Livestream church may be an option, but it’s not interchangeable with worshiping in person.
Livestream church may be an option, but it’s not interchangeable with worshiping in person.
W hen the pandemic struck in March 2020, churches had to make snap decisions on what to do. In many cases, their next scheduled service was now prohibited by stay-at-home orders, and even if it wasn’t, many people wouldn’t have come for fear of catching an unknown virus with no cures or treatments. Many churches began livestreaming their services so that people could watch from home.
That response was an incredible testament to the flexibility of the church and the wonders of modern technology. According to Thom Rainer in his book The Post-Quarantine Church, more than 100,000 churches that had never streamed before began streaming Sunday services during the pandemic. As Dan McLaughlin wrote in April 2020, church from home reminded us that “we may not be in communion, but we are not alone.” Praise God for that!
With the newfound ability to livestream church, many churches are continuing to do so indefinitely, pandemic or not. That means that in the future, even perfectly healthy, vaccinated people with little to fear from Covid will have the option of watching church from home. This is where the success of church-streaming may turn into a problem.
Church is not something you watch. Church is not a multimedia experience to be consumed. Church is not an appointment with YouTube on Sunday morning. The church is to be the body of Christ, Scripture teaches, and meeting in person makes that body stronger for His service.
If you’re Catholic, you’re probably a tad confused that anyone would think that viewing a church service online at home is equivalent to going in person. The Mass is centered on the Eucharist, and it must be administered in person. While many parishes did mass online and some did drive-thru-style communion during the initial stay-at-home orders, there is no liturgical substitute for participating in the Eucharist communally and in person.
But Evangelical Protestants hold a different theological understanding of communion, and many do it only the first Sunday of the month. It’s not as self-evidently obvious that in-person is superior to online, because Evangelical services emphasize music and preaching, both of which can be experienced through livestream just about the same as in person. I can watch a livestream church service and hear the same songs and learn the same things from the pastor as do the people who are actually there. In fact, I can do it while wearing my pajamas and sitting on the couch, which is nice.
Am I still part of the church if I do that? Yes. We’ve all heard it, and it’s true: Church is not a building or an activity that takes place only on a Sunday morning. The church is the body of believers, and so long as I am a believer, I am part of the church.
But our calling as Christians does not end at being part of the church. In Mark 12, Christ says, quoting Deuteronomy, that the greatest commandment is to love God with all our hearts, minds, and strength. Is it loving God with all our strength to not go to God’s house and worship in the presence of our brothers and sisters in Christ if we are able to do so?
Don’t misread: I’m not saying that there’s never a legitimate reason to miss church, nor am I meaning to suggest a legalistic obligation to attend. And Omicron might well give high-risk people cause to stay virtual for now. What I am saying is that livestream church as a perpetual option makes it easier to rationalize laziness, and that’s something we need to be on guard against going forward.
“Empty Pews Are an American Public Health Crisis” reads an October 19 headline in Christianity Today. The piece is by two Harvard social scientists who find that church attendance is correlated with all sorts of health benefits. And they aren’t the only ones:
Our findings aren’t unique. A number of large, well-designed research studies have found that religious service attendance is associated with greater longevity, less depression, less suicide, less smoking, less substance abuse, better cancer and cardiovascular-disease survival, less divorce, greater social support, greater meaning in life, greater life satisfaction, more volunteering, and greater civic engagement.
What counts is not the individual aspects of personal belief but rather the communal aspects of gathering in one place for church:
Our research suggests that religious service attendance specifically, rather than private practices or self-assessed religiosity or spirituality, most powerfully predicts health. Religious identity and private spirituality may, of course, still be very important and meaningful within the context of religious life, but their effects on health and well-being don’t seem to be as strong as those of regular gatherings with other believers.
By not attending in person, you’re missing out on those benefits, and you’re making it harder for others to reap them. People don’t want to attend an empty church. By removing yourself from the physical presence of others, you’re limiting your opportunities to serve and to be served.
Think of the same dynamic in a different context. Many jobs have moved online. If a coworker reaches out and needs help with something, whom are you more likely to help: a coworker you know from working in person, or a coworker you only “know” digitally? On the flip side, whom are you more likely to feel comfortable to reach out to if you need help? In both cases, we’d probably say the one we know in person.
That being said, church leadership will also be facing a new challenge in the ever-streaming world. Call it the televangelist temptation. This temptation is to value the digital over the physical, to optimize services for the camera instead of for the people in the sanctuary. When there were no people in the sanctuary in the early days of the pandemic, this was not a concern, but now it is.
How many examples do we have historically of pastors who start off with the best of intentions by taking their services to mass media only to be undone by scandal or watered-down theology later on? The instinct is solid: Reach more people with the gospel! That’s what Jesus tells us to do. But ask yourself: Are we really reaching more people through streaming? How many viewers do we have? And how many of those viewers are people who would attend in person anyway if we weren’t streaming?
In The Post-Quarantine Church, Rainer points out that the same types of digital ministry will not work for every church. “As we prayerfully seek ways for our churches to become a more potent missional force in the digital world, we must be careful not to fall into the trap of church busyness,” he writes. “God has uniquely equipped each of our congregations to move forward in the post-quarantine era. But we can’t do everything.”
If the benefits of streaming aren’t worth the costs in your congregation, stop offering it. Just because everyone else is doing it doesn’t mean you need to. “Find those areas in the digital world where your church can do a few things well,” writes Rainer. That’s not going to be streaming for everyone, and that’s perfectly fine.
Imagine a situation in which 50 percent of a church’s regular attenders are watching online. A family that is totally new to the church visits on Sunday in person. They don’t know that 50 percent of people are watching online; they just see a church that is half empty. They don’t even have a chance to meet half of the people whose church family they are considering joining. Think of the relationships, the friendships, that don’t even have a chance to be formed.
Of course, the purpose of church is not to reap health benefits or even to build friendships (though those should not be discounted). The purpose of church is to worship God, and worship is better when it’s done in physical community with our brothers and sisters in Christ in God’s house. Hebrews 10:25 speaks of “not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing.” Check out the context of that passage, though, starting in verse 19:
Therefore, brothers and sisters, since we have confidence to enter the Most Holy Place by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way opened for us through the curtain, that is, his body, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near to God with a sincere heart and with the full assurance that faith brings, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful. And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds, not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another — and all the more as you see the Day approaching.
Our desire to come together in person should stem from the sacrifice of Christ — the very core of our faith — whose victory over death makes it possible for us to draw near to God. As we draw near to God, it follows that we draw near to one another and, in so doing, encourage one another to do good works, all in view of Christ’s promised return. That’s true, biblical worship. That’s living out the gospel of Jesus Christ to the fullest.
And that’s a foretaste of glory divine, where we will not individually worship God from a distance but, as we read in Revelation 7:9, will gather together as “a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and before the Lamb.” Get a piece of that today by going to a service in person.