Author: Ian Kirk

“Forget Going Back to the Office—People Are Just Quitting Instead” was posted a few days ago in the Wall Street Journal (14 June 2021). It’s probably my wiring (and focus) to ask, “what will the church do with this?

My expectation? Nothing.

A few days ago, Rey De Armes was with Jeff Reed on The Church Digital Podcast. Rey was the Digital Pastor for Christ Fellowship Miami. Pre-COVID, he was already feeling the nudge of God to (re-)pursue his joy of medicine. He’s out of ministry…or is he?

While Rey’s journey back to medicine started pre-COVID, there are a lot of pastors, church staff, and everyday Christians who will be moving on in the next few months (nope, not a statement about myself). There is a strong expectation that the next year will see a huge exit from the churches, not just the laypeople (though that is estimated to be 30%). It is expected that many staff and other leaders will be leaving, too.

Many are flat-out burned out. Others look back at COVID, and realize what their church had become, bound. Others realize that COVID has freed them of their (and perhaps even their denomination’s) expectations and even understanding of what it means to lead the church…and, even more positively, what it means to be the church.

The Industrial Revolution drew people into the cities pursuing a better life. The post-COVID revolution may send many people away from the cities. It used to be that the knowledge workers (including banks, lawyers, clergy, educators) would collect in particular places. Technology frees them (to some degree) from that.

10 years ago, I was the exception. My company decided that they wanted to keep me, even though I was moving away. We arranged a way for me to do remote work. I would still commute 2 days a week (approximately), but for manufacturing this was huge.

Fast forward to today, and what was revolutionary 10 years ago is now common. In fact, one of my sales contacts recently moved hundreds of miles away. She kept her job. She prefers the place that isn’t insanely expensive. Whole industries will be changing.

Will the people in the WSJ article be the norm? Probably not. Does a nearly double change reflect a new reality? Yes. Are we watching wages increase in leaps? Yes. Do we know exactly how things will change? No.

Many people are waiting to see how things will change. This may be the fatal mistake. My take is that things will be fluid for a number of years. How will organizations respond in a few years? Will they even be around to respond in a few years? Doing nothing is not a plan, or at least not a plan for success.

What does this have to do with Rey? Well, one of the big changes I see is that the church really needs to equip its people to be the ministers.

We clergy are to equip non-clergy folks to do the work of the ministry. Discipleship is definitely part of this. Discipleship is to be forming others to form others to be more like Jesus in love and mission. We talk a lot about love and holiness in regard to “Christ-like-ness”. We seem to skip the mission part.

We (the church and its clergy) are at a crossroads. We can hunker down behind the 4 walls that will fall down around our ears, or we move beyond the four walls and embrace the “Wild Goose” of the Holy Spirit and move forward into the world.

An organization that’s a preview of the new creation looks like Jesus giving his life for the world. In such organizations, the Spirit of God flows, bringing ever-renewing life, orienting people towards God and towards their neighbors. In such orgs, structure serves mission.

Jeremy Chen (@germy224) June 23, 2021

Digital isn’t great because it’s the newest shiny toy. Digital works best when it serves its purpose. The purpose of digital church (or the digital expression of it) is the mission. It is a structure. If we cannot rightly divide structure from serving mission, then we are either looking at the structure wrong or the mission.

The structure never was the mission. The mission is Christ’s…serve to save the world.

Warning: this is a long post.

My Place

As this reflection may appear to be “anti” Church of the Nazarene, I want to be perfectly clear that while I address (what I perceive as) issues within the Church of the Nazarene (as a whole, and in particular my context of USA/Canada), it remains the denomination that God continues to draw me to remain. This is the denomination that God called me as a pastor. It will take much more than this post to change that.

However, Nazarene.Digital (a site that no longer) exists as my wake-up call to myself and to others that the Church of the Nazarene is not a digital denomination, and we are just as (if not more) called to the digital world as the physical world.

Digital More Than “Just” Matters

A few months ago, I was part of Stadia‘s Phygital 2.0 Cohort. As part of the pre-acceptance interview, I mentioned my denomination. The response was disappointing. This is not to knock the person in question’s perspective, but that it was the perspective was the disappointment. [An aside: that this response continues to rattle around in my head, heart, and spirit, is also telling]

The basic (gross paraphrase) response was that the denomination is so focused on the church building (despite unequivocally stating that “the church is the people; not the building”), that church planting seems to be doomed to failure in the current cultural context. I, it seems, was a breath of fresh air (and I’m sure I’m not the only one in the denomination, to be clear).

This was a church planter (and planter coach/coordinator’s) perspective of the denomination. It hurt, really.

To Plant

A number of years ago, I took a church planting course. One of the lessons from that course (offered within my local denominational district) was that new churches were statistically (there are always exceptions) more likely to draw new believers in (there are a number of reasons for this, which are far beyond this particular post or site).

My local district took that concept and ran with it (which deserves cheers and accolades). I observed, however, that it ran out of steam (at least to my eyes). I wonder if it is because of what was/is defined denominationally as a successful church plant: a building.

