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For almost 50 years there has been a barrier to church attendance. Researchers have called it "the 15 minute drive rule" or "the Great Barrier to Church Growth." Researchers have seen that almost 70% of your attendees will come from within a 15-minute drive to your church. Some people drive longer, and in rural areas almost everybody drives a bit longer. But church volunteers find that regularly driving over 15 minutes for services and for volunteer activities takes away a significant portion of their family time. Therefore, it's not surprising that a church's most committed people will be those who live within a 15-minute drive from the church facilities.
To offset this we saw in the previous article that large churches launched satellite services in other new venues. And, I discussed my own experience at a megachurch which lost many of its attendees because it remained centrally located while newly planted churches dispersed around the metropolitan area and into the suburbs.
Today with the rise of the internet and its 5 billion users, it's possible for churches to share their personality and their ministry with an astounding number of people. In this article we will continue to look at ways churches can utilize the Internet as a communication avenue.
In the previous article we learned:
1. As people are moving out of the neighborhood and into areas further than a 15-minute drive away, there are new cultures springing up around most churches.
2. Solutions that increase access historically have included the radio, the television and now the internet.
For more details on each of the above, see my previous article. Below are two more actions to take advantage of internet as a communication medium for the Good News to travel.
3. Be yourself. Because you now have access to 5 billion people. You don't have to try to copy popular mega-congregations. Your unique church personality will be relevant to at least some watchers out there because of the vast reach of the internet.
My wife and I for example, enjoy listening to one of my former students and his wife, who lead a church that we would attend if we had access. It's in Alaska. But fortunately, it streamed every Sunday. We can feel we are there with them. Over 10 years ago they pastored a venue we attended at a large church. And we enjoyed getting to know them, their family and their approach to ministry. Their church ministry and personality resonated with us.
Joining them via their streaming service created for us a legacy that increases our ability to ponder the Word together and to worship together more organically. And even though they've now moved to the lower 48 (South Dakota), we still won't be able to join them in person without a private jet. But it's the personality of the church that we enjoy. It's very organic, yet intellectual and authentic and professional. We enjoy this congregation because the church growth barrier has been surmounted.
The prescription, therefore, is for every church to be itself. Don't change the personality of your church. With 5 billion potential watchers on the Internet, you can find an audience by being yourself. No longer do you have to change or try to mimic a large church… just be yourself and do what you do well.
4. Develop authentic, online discipleship processes for people who need to experience transformation and discipleship.
Almost three decades ago I began teaching at a university. Though I was teaching face-to-face courses, they encouraged me to try teaching online courses. I learned two things. First, that I will never enjoy online teaching as much as I do face-to-face teaching. And second and most surprisingly, the online students often became closer to each other and got more out of the course than the face-to-face students did.
Typically face-to-face students listened to my lectures and took notes. Then they went home and studied their notes, usually alone but occasionally in groups.
But for online students, I often videotaped my lectures. Then they would discuss their thoughts about my lectures in online chat rooms. They weren't counted in attendance unless they posted a required number of postings each week. The end result of the online format was to force the students, even quiet ones, to discuss the topic. And because of the extra online dialogue, the students got to know one another better too. The end result was they learned not only the subject matter but also more about one another. I soon (and to this day) incorporate online chat rooms as a part of any of the face-to-face classes I teach.
The same thing can be done with online discipleship.There are a myriad of professionally created and field-tested tools that will help you develop online discipleship. I have found the following to be helpful.
The fields are riper for every church than maybe they have ever been. But online laborers are needed.
We have seen that a church that embraces both face-to-face and screen-to-screen outreach/discipleship may have a more challenging endeavor, but we also saw the fields are more vast than we thought. "My food," said Jesus, "is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work. Don't you have a saying, 'It's still four months until harvest'? I tell you, open your eyes and look at the fields! They are ripe for harvest" (John 4:34-35, NIV). And, he told his disciples, "The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field" (Luke 10:2).
After Jesus told his followers to "look at the fields," he then encouraged them to pray for more laborers. We should today pray for more online laborers who can help use these new communication avenues.
We can find online volunteers all around us, including:
1) Older people who are confined to their home. They can reach out and share their spiritual journey through online ministry. Sometimes readers may resist this suggestion because of a perceived lack of Internet savvy among the older generations. But it's been my experience that because grandchildren primarily converse through the internet, that grandparents have followed the trend in order to keep communication channels open with their grandkids.
2) Young people who are busy developing their careers, but also socializing online.They can be encouraged and trained to not just socialize, but to also share their spiritual journey online. Ask them to host an online small chat room. Then give them the training and tools to engage their peers.
3) There are those who live far away, but resonate with your church. They may have moved away. Or you and your church facility may have moved away from them. But they can still participate with you if you give them online opportunities.
Some complain that online discipleship is not as good as face-to-face discipleship. Even in New Testament times there were those who preferred a story told first-hand, instead of receiving a letter from Paul delivered by courier. And there were those in the Protestant Reformation who criticized the printing press for putting the Bible in the hands of people who couldn't rightly interpret it. But God utilizes different communication methods when communication methods change. And that's what I learned. My experience of almost 24 years as a professor taught me that online discipleship is just better for some people. And, I learned that spiritual growth and knowledge can occur online, if you work at it.
Tomorrow's visionaries and innovators will see the future through the communication tools of the present, as did the visionaries of the past. Charles E. Fuller saw the potential for the radio to be a place where people were discipled remotely almost 100 years ago. Jerry Falwell and Elmer Towns saw the potential of tape recorded messages as a tool to share the Good News remotely. Billy Graham embraced the mediums of television and even movies to disciple remotely. Today in the spirit of those pioneers, almost every church can increase its impact and overcome the former great wall of church growth.
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Bob Whitesel (D.Min., Ph.D.) is a foresight coach, professor, and award-winning author of 14 books. For over 30 years, he has guided leaders and churches to pivot and engage what’s next. He holds two earned doctorates from Fuller Theological Seminary and teaches on leadership foresight, church health, and organizational change. His website is www.ChurchForesight.com. Learn More » |
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