Church Online: Five Essential Books

More churches than ever are live-streaming their services for the first time. With coronavirus restricting large group gatherings, pastors and church leaders are looking for new ways to keep their congregations connected. And while online church is new to many people, the good news is that many pastors and theologians have already laid a lot of the groundwork for creating great churches online.

If you’re not sure what to think about online church, how to do it, or where the pitfalls are, here are 5 great books to put your church on the right path.

SimChurch, by Douglas Estes

Some online churches meet exclusively online in virtual reality spaces like Second Life. Douglas Estes visits these virtual worlds himself and reports back on what he found.

Other online churches are “internet campuses” rooted in existing brick-and-mortar churches. Estes introduces us to some of these pioneers as well.

Learn more about the book from the publisher, and get a glimpse of some of the churches Estes visited on his website SimChurch.com. Connect with Douglas on Twitter.

The Church and New Media, by Brandon Vogt

“The church can exist in the digital age.” That’s one of the major beliefs underlying The Church and New Media. Brandon Vogt gathers together a range of voices to address key aspects for churches in the Internet age, including evangelism, spiritual formation, and community.

The book is connected to a Catholic context, which adds a valuable dimension and voice to the online church conversation. The Catholic commitment to embodied Christian practices generates deeper evaluation of the structures and spiritual realities at play on the web.

Browse through the chapters of the book on Brandon’s website, where you’ll see the table of contents.

The Church of Facebook, by Jesse Rice

No, Facebook is not a church, but Jesse Rice helps us think about how Facebook feeds people’s desire for community, much like the church does. Rice also explores some key topics for social media that also open up deeper theological issues, including identity, authenticity, and meaningful connection.

Since social media is here to stay, Christians need to spend time discovering and defining what it means to reflect Jesus and their faith in online spaces. Rice’s book is a great step in that direction.

Read a short review of the book from John Dyer. Find Jesse on Twitter, and check out the latest on his website.

Connected Toward Communion, by Daniella Zsupan-Jerome

How can pastors most effectively minister to people when they log into Facebook? Ministry doesn’t stop when they are online. Daniella Zsupan-Jerome is a professor at Loyola University New Orleans and a top-notch scholar when it comes to thinking about the presence of Christ in communion and online. She brings that same scholarship to this book and walks us through how the Catholic Church has addressed issues surrounding mediated ministry. As Daniella shows, these questions didn’t start with the Internet, but in fact came about much earlier. And their theology hasn’t stayed stuck in one place, but has shifted over time.

Even if you’re not Catholic, you will find some valuable questions to think about for your own church or ministry. Even if you’re not a pastor, Zsupan-Jerome will outline the key issues we all must deal with in living faithfully on the Internet.

Read Brett Robinson’s informative review of Daniella’s book. Learn more about Daniella on her website, and connect with her on Twitter.

The Digital Cathedral, by Keith Anderson

For pastor Keith Anderson, the cathedral is an incredible tangible metaphor that can help us think about the complex nature of our somewhat nebulous digital culture. It is full of beauty, complexity, and hidden meaning that requires learning to discover and patience to appreciate. But with time and effort, Christians can learn to shape digital environments just as they shaped the architecture of cathedrals, and Anderson’s book is a great place to start.

Anderson’s vision is not exclusively about online ministry though. His vision integrates our local gathering places as well, in ways that are holistic, to create an “extended ministry” that Anderson describes as “networked, relational, and incarnational.”

Check out this review of the book, and this audio interview with Keith from Harvard Divinity School. Connect with Keith on his website.

Bonus Resources

Here are a few more posts and podcasts to jump start your thinking about digital church.

• FaithTech friend John Dyer wrote a good summary to help you discern where you stand on the question of online communion. And get your lingo right with his article on “digital” vs. “online” vs. “virtual” churches
• Device & Virtue released a podcast episode making a case for why churches can embrace online communion, and another episode about watching vs. worshiping in online church. Co-hosts Chris and Adam are longtime friends of FaithTech.
• Researchers like Heidi Campbell and Tim Hutchings have been studying online religion for decades already. Campbell just released a summary (PDF) of 25 years of research that offer great takeaways for churches everywhere. Find Hutchings’ research here.
• The Center for Pastor Theologians also released a podcast episode that makes a case for why churches should refrain from performing online communion. In Fall 2019, the Center hosted an entire conference on theology and technology called “Techne: A Christian Vision of Technology.”

Updates

• April 21, 2020: A new ebook just released for FREE: “The Distanced Church: Reflections on Doing Church Online.” Over 30+ top researchers, including some of those mentioned above, contributed to this volume. Download it here.

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