Shockingly (not really), virtual attendance is down across the church landscape. The biggest change? No COVID restrictions or recommendations. The numbers are still quite startling. Gallup puts the percentage at around 5%.

However, I suspect a weird twist in the digital realm, where many say they are not attending church, because they (like so many others) are stuck on the building (which is successfully bad discipleship for the traditional church). The other major subset doesn’t consider what it does church, but someone like John Wesley with his classes would likely disagree (and I’m talking about collective arrangement, and not saying that John Wesley would endorse virtual ministry, though I think he would).

The traditionalist camp might look at the 5% and say, “See? We don’t need to do this anymore.” It’s the easy button.

The truth is that there is nothing to be gained by arguing about it. I’ve given up arguing about it. Perhaps it was too much Snow Crash, Gibson, ShadowRun, Ready Player One, and so much else. I know that the tech will change everything, and I want the church to get ahead, rather than fall behind. The next domino is about to fall.

We are getting really close to Apple releasing its first VR headset. It looks really nice. It is really expensive. Even the expensive (at the time) HTC Vive Eye Pro was cheaper.

The specs look great. It’s a big change, but we’ll see if Meta’s Quest 3 and HTC’s next sets will be significantly different when it comes to actually being in VR.

The concern for someone like me who (sadly) remembers AOL and its walled garden, is Apple’s tendency to lock-in its consumers. I’m curious to see how it actually plays out.

The church, theoretically long an advocate for the poor and needy, will find itself in an odd place. The new demographic reality (according to Gallup) is that the gap in church attendence is widening between the high school educated and the advance degree educated, and it’s not what you think.

The more highly educated (and, thus, generally better off) are those that are more likely to be religious service attenders. The thoughts of many intelligentsia over the years that more education means less religion is not accurate, it seems.

This implies that the more educated and wealthier will have more disposable income. They are the ones who will also be buying the Apple VR headsets in a greater proportion (most likely).

It’s the weird and awkward tension of church life. As much as we want to think that the church isn’t nickels and noses, without both, the church cannot fulfill its mission to bring the Gospel to the (meta)world.

As many of its people begin to adapt to VR as they adopt VR (the whole Apple is the best thing ever culture will drive that), what will the church do? Will it try to relegate VR to the evildom of D&D, Magic the Gathering, video games? Will it abandon its people, again, to the world so that the world disciples them better than the church? Will it say, “don’t do that, that’s not real,” and then discover that perhaps leaving it alone was bad (e.g., movies, dancing, secular mu?

Will VR dominate the church? Probably not for a few years. However, the church is already far behind wondering, processing, and accepting what VR will be bringing us.

Digital church (live streaming, Discord, Facebook conversations, web calls) is inadequate in many ways, in comparison to in person. That actually isn’t the church’s choice. People are there. The church should be there.

It is the rapid change of technology that the church ought to prepare for. Whether it is full immersive VR, tactile suits or rooms, or brain implants, the people will be there. So should the church.

One of the recent things that has popped up in my thoughts is good, better, best. As my major context is church life, you can be sure that, of course, that’s what’s going on with me.

“Don’t present online if you’re not high quality” (read that as commercial broadcast worthy). Except new attenders are watching our “poor” quality online first…and they still come.

That really, though, isn’t the issue for many.

The Church of the Nazarene has recently completed its General Assembly, an international gathering of denominational representatives. As with any such gathering, there are proposals to change our theology, our ecclesiology, our operationality (i.e., the way we do “business” in concert with the secular world).

This is the first gathering post-COVID lockdowns. One of the conversations, of course, was how the church ought to double-down on physical gatherings. In fact, one of the proposals (though it seems it failed) would be to change our language to purposefully sideline any digital gatherings as unworthy of being “church”.

I’m not done with that particular discussion, but that isn’t the point of this short post. The focus is on the Good.

The Good

The Good? It’s Jesus. Not church, not my denomination, definitely not me. It’s Jesus. Do I worry about bad theology and practice leading away from Jesus? Yes. I’m not confident enough in myself to not look at me first, so I constantly worry that I’m misleading folks (and I’m called to a higher standard, which never helps).

