to go; I was afraid there would be lots of technical difficulties! Great message from James, and Jessica and the guys sounded awesome, as usual. The chat thing was kind of neat, a little distracting though. Great job, thanks for putting it all together!”
• “We thought it was great Jason, good job gang!”
• “Great service today. I am really glad I got the chance to watch it. I def would have been at service last sunday but was in a car accident that sat. Came out with whiplash. I thank the Lord that I didnt get seriously injured or that I had anyone else with me. The other driver is ok too. Plan on being at service this coming Sunday. I am def making changes in my life and letting God finally in. And ForeFront is def helping. So thank you.”

I just grabbed those from Facebook and from Twitter. Take away- it went well. Our measuring tool, people’s response in how it connected them to God. During the music portion, we prompted people to talk about their joys in life, what God was doing through them in the community, how we could pray for them, and what brought them to God or to church today. With each question, the response was received well.

All the people involved did a fantastic job making it happen in a matter of less than 48 hours. Just under two days planning. Seriously, that was it. We had to act quickly and if it only moved one person closer to God, it was worth it. But…

the question still remains, “Is the ‘online church’ experience- church?”
We will tackle that with looking at the “pros of online church” in the next post.

Jason *over and out*