In the Puget Sound area (where I am currently), that is a huge stretch/ask. The best way to think of it is this, if a church is shut down and the property sold, there is no financial way to ever have a denominationally owned building again (Generally. I can think of a few non-traditional ways for that to occur. Then again, that’s non-traditional.).

If one applies that same financial reality to church planting, basing the success of a church plant on a building is setting the plant up to fail.

So, why all the pre-amble? One, it’s been building up for a while. Two, I read a Facebook post (targeted toward pastors within the denomination) from the last few days, and it finally caused me to put this into writing.

Here To Stay

The reality is that while our denomination and pastors have “embraced” digital during COVID and somewhat prior to that, it seems that it is more of a necessity than a perspective it is of equal value to gathering as a corporate body in a building. Even small groups (as allowed per COVID) or “home churches” are viewed as “less than” the “so-called” church.

The straw, so to speak, that broke my internal “camel’s” back was an approximate statement that if the person were not called to be a pastor, they wouldn’t attend any digital service. While that may have been only a single person’s words, the gist of too much of the pastoral conversation falls along this line. If it’s digital…forget it.

This is a denomination whose “mission” statement “…is to make Christlike disciples in the nations.” For me, “the nations” are just as much digital as they are political/tribal/social boundaries.

The Digital Nations

There is an irony here. We accept (denominationally and theologically) being missionaries to foreign countries. When we do such, we understand that we must change to present the Gospel. The mission and the Word don’t change. Just the methodology changes.

When it comes to physical, we don’t have a problem with it. When it is digital, it seems that our perspective is different. Digital doesn’t seem to even qualify as third-class.

I completely understand that for many (even most) people digital doesn’t “scratch” their (in-)person itch. I even understand that many people cannot equate “church” to digital. However, if we are truly to reach the nations, how we “feel” about digital is…irrelevant.

What may be the real stretch for pastors, the denomination, and even the wider church, is the coming digital-only churches.

Only—Not, Going—Digitial

Did you know that a number of new plants (no Church of the Nazarene that I am aware of) accelerated their planting strategy to become digital-first (and even digital-only) during COVID? They didn’t postpone their original physical plan (whether for 2020 or 2021). They wholescale changed it to digital, and started!

That may well be what comes next. Breaking the tie between physical and digital is not ideal. However, it may be necessary as too much training and culture is based on physical.

The Hard Part

It might be that we can bring the two together, someday. As there will likely be some sort of COVID-constrained behavior through 2021, the break may be necessary. A new mindset may be required.

If the Church of the Nazarene rises or falls is not really the point. The reality is that we (as Christians) are called to find ways to connect people to Jesus Christ. As hard as it may be to hear, the treasured buildings aren’t it.

God Does

If we believe that God is omnipresent, then would God not exist digitally, too?

I have received a lot of support that we need to do digital. I have come to realize, though, that almost all of it is intellectual assent. It isn’t belief.

There is a difference in a Christian who assents to Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, and one who believes it in heart and soul. So, too, is there a difference in a person who assents to digital, and the person who believes it.

Campus Versus Broadcast

Now for the more personal part. My current job title is Online Campus Pastor. Broadcasting isn’t an Online Campus.

I actually agree with many that live streaming (i.e., broadcasting) isn’t the community in which we are called to be part. The digital expression of church is not seeing what’s happening inside the building. I believe in actual groups of learning and accountability.

Rarely, would anyone disagree with groups of learning and accountability. Usually, we get equivocations, rationales, excuses, and reasoning (many of which are understandable) as why people do not belong to groups of learning and accountability. We get them all the time when it comes to physical.

It is just that these can happen effectually and deeply online. All it takes is people willing to be so. Wait, that sounds like physical, too.

Tech to Fulfill the Mission

There is definitely a transformation that is needed. The real issue isn’t COVID. It isn’t Zoom fatigue. It isn’t Facebook. It isn’t Twitter.

The real issue it that digital pervades, and the church seems to be doing its best to do the bare minimum, and usually a few years behind.

What if the church didn’t use the Roman Road? A brief historical recap. The Roman Road was a historic marvel. The Roman Empire build a road of stone (versus dirt and mud) across the empire. Along with the Pax Romana (the military enforced peace across the empire), the road allowed the church to spread. Where the Roman Road was, so, too, was the church (eventually).

If the church stuck to the dirt byways because it was “traditional”, would the churches of Philippi, Ephesus, Laodicea and even have existed to have letters written to them (also spread by the Roman Road)? Digital is the Roman Road.

Digital’s Pending Physical Reality

Even amidst my concern for the now, it is the future that concerns me most. Extended Reality (covering both the Augmented—Google Glass, Magic Leap, Holo Lens—and Virtual—Oculus, Vive, Gear—Reality) is coming. The church has to start addressing it now.

Much of the same theological and cultural issues will be applicable. One of the pending ones, touch, is where the church needs to really be looking at it. Even most of my digital peers, I don’t think, are covering this.