No matter what the mode or modal or discussion or theology, if the focus is not on helping, guiding, walking toward Jesus as Lord and Savior, then it’s probably not good. By good, I do mean more on the absolute Goodness of God type of good.

Better and Best

The issue for me recently, is just that better and best are a personal evaluation, generally. They aren’t all that empirical. When you watch one of those chef shows (if you do), ultimately, the chef (or chef panel) decides who is better or best. Is it based on experience? Yes. Is based on empirical evidence? Sometimes. Even when it is, though, personal ideation of better and best win out.

Is it best that people have a weekly physical gathering? For many, it’s an emphatic, yes! For many others, it’s no (sometimes emphatic, too).

So, which is better, IPL (in physical life) or DLE (digital life expression)? Is that really the best question? Should the question be, what is the best way to get people to know, love, and develop a relationship with Jesus? The best way is the way that works to achieve that goal.

For many people it is better and best IPL. The problem then may become forgetting what is Good.

“That’s the Way We’ve Always Done It.”

Pastors dread those words.

Pastors in their new assignments believe, understandably, that part of the reason that they are there (at their new assignment) is because they are new and will bring the new. As any new pastor quickly learns, however, the new is often only welcome when it fits within the established framework of the church pre-pastor.

An Easy One

My wife and I were recently called (or assigned) to a long-established church. During our interview with the church’s board, we asked, “what can’t we change?” It’s a dangerous question, but in many regards, I think it better than, “what do you want to do”, or “what is your vision?”

A framework is set. (What is now) Our church said, don’t change the time of the Sunday Service. That’s it. We warned them, “that’s a pretty small thing.” We can live with that time. Now, if God blesses our ministry and church (and we are faithful, of course), we may have to worry about the time, but that is for the future.

Adding

My wife and I are big into bringing Church Year and other liturgical elements into church life. This is not some mis-guided attempt at being Romanist or “High Church”, but we find meaning in it, and it helps tell the story of God in visual ways.

We’ve haven’t gone over-the-top, I think. We’ve done a bit of the colors and the Candle of the Presence (just added that). We are quick to say this is a symbol, a visual reminder or cue. Honestly, we probably won’t add much more. If one does too much, it all gets lost anyway and loses its meaning.

We’ll somewhat follow the lectionary, perhaps not for all the Scriptures, but to maintain the rhythm of the church year, which is valuable to tell all the story of God, rather than the choice parts.

Taking Away

Honestly, we haven’t done much of that. No real need to, that we see. However, there was a structural issue that resulted in the “erasing” of our library (mostly ignored) and an “office”. It was necessary for the health of people and the integrity of the building.

Things treasure had to be tossed. People’s “spaces” were removed. No promises have been made to restore them to what they were, instead we now ask, “what is God asking us to do with these spaces?” Meeting space? Chapel? Cry Room? It could be all of that.

This one was easy because of health and structure, but there will be hard ones.

The Hard Ones

As someone who is digitally-inclined, I’ve been pondering the future of digital and my (new) local church. Digital isn’t going away. How our little expression will “do” digital (other than a live stream) is yet to be determined. I will stil continue to do VR.

It is my wrestling with digital, though, that caused me to go down a different path of thinking and questioning.

Pastoral Introspection

Perhaps as the church wrestles with digital (more than merely live streaming or even web page content or video prayer meetings), we as the leaders (both pastors and non-pastors) need to recognize that much of our conversation about church, attendance, post-COVID “returns”, and the like is really us saying, “That’s the way we’ve always done it.”

The liturgy and church year customs are for some traditions, “that’s the way we’ve always done it.” As such, it has lost much of its power and become background noise, because “that’s the way they’ve always done it.” Of course, “always” is still not all that long ago.

We in the more evangelical Christian strains are just as bad. We’ve “always” had four songs, a prayer, and a sermon. The Evangelical Christian tradition has long elevated the sermon above almost everything else. The liturgical traditions (Orthodox, Roman Catholic, Anglican, Lutheran), often elevate the Eucharist (communion) over everything.

I believe (having experience much of it) that all are valuable. The danger always being that they become, “that’s the way we’ve always done it.” Thinking critically is always important.

