This is something I’ve never really talked about. It’s nothing new. Churches everywhere stream their services online. Others even have full blown internet campuses (with internet campus pastors). At heart, I am a total technology geek and anything dealing with processors, giga-anything, and has a power chord gets me excited (my wife just wants to destroy them all, I don’t blame her).

The camps have staked out their tents, gathered their compadres, passed out the e-leaflets, and have begun to spread their viral message about how they like or dislike the idea of internet church. The debate is laid upon the foundation of this heavy question…

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

In essence what people are asking is:
“Does it count?”
“Is God going to decide to not let me into heaven because I went to internet church? (or maybe send me to Second Life Heaven where you interface with your MacBook Pro in the lonely basement of someone else’s mansion in heaven.)”
“I feel weird not going to a building, but does that matter?”
“When I attend, I’m in my boxers and taking communion with Frito’s & Apple Juice. Is that cool?”
“I read in the Bible about community. Is online chat and social networking community?”

I’ve read quite a bit from both sides of the internet church debate. Everything from people saying, “You’re not a true Christian if you think the internet isn’t a way to do church,” to “If you attend a service online you’re going to Hell.” Now these aren’t my words or feelings, but I wanted to share how passionately people feel about this fairly new embodiment of internet church.

I’m not here to condemn people to hell for attending internet services or to sing it’s praises and move the church solely online. But, there are some true lessons to be learned as we dive into this idea of “internet church.” Advancements in technology are a tricky thing to dive into and as leaders we need to be aware of the pros and cons before we blindly adopt new ideas & concepts. Before we dive into that- I’ll share some things involving why we did a live webcast church service and some of the feedback we received from it in our next post. Until then-

Jason *over and out*

About six months ago I was cleaning out some boxes and found a regrettable disc buried deep in the clutter. I’m sorry Bobby Brown, but I’ve now since thrown away your CD, “Don’t Be Cruel.” It wasn’t cruel to me back then, but now- my ears just can’t take it. I’ve grown, my music catalog has grown. I’m not the same love drunk teenager I once was. I had to lay you to rest (and I’m better for it).

I brought this unfortunate incident up to some friends and began the dialog of “If our personal music changes, evolves, and gets refreshed over time… Do you think our worship to God in song also changes?” I think this is a great thought. I would answer yes. If you are singing the same thing to God you sang to him 20 years ago- it’s time to move on.

Yeah, you can revisit it from time to time, but it’s time to get a new song. The Bible even talks about this idea… In Psalm 33, verse 3, the writer encourages us to, “Sing to Him a new song, play skillfully, shout for joy.” The play skillfully idea of being excellent and having great musicians is another post entirely, but let’s embrace this encouragement to “sing to Him a new song.”

The musicians that have been at God’s church at Forefront have composed some GREAT songs. Songs that fit our culture and our journey with God. But, we’re not always able to write out exactly how we feel and put it to music. But not having the time or availability doesn’t give us the excuse to ignore the “new song” premise. So we’ve looked high and low, listened, researched, explored, and found a ton of music that speaks to the heart of God and the reason why his church here at Forefront exists.

So each week at Forefront we’ll be working through some new music and updating the catalog. We started a little over a year ago and the response has been great. Below is the set list from yesterday. I had multiple Facebook & text messages asking who wrote the “Amazing, Because It Is” song. It’s located below for your listening pleasure.

Enjoy.

My Hero by Foo Fighters
Lift by Joe Heilman
You Are Here by Needtobreathe
My Glorious by Delirious
Amazing, Because It Is by The Almost
First Day by Joe Heilman