The tech exists, now, to “touch”. Think about that. The excuse of being unable to “hug” a person goes away. Researchers at the University of Birmingham studied Rayleigh Waves. They discovered an electronic (i.e., performable by a future digital interface) way to “tell” the brain we “felt” something. We already have the simplified haptic system, but this ushers in something far greater.

VR baptisms are already a thing. They are dismissed. What if you can feel the water cover you?

One of the things that comes to mind as I listen to DC Talk’s Mind’s Eye is Billy Graham’s riff on the wind (yes, he was talking about the Holy Spirit). We know it exists. We see its effects. We never see it.

Why is it so hard to apply that same thought digitally?

Vaporware Campus

If you’ve made it this far down this post, I’m amazed (and, thank you for your time). This isn’t an “optimized” digital post (too long, I know).

As I reflect of almost a year of COVID, and being “the digital” pastor, I’ve come to a conclusion. The term of Online Campus Pastor does not apply. In my current context (with nothing against my church, its staff, or its people), I don’t see that becoming a reality.

This isn’t its way. It is the mirror I look at my denomination. My local church was far ahead of many Church of the Nazarene churches.

The tech concept of do new things and break them (you still have to have a plan, though) often is, for many, contrary to the way of the church. I get it from a church history and theology standpoint. I support it to great extent.

I am just at a different place for what that means in regard to church expression. What that means for the near-, medium-, and long-term, I don’t know. I can only be faithful to where I discern God is calling me, even while I try to learn what exactly that means.

One of the big struggles with the current church online scenario is what to do with kids. Churches are struggling with it. In many ways the problem can be summarized this way…

Don’t try to digitize the past or the present. We need to invent the industry of tomorrow.

Erik Swedberg

The quote is actually from a Dassault webinar I watched, but the application is wide-ranging. Churches are asking how can we do kids ministry online the same way we used to. The answer…we can’t.

We can’t just approximate what we did physically for children in the digital space.

We may have to go “old school” and disciple and equip the parents to engage their kids.

We may all have to act as if the time of church programs that often acted as free (or discount) kid watching (and, yes, brought lots of people in and built relationships) is over.

Emily Flake wrote a piece titled, My Kid Sold Her Soul to Roblox: It’s my daughter’s main social outlet, and I’m not taking it away from her. In it we read a parent’s struggle with the current reality of living remotely.

This is not to argue against gathering physically (Flake certainly isn’t). It is to recognize that part of the church’s struggle with kids ministry in the current context is that we’re trying to do it the same way that we’ve been doing it for decades.

Here’s the question, though. If kids ministry has been so effective the way we’ve been doing it for the last few decades, then why has the percentage of identifying Christians continued to drop at an increasing rate?

Maybe COVID is our guilt-free way of pressing reset on church.

We’re all basically in a place right now where we have so many attentional drains, because we don’t have place to focus us. You know, going to a place focuses our effort, because we’re here to do a thing, but when you’re working out of your home, it’s very different.

How to Channel Your Attention, Todd Henry. The Accidental Creative Podcast ©2020

We recently received a message that some of our people would not return to church, because we required face masks (in compliance with the government directive).

First of all, this is not about any COVID-19 face mask requirements in your state (or country). Nor is this about the apparent disregard some have for the authorities. Nor is this about those who rigidly adhere.

This is about space.

Many years ago, I heard about a study on sleep and reading. The study’s supposed conclusion was that if we spend all our time reading in our bed, we will psychologically associate our bed (a place of sleep/rest) with reading (a wakeful activity). This makes it, according to the study, harder to fall asleep.

Associating a space with an activity is valuable, and very human. This is part of what makes the current conversation about church online difficult. There is a reason many people cannot move beyond the space.

Thomas Moore wrote about this in one of his books (I can’t remember if it was Care of the Soul or Re-Enchantment of Everyday Life) about people making altars in the simple places in their homes.

We see this in many Asian countries. If you go to many Asian restaurants, you will see, often at the entrance, a very simple shrine. You may overlook it. However, that is a “place” within another “place” that has a completely different function.

Jesus said, “But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.” (Matthew 6:6 NIV)

Why bring that up? Well, it’s talking about space; a private space for a particular activity.

That no longer attending family? They were looking for a space worship with certain requirements.

Todd Henry’s focus was on how, for those working from home, there is all this stuff competing for attention. His point being that people were having to fight greater distractions from home. He was applying this to work.

This also applies to church. A person is at home “watching” church. The same distractions that may have caused a problem working remotely now impact worship.

For the ongoing COVID season, we may have to start thinking about teaching people about space and preparing a space for worship. It could be as simple as a couple of candles that are only used during worship (back to the whole psychology thing).

There is another reason for this. Should the church return to the building next year (we hope), we may have to reteach and relearn how to worship again together. Yes, that’s down the road, but it’s back to space, and it would be a different space than the space once worshiped in (i.e., their home).