There is more to church than the one hour on Sunday, explains Jeff Reed, director of digital church planting for Stadia Church Planting. In the physical church, we drive there. We see the experience. There is an ability to connect with people in the lobby. There is some sort of process that leads toward small group or discipleship process. There are opportunities for accountability and deeper relationships. Reed suggests that the same thing can be done in the digital space. There are digital planters that want to create the one-hour service in a digital format, like a giga church. Then there are planters that don’t want to do a service at all, it is more about the relational aspect of creating disciple making, like a micro site. “Digital is moldable and shapeable to meet whatever the ecclesiology that you are trying to match is.”
When you look at the “middle of the road” digital church, they are connecting with people they know – the same as in a physical church. They are building a core team before they start a church service. They are encouraging, training, and then releasing them out. That’s the beginning. Then it becomes about building relationships with people across the country, but also engaging in conversations. One digital church pastor explains that it’s his job to know a hundred people online and build relationships with them. “People in virtual spaces are looking for community,” explains Reed.
The operating expenses are much lower for a digital church, so it becomes more about connection.
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