2. Separating the Analogue and Digital Worlds
If 2018 is the year where (finally) the digital becomes real for church leaders, the question becomes what to do with it.
Strangely, most churches still separate what they do digitally and what they do in the real world.
Most of us weave seamlessly between our digital and real lives, texting someone one minute and sitting down for coffee with them the next, emailing someone to follow up on the meeting we just had, and video chatting someone we’re hanging out with Friday night.
Too many church leaders still think of their:
- Email list as a ‘newsletter’
- Social media as an announcement and PR venue
- The physical world as the ‘real thing’
You know what the digital world is? It’s relationship.
It’s a friendship. And like all good friendships, it doesn’t fit in a programmatic box.
Our guest services team at Connexus has noticed a huge shift in the last year where almost everyone who visits us in person has watched online for weeks or months before they set foot in a building.
I go to parties and people who never set foot in a church tell me they watch my messages online.
They don’t see it as separate.
Church leaders who do, lose.
Conversely, leaders who see the analog/digital life as seamless will be in much a better position to reach people who live like it’s seamless, because it is.
3. Ignoring True Community
Is there any irony in the digital explosion around us? Of course there is.
The more connected we become, the more disconnected we feel.
The church should embrace technology as a way to connect, but also realize that as people connect more digitally, they feel increasingly isolated and removed from each other.
What people hunger for most is community. And no one should be better at community than the local church.
The challenge, of course, is that we’re not all that great at community.
Too often our ‘fellowship’ is shallow, or we fight a lot.
What’s missing in far too many churches is love. The very thing for which we should be known.
Churches that become great at cultivating true community will have a long line of people wanting to be part of it.
4. Creating a 100 Percent Downloadable or Forgettable Experience
I outline the problem with downloadable church services in this post, but let’s drill down a little more.
Yes, the church will become more digital, more location independent, more remote. Sermons can be consumed on a run, on a commute and while cooking dinner. I get that. That’s a good thing. You should be able to download snippets of what your church does so you can be present in peoples lives.
But you need to facilitate experiences that go beyond that.
If your entire church experience is 100 percent downloadable, why would you gather? It’s often in the gathering when people move beyond themselves and experience something transcendent and life-changing.
Ironically, the constant consumption of content leaves people hungering for greater community, greater experience and greater transcendence.
Churches that facilitate those kinds of experiences are seeing momentum. Churches that don’t find it far harder to gain momentum.
I realize this creates a sea of questions for some people.
One of the best questions you can ask as a church leader is, “If people show up on a Sunday, have we left enough room for them to encounter God?” That can be done through music, through prayer, through silence and even through the way you preach. It’s a posture as much as it’s programming.
Too often, people show up at church hoping to find God. Instead, they find us.
Don’t let people show up to your church only to find you.
This is one of the highest value points of a church that gathers: You share in something far bigger and far better than any of us and all of us.
