Future churches know this is true.
One of the tensions most leaders have felt, though, is a fear that a great online experience will mean people stop coming to church. If you post your messages online, why would people attend? If you give your best content away from free, why would people show up?
That can be a superficial fear (attendance alone is a poor motivator), but it points to something more deeply real.
Future churches will realize their online presence is their front door, not their back door. Will you lose a few people when you launch a great online presence? Sure. But they weren’t the kind of people you could build the future of the church on anyway. The people you lose through a solid digital presence are the kind of people who were sitting in the back row not serving, not inviting friends and not giving anyway. They were already on their way out or at least were barely hanging in.
The people you’ll reach? Well, there are 1,000 or 10,000 of them for every person you might lose.
Future churches will also realize, though, that following Jesus is about more than consuming content while you run, drive or cook dinner.
Our digital age also leaves people hungering for greater community, greater experience and greater transcendence.
Which is why churches that are growing are focusing more and more on creating experiences that engage more than just the head on a Sunday…but also engage the heart and relationship.
In short, people don’t just want to know what’s true, they want to know what’s real. And what’s real is deeper than just an idea—it’s an experience.
They come looking for something bigger than themselves, and something, frankly, bigger than us. They come looking for God.
It’s a shame when people come to church looking for God and only find us.
I think the best future churches that are actually seeing church growth will have content that leans toward the immanent—practical, helpful and digestible. And they’ll also offer experiences that are transcendent…that you had to be there to experience.
If everything your church does in the future feels downloadable, probably all you’ll get is a lot of downloads, not a lot of gathered people.
