In-Person and Digital Worship

Several months ago we cut the cord on our cable (or actually our satellite dish). We had been talking about it and looking at all the different options and when the price was going up, and the company offered to upgrade me to a more expensive package, but not cut the price, we decided to bite the bullet and do it, and we haven’t really looked back. And we are not alone.

There were an estimated 25 million people who had stopped using cable or satellite by 2017. This year that number is supposed to reach 50 million, with another 5 million added next year, and still growing beyond that. Netflix now has more subscribers in the US than cable and satellite combined. Additionally cable viewership of those between 18-49 is down more than 27% in the past two years, even with people being locked up at home. This is the reality of the world in which we live, and it will only continue.

We live in an on-demand world. Other than for sports, or very special shows, people don’t want to have to wait until a specific time to watch a show, and then not be able to catch it again until much later. They want to be able to see it when they want to watch not when someone else says they can watch it. And then there is the whole issue of binging a whole series or season at once. Some entertainment companies have recognized this reality and embraced it, others are working towards it, and others who resist will simply disappear.  

This is not true just for TV, but for many other things that used to demand everyone to be in one place at the same time. While I do still “attend” workshops and trainings that are at a particular time and day, most of the things I attend or see offered that I might be interested in are on demand. I do the work when it’s convenient for me and interact with others who are doing the same thing at the same time. There may be time limitations, that is the class is only happening during a period of dates, but it still works on my schedule. Just look at what universities are doing in online classes and you’ll see how true this is becoming.

Now until the past year most churches have been anything but doing that. We offered worship at a particular time and if you couldn’t make that, then you were out of luck. And other than perhaps watching or listening to the sermon later, which even then was a rarity in most churches, there was no way to catch up. That is not conducive to a culture that wants things differently, and wants them when they want them. McDonalds now offers breakfast all day for a reason.

Now all this does not mean you can’t still offer things at a particular time, but unless you are really special, again think sports, people want other ways to interact when they want. Our streaming allows us to do this because you can now access our worship service any time after it happens, as well as to just watch the message if you want. I haven’t heard of anyone bingeing an entire worship series at one time yet, but I do know many people who are watching the worship service at a time that works better for them for many reasons.

Now one of the things that people get stuck in is either/or thinking, rather than both/and. It’s not that we are going to preference those in the sanctuary over online, or vice versa. Both are constituents of the congregation. As Phillip Ortega keeps saying, which I encourage, “we need to meet people where they are.”

You cannot make people do what you want them to do, but that they don’t want to do. If you are a parent or own cats you know is true. It’s about thinking of ways of being church in new ways in order to reach new people. We have people worshipping with us online on a regular basis, and sometimes just once, who don’t even live in New Mexico, let alone Los Alamos. Our possibility of growth online also becomes exponential over what we can do here.

In-person worship and gatherings are not going away, but neither is the digital, and both can inform and build on each other, as well as increase engagement, and as one person I recently read said, if we don’t embrace the digital, “your church will probably continue to function like a mall in the age of Amazon.” Malls are dying and to quote a book title, I refuse to lead a dying church.

But that’s just a start, and I’ll expand more in the next few weeks. So I want to know from you, where do you see opportunities for us in the digital world that we are not currently using, what are your concerns, and how do you think you might be able to assist?