The Case for Digital & Meta Churches

We're launching something different. The first of its kind, Digital Church Network will champion digital and meta church movements here in the US and around the world. Digital Church Network will champion movements of Digital Disciple-making, Digital/Meta Mission Field, and Digital Church. A network of networks, the focus of the Digital Church Network is to help any and everyone understand the opportunities and challenges of Digital and Meta spaces. Our heart, however, is a far more personal approach.

The allure of Digital is that it can reach massive numbers of people, easily. Thanks to smartphones and social media, each of us has the potential ability to reach thousands of people with these devices in our pockets. But as James 1 reminds us, we need to be more than hearers of the word. We must be doers in the real world as well. This is the multiplicative heartbeat of Digital Church Network. Helping digital churches move past a consumeristic approach towards a better understanding of disciple-making in digital and meta spaces. Let's stop deceiving ourselves.

Is it better to have a million person church, or 100,000 churches of 10? I love this question, because I believe logic is truly tested on extremes. Let me pause and back up. I do not want to bemoan the current model of church. Our physical buildings and our broadcasting of church services online can be effective in reaching, connecting and discipling people. Researches show that active church involvement is down 25% over the past 25 years, so we can safely say that the physical model is losing effectiveness. Physical approach will continue to be play a role for years to come. But we can no longer treat it as the only model of church.

As culture shifts, so should the Church's strategies and tactics. Jesus is the same, yesterday today and forever. No one is arguing that. Our churches need to hold to the ecclesiology, the biblical standards in place. Digital/Meta Churches offer a chance to reimagine this ecclesiology for digital and meta spaces, for the purpose of reaching different people. Digital/Meta Churches must cling to the Bible as the guidelines for church. What is an essential ecclesiology for our churches, and what does it look like to map this essential ecclesiology across cloud services and the metaverse? This is the experiment that a Digital/Meta Church Planter gets to explore in the coming months and years.

As controversial as the idea of Digital and Meta Churches are, we cannot lose sight of this one fact, and this is validated from Digital and Meta Churches around the world... Digital/Meta churches are reaching a different type of person than our physical buildings are reaching. These Digital/Meta Churches tell stories of reaching 80% athiests/agnostics , or 70% de-churched. I've heard stories of satanists coming to Jesus through relationships built in the metaverse. I've met the people who have found Jesus even though they swore they'd never go to a church building again.

Remembering, though, our digital and meta churches cannot just stop with salvation. Discipleship, or should we say Disciple-making (with an emphasis on action/multiplication), is a vital to starting movements in Digital/Meta spaces.

It's this multiplicative approach to discipleship that is so crucial to the future of our churches. As the Great Resignation impacts our economy (pastors and churches included) more and more research is showing us that people, when they have spiritual questions, are not going to a paid pastor, a building, or a livestream for spiritual answers to those questions. These people with spiritual questions are going to their friends who they think have spiritual answers to these questions. The future of our church is not sermons blasted from microphones... its empowering people, discipling them to have individual, spirit-led conversations as opportunities present, and intentionally pray for conversations to come.

Here's what I've come to understand. Discipleship looks different, depending on the environments that discipleship is happening. Physical discipleship is definitely doable, but there are other ways as well. Discipling someone via Zoom, or on a Discord server? Well, this looks completely different than Physical discipleship. What would a disciple-making multiplication movement look like in the metaverse? Honestly, this is one of the questions we want to answer! And while some of this is unproven on a large scale, we can state this as a fact... we're reaching and discipling a different type of person in these digital and meta environments than our buildings are discipling. Along that same path, we're now empowering a different type of leader.

Digital and Meta Churches often use a different type of leader than our physcial buildings will utilize. This isn't that far of a stretch. These Digital and Meta Churches reach a different type of person than our buildings reach, and they employ different methods of discipleship than our buildings utilize. So why wouldn't the discipleship process yield a different type of leader?

Typically our physical buildings require a "catalytic leader", someone that can stand onstage and through their personal charisma lead hundreds or even thousands of people to action. Digitally, what we're finding is that charisma is often overstated in digital and meta spaces. What leads well is relational connection. Simply, charisma leads to consumerism. Relationship leads to action. Truthfully, recruiters or networkers often do very well in digital and meta spaces, and we've seen these types of leaders succeed in these unique environments.

Another misconception is that the leaders do not have to be experts of the technology. Because of the relational nature of digital and meta environments, it's vital that these new leaders engage relationally. Most leaders, in fact, are not experts to the technology as much as natives in the technology. There are usually volunteers or part-time roles that become the technical experts. Digital or Meta Churches can be very technical. But they do not have to be.

Through my own unscientific research, I've found that a larger-than-normal percentage of digital and meta planters are bi-vocational or co-vocational. Of the 200 some conversations I've had with people that are wanting to plant (or experiment) with a digital or meta church, 75% of them are interested in a bi-vocational or co-vocational ministry model. They're not looking to do ministry full-time in a physical church building, or even full-time online. They're looking to do ministry in addition to their job. Bivo/Covo is not a new approach in church planting, but what we're finding is Bivo/Covo support looks very different than supporting a typical church planter.

Which actually gets us to Part 2... The Case for the Digital Church Network! How are we supporting these disruptive, innovative Digital and Meta Church Planters? How are we embracing disciple-making via digital and meta environments? Stay tuned!