Traditionalist Evangelical Christians (which, really, is only a century old, young in church years) are wrestling, again, with what the “new” church looks like, but keep looking at what use to be.

In other words, are pastors now the worst about, “that’s the way we’ve always done it?”

As someone who is bringing old (i.e., non-“traditional” Church of the Nazarene) stuff into the church, I regularly ask myself if I am bringing something both new (to this church) and old (tradition) because, “that’s the way they (the traditional-types) always did it,” or because it is something I believe will add to our people’s worship of God.

Stop Learning

I am regularly asking myself, “what do I need to unlearn?” We must be willing to unlearn.

For the last few decades in the Evangelical Christian church (especially, though not exclusively), we have focused on what new things, modes, methods, models, information we need to learn and implement. As we feel threatened by changes in the culture (morals, technology, other faiths, etc.), we want to hold onto what we know, because we view it as safe, at it worked before.

This was the impact of a knowledge culture upon the church. We were deeply impacted by the knowledge culture.

Some say the current culture is now an experience culture. They might be right. So much of what we are seeing is an emotive culture. The funny thing is, though, that the church thought this was the way to get people to Jesus not that long ago.

We’re learning. We’re learning to unlearn.

We’re unlearning emotive worship. We’re unlearning that “just one more Bible Study” or “one more curriculum” will save the church.

Some churches are unlearning that (“traditional”) Sunday morning service is the most effective way of being church. Some churches are unlearning that most of their efforts and expenditures must be spent for Sunday.

Some churches are unlearning that in-person is best on Sunday rather than other days and times. Some churches are unlearning the physical centralized gathering by replacing it with digital and then releasing the people to be the church in the world.

Concluding Thoughts

As we try to figure out what’s next, I want us to ask ourselves, “what do I(we) need to unlearn?” We must recognize that the splinter (“That’s the way we’ve always done it”) in others’ eyes may well be (and probably is) a plank in our own (see Luke 6:41–42 or Matthew 7:3–5).

Psalm 29v2 (REB) reads, “Ascribe to the LORD the glory due to his name; in holy attire worship the LORD.”

The REB translates הֲדָרָה as attire, while other translations use splendor. The nuance may be what one means by adornment. In context, the verse is about Heavenly/angelic beings the difference between attire/adornment/splendor may not be so clear cut as it is in more human existence or English.

This translation obviously caught my attention. Then in Exodus 40v30-32 (as the next part of the day’s reading in the lectionary), we read that the head priests would wash their hands and feet prior to entering the most Holy place of the Tabernacle. This was in addition to another cleansing ritual and ritually clean clothes they had to put on.

Church Clothes

These verses brought to mind a memory of as a child where there were 2 churches sharing a space, and the Methodists (I think that’s who they were) would all put on blue robes (like choir robes) prior to entering the sanctuary and participating in their worship service. My childhood memory may be flawed, granted, yet it seemed strange to all put on different clothes to go to church.

As I got older, I ran across the “Sunday best” concept, which makes sense, as we want to be our best selves for God, yet, I think that it was often the best self to be seen by others. On the other hand, I can see the habit of putting on the blue gowns as two-fold: (1) you’re not wearing clothes to be seen, but clean enough to not smell, comfortable to fit under hot robes; (2) by putting it on before entering the sanctuary, there is a physical “trigger” that causes one to realize that they are entering a place specifically set aside to worship God.

Ritual Power

As I begin my journey into VR, I can see how many of the ancient church rituals may be rejuvenated in VR.

In a number of traditions, there are remembrance baptistries. As a person enters the sanctuary, a small sink or tub contains water that a person dips their fingers into and makes the sign of the cross on their forehead (pre-COVID).

Then there is the wearing of specific clothes—specifically, a robe—while attending a worship service.

What this brings to mind is how these rituals could be revitalized in VR.

Yes, that water may not be real, but programmatically, one could receive physical feedback (i.e., haptic) when one touches the water in the virtual container, then receive more feedback when you touch your avatar with that same water.

