For me its simply summed up in 2 John 12. Fellowship is best done face to face. I mean, it doesn’t take much mature Christian reflection to see that we’re created for real-time, real-life fellowship, does it? I’m staggered that the virtual church thing is actually taken that seriously by people.

A few random thoughts…
A Christian brother and leader who recently visited our shores with a call to increase our efforts in church-planting has himself recently launched the global arm of the church he leads. The preacher will be beamed in for 40 of the weeks of the year on video screen. I heard someone comment that when he speaks of the need to screen planters (for their suitability) he really means to plant screeners!

I think Heb 10:24 is helpful in thinking about the benefit of meeting in the flesh which is the ability to stir one another up to love and good works. It’s much easier and practical to do this in person than via email.

I am voting for the terms e-Pastor or iPastor.

The local pastor knows the uniqueness of local concerns.

The greatest loss in beaming in our iPastor is we are unable to see their life and doctrine matching up. The benefit of proximity allows us to witness if they practice what they preach, which is easily seen in smaller congregations with your traditional flesh-pastor (I have reservations about this description). Yet even if (God forbid!) our churches grow and we don’t have a deep personal relationship with the Bible teacher we still see them as a husband and father, the car they drive, the type of person they are drawn to speak with after church, we meet with people that do have a personal relationship with them and so gain an understanding of if they are respected, we meet people converted through their ministry. We see not just their doctrine, but their life as well.

I am a bit worried about this younger generation…..

30+ years ago I knew a lady who was 80+. Her only ‘church’ contact was whatever church service was on TV. This is 30 years ago and I have no idea what the Bible teaching was like but as far as I could know she was trusting in God.

20+ years ago there was another lady aged maybe 60 years of age who I think was converted by watching a children’s christian TV show on in the afternoons called ‘Sing Me a Rainbow’. (Clifford Warne, magic tricks…..)

And of course there is the era of those Dr Knox talks on radio. More imagination needed for the visuals but just how many were fed the word of God?

Another man we met was experiencing lots of face to face in a church but seemingly devoid of christian fellowship in Christ for probably 20 years. But he was hanging on to Christ through the reading of an old worn Billy Graham pamphlet (think DVD)

And then there are all those converted and encouraged through the landline screens used By Billy Graham.

I wonder how many other people have come to know the Lord Jesus Christ via the screen and had for many reasons remained isolated.

Today the technology is so accessible. The opportunities are overwhelming when one starts to dwell on them.

A ‘virtual’ church or a ‘virtual’ conference can lead to real conversion, encouragement, exhortation…… 

And as much as we would like to forget, there are examples from Hitler, Stalin and Mao – all big screen users!!

Let’s not underestimate the impact of the ‘virtual’!!

Di

It seems to me that conferences are a place to receive whereas church is fundamentally a place to give (i.e. “It’s not about you ..... as per http://solapanel.org/article/the_five_word_antidote_to_grumbling/).

It’s not just the dissimination of information.

So, as others have effectively said, echurch really wouldn’t be a church.

Hi Di,

I reckon ‘beamed in stuff’ is great - in whatever form it comes. Radio, TV, booklets, pamphlets - whatever. Thanks for the reminder of those precious servants.

In fact at the moment ‘beamed in’ is pretty much the only ‘external’ feeding I get as I can only understand 1 in 20 words at church.

I too have met many people - through Katoomba Men’s Convention etc who are isolated and rely on external sources for food.

However I think I also want to say, while its good, its not the best. The guys I meet at MKC all tell me they love coming to the conference ‘live’ because they get to rub shoulders (quite sweaty shoulders often) with other Christians. They say the same about church - they’d love to have peers to meet with every week - to build relationships with, to encourage, to serve etc.

So I want to agree with you - and say lets not underestimate the potential of the virtual - but I also want to say - lets acknowledge that its not the best, and where possible we should be going for the best.

Pete

Peter - I was one who was present, face-to-face at the Gospel Coalition conference, and the points you note are precisely what I would highlight. The singing of 3,000 plus people, the praying of a John Piper, these are things which are simply cannot be reproduced in cyberspace. The sharing among conferees was yet another thing of special significance for me. I was one of the “old geezers” at this conference (I’m 55). There were many 20-something pastors and seminarians, some of whom I had wonderful conversations with. The visible look of the ballroom with these younger brothers was a tremendous encouragement to me personally - again something never, never to be experienced by computer.