Friday, July 17, 2009

The end of church as we know it?

Nice look at how technology is changing the church over at The Jesus Creed. Here's a snippet to whet your appetite:

The virtually-connected church now has on-line access to the finest teaching and preaching imaginable, accessible at their convenience, 7 x 24 x 365. Of what value is physically proximate information (e.g., stage-centric pastor) when the average person can now access the best sermons, preaching, teaching, and cross-referenced commentary on-line?

Finding better information elsewhere, the virtually-connected community will restructure their physical gatherings to really connect and be present with each other - like they do on-line all week long. When this happens, pastors can step off the stage and be released to really pastor. Gifted teachers (who may or may not have pastoral gifts) can teach in smaller groups where true interactivity can take place. Intimate, organic F2F gathering becomes the central focus, not a mid-week breakout session.

<idle musing>
Wow! Imagine that! The church actually becoming a church again! Who would have believed it. OK, pardon the sarcasm. I certainly hope and pray that he is correct.
</idle musing>

2 comments:

Joel Brueseke said...

Yep, me too. Good stuff.

Tim Bulkeley said...

In my experience this "being church" (like, also, any communitry remaining "missional") is something that needs continual work, human groups just naturally twist to inward looking and to letting someone do all the work. :(