In his book, Rings of Fire, Leonard Sweet writes (pg 13):

In the language of Nassim Nicholas Taleb, we must learn to be an Antifragile Church that can embrace vulnerability and weakness and celebrate the positivity of stress. To be “antifragile” is to trust the order behind the chaos, to flourish from random environments rather than established settings, and not to be afraid of antifragile preaching that can take place outside the normal patterns (systems) of church. YouTube, Facebook, podcasts, and other digital formats (screens) are a few antifragile ways to preach in a hostile culture.

I was recently involved in a conversation which talked about how the “local” church must/should remain local, and yet understand that the moment they go online, their online expression (in whatever form) is no longer local. This is incredibly important to understand, as we now have a unique freedom to speak the truth about Jesus Christ in a way that a greater proportion of people will not feel threatened by it.

The internet has been a great source of bad, honestly, no matter how much we might “love” it. It can—which is the point of this site—also reach the world for the Gospel. Roads can be bad, as bad drivers (or even good drivers under bad circumstances) can kill a person with a bad decision. We’re not talking about banning roads. The internet can bring a lot of evil and corruption right into our pockets. If we ignore that power, however, do we really want to look a Jesus and say, “sorry, I was too concerned with what might have happened, to care that I could have shared about your grace, love and mercy.” That’s not a conversation I want to have.

Back in January, I had posted a comment on Online + Digital Church Leaders (Facebook ⧉) regarding the language used in the context of physical and digital expressions of church.

I realized that it might be time to adjust some language. If we really are going to believe that digital community can (and does) happen, then perhaps we ought to drop In Real Life (IRL). We all (I think) believe that the digital expression of church is valid. Therefore, we ought to not diminish it by using IRL, as it implies that online isn’t real. I understand that this is a cultural thing. However, as we train our leaders and churches about digital church, we shouldn’t even inadvertently reinforce the bias against digital expressions.

If you are not familiar with #IRL it is the abbreviation for “in real life”. It is used in online and SMS messaging to indicate that something is happening outside of the digital realm. The problem is, especially when considering online church and discipleship, is this constant comparison of digital to “real”. We all do understand some of the “false” digital life pieces, much of which revolves around games. Yet, at the same time, we understand just how real the digital is with concerns about “flame-wars” and cyber-bullying. There is a constant tug between the “unreal” part of digital life and the “real” part.

My role as Online Campus Pastor at Generations Community Church has forced a lot of this to the fore in my mind and heart. I’m not much of a gamer…okay, I’m not a gamer at all. Like many, the extent of my “gaming” are those mobile games. My interest wanes pretty quickly, as I am just not willing to invest that much time into any of it. Many people view games as fake or false, and thus “not real.” It’s then easy to put any such digital “thing” in the “not real” category.

Part, maybe even most, of it is this concept/perception that if the flesh can’t be touched, then it is not “real”. There is this idea back from the old days of the internet, that everyone behind a screen is just a persona. That just isn’t true. Is there some of that? Absolutely! There is just as much of that in the world of “touching flesh”. In fact, there might even be more. What if the digital does a better job of separating our personas from our true and deep selves?

Someone (I’ll give credit if I can figure out who) recently noted that the Roman Catholic church has had a practice of anonymity when it comes to confession. There was no question as to the integrity of what was confessed, though the confessor’s integrity in pursuing confession could be different. Yet, somehow we have this mindset that everything else must be “in the flesh” to be real.

In February 2019, the general SDMI board sent out a directive for counting online worshippers.

The criteria for online attendance should address these items: personal identification, minimum duration, opportunity for participation, follow-up from host congregation.

Churches may include in their regular worship attendance the number of confirmed devices or individuals who have:

1. remained connected during at least 50% or 30 minutes of the streamed gathering or recorded content
2. engaged the broadcasting church by:
   • Online registration or identification
   • Provided an opportunity for personal participation or communication (Chat rooms, submission of prayer requests, etc.)
3. received weekly personal contact/follow-up by a designated individual from the hosting congregation

Church should indicate on-campus and on-line attendance separately when reporting monthly worship attendance.

Churches should take care to actively engage online participants in the same manner they do those present at their physical gatherings. Intentional efforts should be made to enter them into discipleship processes and, where possible, move them from the digital gathering to the physical gathering of the local congregation.

Based on observed (and sometimes confessed) behavior, I wonder what would happen were we to apply the same requirements of those who visited physically.

Let’s take item 1 regarding remaining connected. How many people are really and truly connected at our physical services? I have spoken to many who are flat-out are disengaged during the singing of worship songs. I have known others who have calculated the average amount of singing and will show up at the service at that average time, trying to minimize (or eliminated) any presence during the singing. Yes, these can be exceptions, however, with what we know about attention spans, it really shouldn’t be that much of a surprise that people aren’t engaged for the full service when physically present at them.

Item 2 is actually quite interesting. In my short experience, by this measure, most people seem to be “engaged” (again, as defined by item 2). This item is different insofar as being an “opportunity” not necessarily an action. As for saying “I’m here”, that is one of the beauties of online, is that the church’s capability to “prove” attendance is actually part of many platforms. However, connection cards—whether digital or physical—are really only somewhat successful.

It is, though, really Item 3 that is the most significant. This item would fall under the area called life groups (or discipleship groups or small groups or…). Most churches, that I am aware of, know that this particular subsection of the church is vital to both the health of the larger congregation, the church as a whole, and the growth of individuals toward a fuller expression of Jesus Christ.

This is probably part of the Church of the Nazarene’s Wesleyan heritage that creates a focus on this. However, it’s this heritage that also, sadly, displays the shortcomings of the current Western church culture at large. The “official” metric for Sunday School (the Church of the Nazarene term for all things not Sunday service) would be quite interesting were we only able to include those that attended both a Sunday Service and a life group of some sort. Many church’s official attendance would be significantly reduced.

Now, to be honest, that may not be a bad thing. Imagine if the reported metric was attendance and it only counted for those who did both? How would the church (digital or physical) change its behavior? That is an interesting thought experiment itself.