Comments on: Is The Online Church Really ‘Church?’

By: Paul

Paul — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 13:52:27 +0000

John,

Thank you so much for stopping by and commenting. The wealth of knowledge and understand you have about Scripture is incredibly valuable to the online mission field. We need guys like you in this space and I appreciate you being here.

-Paul.

By: John King

John King — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 21:18:20 +0000

Paul,

I suspect much of the problem arises from the pre-conceived ideas that church demands face-to-face relationships. While I can believe that there are real benefits to relationships being formed face-to-face, the very existence of the Bible causes me to be careful about not going too far pushing my personal preferences.

Paul’s letters are an example of the powerful role that written communication can have in relationships. While some will want to say that these letters were written to people with whom he already had a relationship that was formed face-to-face, that is not always true either.

Paul wrote the church at Colossae though he had not met any of them personally (Colossians 2:1). Yes, he knew Epaphras who brought the gospel to them (Colossians 1:7), but Paul had only heard of their faith (Colossians 1:4). This apostle anticipated nurturing a stronger faith in this community through the written word. I have no doubt he would be a gospel/church planter online. Consider also his letter to the church in Rome (his most detailed presentation of the gospel) was sent to people he had never met before. Yes, I know that he mentions many by name in chapter 16 that he knew and worked beside, but this group helps to vouch for the trustworthy nature of his writing for those who would be hearing from him for the first time through his writing.

Thanks for stretching our categories. Some will not be elastic enough to do online ministry, but don’t let them drag you down. Jesus warned that old wineskins cannot hold new wine.

John King

P.S., I am not going to join this Bible study because of others I am already involved in, but I look forward to future blog references to the study.

By: Paul

Paul — Sat, 10 Jan 2009 15:29:08 +0000

@Nick – I will post updates to this blog if you don’t want to be on You Version.

@Bobby V – Great! I think it will be lots of fun!

By: Bobby V

Bobby V — Sat, 10 Jan 2009 15:19:50 +0000

I’m in, too! This is my personal challenge for this year. I’m also inviting some friends of mine to come and read these articles and challenge them to walk through this with us.

By: Discovering What The Bible Says About Online Church, or Just Church Period! : Reaching The Online Generation

Sat, 10 Jan 2009 04:00:04 +0000

[...] part of this post, I issued a challenge for a Bible study to answer the question, “Is online church really [...]

By: Paul

Paul — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 23:19:40 +0000

Great, Nick! I look forward to the interaction.

-Paul.

By: Nick Charalambous

Nick Charalambous — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 22:33:54 +0000

I am joining you, Paul. I had the same resolution this New Year. I would love to swap notes. Love the four-part division you suggest. Maybe you can post any findings book-by-book and let your readers back-fill? (I’m not a You-Version user yet, because so far as I know you can’t search the tags or bookmarks and you can’t export anything you add.)

By: Paul

Paul — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 22:23:15 +0000

Let’s start tonight in Genesis 1:1. I don’t know if we’ll find anything that directly speaks to church, but the point of the study is to find what is there. Read with a notebook in hand and write down what you find. I’ll try to figure out a good place we can share what we learn.

Also, I may explore http://www.youversion.com to see if it is a good tool we can use as we go through this together.

Blessings,
-Paul.

By: josh chapman

josh chapman — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 21:49:48 +0000

I don’t say this lightly, but I think I’ll try this with you. Let me know where we start!