Putting on a robe as you enter a place wouldn’t be difficult either (says the non-programmer). While VR is, in many respects, chaos and a place of so-called freedom, putting the robe over the avatar may do some NSFW coverage, but it also creates a sense of visual unity. Granted, not sure how it would work with a non-humanesque shape (I saw a dragon avatar the other day).

As the move to VR strengthens, rituals (whether religious or secular) will need to be developed. Based on some stories floating around, I wonder if rituals may be a necessary thing, so that people cannot behave like trolls in VR as they have been elsewhere online, because they might then truly associate their avatar with theirself.

“Online church” is not your best life. It’s life-support.

It’s better than being totally disconnected, but it’s not as good as being fully connected.

We aren’t designed for extended periods away from community.

Someone reading this needs to go back to church. If not now, then when?

The above was shared by an acquaintance. This is not an uncommon sentiment in “traditional” churches, and (to be blunt) it is a runaway train in my particular denomination. Because it is shared within a generally “churched” context, there are a lot of agreements with it. Yet, there are some major underlying flaws in the words.

The Online False Church

I reacted negatively to this quote. Yes, I’m biased (still the digital guy). The way “Online church” is defined by the context isn’t church. Yet, because of the wording, all church online is tossed out, and that is a grave fallacy. Do I think “broadcast” church is bad? No. While I would agree with the quote that it is definitely life support, there is a huge “but”.

Broadcast church has been the norm for a generation or more. Come, sit in the pew, watch a show, be lectured at, go home. That is broadcast church. That mentality has been very strong within the 4 walls and remains so. What COVID has brought to our attention is that we lost the Way. It’s just that it became a mirror, and we don’t like the image we’re seeing (and that is a good thing).

The Real Church Online

Many churches struggle to have their online people connect. I will be the first to say that my church is no different, AND THAT IS MY “AREA”. Bluntly, it’s humiliating and depressing.

However, there are plenty of examples of churches that are being successful in building community online. By community, I mean a community that makes disciples that makes disciples. It includes people that are being transformed within their community. It includes people whose lives are being utterly transformed. It includes people that have found a place where they matter and can be honest with themselves and others.

Whom to trust?

As for placing a lot of weight on the physical gathering within the 4 walls, I do get it. We are wired for community, and physicality is a huge factor. There are other factors that are equally, if not more, important.

Pastors and church folks, we’ve got an issue. We are not trusted, including by ourselves. Think about many of the conversations in your church lobby, fellowship hall, classroom, parking lot, etcetera. How many honest, deep, and Jesus-centered conversations were being had pre-COVID? There were already issue with thin conversations, and rarely sharing of honest pain.

Even before my current church, I became trained to be very careful what I shared. I still overshared contextually, in that I shared deeper thoughts and concerns than others did because I wanted to model the behavior I wanted to characterize the church. Was that a mistake? From a human standpoint, definitely. From a pastoral standpoint, probably not (again, because I wanted to model the “goal” behavior).

The number of conversations I’ve had with people about not trusting people they worship with (even for years), hurts everytime. I understand that this undermines any commonality and any community we think we have.

“How are you?”

“Fine.”

“How about them [enter sports team here]?”

“Amazing!”

Choose your innocuous topic. It’s being discussed openly, freely, and even (maybe) happily in your lobby (or wherever). That doesn’t make a community as the New Testament would have us understand it.

The 4 Walled Box

A lot of people aren’t returning to church and it isn’t because they’ve been consuming online. They aren’t returning because they don’t see why church matters to their lives. “Gathering” isn’t the issue. “Church” is the issue. What do the 4 walls of the church matter to people? Honestly, the church building is merely a symbol. It has, in many respects, become an empty one (and in these times that can seem to be literal).

I’m currently in a “class” called Communities on Mission. One of the quotes from the opening session is…

The Church doesn’t have a mission. The Mission has the Church.”

If you’re like me, I had a negative visceral reaction to the first sentence. Then I heard the second sentence. I replayed it to make sure I heard it right. I thought about it and realized that it was accurate.

What is especially accurate is how it pokes at us who are pastors.

So Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, to equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.

