You’re trained from seminary to the cemetery to preach to the bodies in the building. After the service is over and lunch in the belly the message has faded into the distance, but the internet has the changed the game. Unfortunately, seminaries haven’t adjusted yet. You no longer have one intended audience, but three audiences.

I’ve approached this video course on #churchonline in four parts as if we are building a house together. I want your online ministry to be something beyond streaming content online, but a healthy expression of your church.

I’m excited for this new ebook called “State of the Online Church” eBook. It’s the most extensive survey of what is actually happening with online church. No opinions, but real data. I partnered with Vanderbloemen and Pushpay to conduct the survey and visualize the results.

These two types of “Temple Court” gatherings are supported by weekday “house to house” gatherings which live out locally all the things a biblical ecclesia is supposed to do as Acts describes. Next time someone says “church” to you think less about the modern day experience that you consider as “church” and think more about biblical ecclesia. I want to encourage you the online church leader to make sure you have a pathway to encourage both “Temple Court” expressions.

Your church’s leadership wants to know people watching online will be cared for correctly. Those seat warmers on big boards monitoring all the vitals of the bride do care about everyone attending locally and possibly tuning in online. The barrier of embracing an online ministry usually comes down to trusting you, the online pastor or potential online pastor.

Your online church will either amplify an existing well-executed strategy or highlight widespread issues. It won’t magically fix your church’s problems. If your church knows how to attract younger people than your online ministry will attract younger people. If your church is good at small groups than your online small group strategy will work. If your church is great at getting people to fill out response cards than your weekly digital respond card submissions will be high. If your online ministry doesn’t grow most likely your church is lacking in evangelistic outreach.