Strategies and best practices for a post-website world
Over at the Out of Ur blog, a continuing conversation has been going on about the book I reviewed in my last post, SimChurch. The author of the book posted a response to critics on October 22nd and then today a response to that response was posted by Bob Hyatt. Both are interesting and continue the debate…
Just this weekend I completed reading SimChurch by Douglas Estes. For those of you unfamiliar with this new movement, the idea of online church is not just putting a recording of your church service online. Instead, it is actually conducting an entire live church service online, complete with worship, teaching, offering, fellowship, and possibly even communion and baptism. This can include both churches with Internet campuses and those who conduct services in virtual worlds, such as Second Life. The author tackles questions surrounding the validity of online church and asks some tough questions. He ends the book by challenging online churches to break the mold and attempt to do things that no physical-world church can.
If you have read this blog before, you know that I have been a critic of online church. However, as a lover of technology and the Internet, I am always open to thinking in new ways about things and want to see how technology can be used to share the message of Christ. But I am also a realist: I know that just because we can do church online does not mean that we should. So I read this book with an open mind and heart - looking for new ways of thinking about online church.
Dave Bourgeois