Ephesians 4:11–13 [NIV]

The “works of service” is what we are supposed to be equipping our people to do. I could point out that certain non-Christian traditions do a much better job than we do. It is part of their ethos. It is also (granted) part of their work to earn salvation (which is a different issue). Yet, ultimately, they do it because they believe they should.

To Gather

On to the next issue…the gathering. I understand that people do not perceive gathering digitally as, well, gathering. I understand that they do not understand. Except, we need to develop a missional mindset, and gathering within the 4 walls of the church may not be our future.

Some might say that, yes, missional for those outside of the church. That would be the majority of the population, so, yes. It is also, at this point, a significant proportion of our pre-COVID attendees.

It can be reasonably argued that the majority of the pre-COVID attendees who haven’t come back to church (even online) are an even more important of a missional field than those who have never attended. They were somewhat connected at some point, but are no longer. The embers of faith may not be yet dead.

Was This Really Needed?

Now, here comes my inference, which probably comes from some of my own woundedness. I emotionally took that last statement as arrogant and condescending. Knowing the person who posted it, I do not believe that this was their heart. Nor do I believe the people who liked or “Amen”‘d it were thinking that way either.

Even as I write this post, I am concerned that someone will respond to me in the say way (i.e., he’s arrogant and condescending). It is not my intent.

I acknowledge that there are some Christians that watch church online that need to have their faith rekindled and their joy in Christ restored. However, I would say that the same applies to many who enter our doors.

\”Forget Going Back to the Office—People Are Just Quitting Instead\” was posted a few days ago in the Wall Street Journal (14 June 2021). It\’s probably my wiring (and focus) to ask, \”what will the church do with this?

My expectation? Nothing.

A few days ago, Rey De Armes was with Jeff Reed on The Church Digital Podcast. Rey was the Digital Pastor for Christ Fellowship Miami. Pre-COVID, he was already feeling the nudge of God to (re-)pursue his joy of medicine. He\’s out of ministry…or is he?

While Rey\’s journey back to medicine started pre-COVID, there are a lot of pastors, church staff, and everyday Christians who will be moving on in the next few months (nope, not a statement about myself). There is a strong expectation that the next year will see a huge exit from the churches, not just the laypeople (though that is estimated to be 30%). It is expected that many staff and other leaders will be leaving, too.

Many are flat-out burned out. Others look back at COVID, and realize what their church had become, bound. Others realize that COVID has freed them of their (and perhaps even their denomination\’s) expectations and even understanding of what it means to lead the church…and, even more positively, what it means to be the church.

The Industrial Revolution drew people into the cities pursuing a better life. The post-COVID revolution may send many people away from the cities. It used to be that the knowledge workers (including banks, lawyers, clergy, educators) would collect in particular places. Technology frees them (to some degree) from that.

10 years ago, I was the exception. My company decided that they wanted to keep me, even though I was moving away. We arranged a way for me to do remote work. I would still commute 2 days a week (approximately), but for manufacturing this was huge.

Fast forward to today, and what was revolutionary 10 years ago is now common. In fact, one of my sales contacts recently moved hundreds of miles away. She kept her job. She prefers the place that isn\’t insanely expensive. Whole industries will be changing.

Will the people in the WSJ article be the norm? Probably not. Does a nearly double change reflect a new reality? Yes. Are we watching wages increase in leaps? Yes. Do we know exactly how things will change? No.

Many people are waiting to see how things will change. This may be the fatal mistake. My take is that things will be fluid for a number of years. How will organizations respond in a few years? Will they even be around to respond in a few years? Doing nothing is not a plan, or at least not a plan for success.

What does this have to do with Rey? Well, one of the big changes I see is that the church really needs to equip its people to be the ministers.

We clergy are to equip non-clergy folks to do the work of the ministry. Discipleship is definitely part of this. Discipleship is to be forming others to form others to be more like Jesus in love and mission. We talk a lot about love and holiness in regard to \”Christ-like-ness\”. We seem to skip the mission part.

We (the church and its clergy) are at a crossroads. We can hunker down behind the 4 walls that will fall down around our ears, or we move beyond the four walls and embrace the \”Wild Goose\” of the Holy Spirit and move forward into the world.