Should You Count Online Viewers as Worship Attendees? Rainer on Leadership #399

After the discussion surrounding a blog post earlier this week, we look at the pertinent question surrounding the topic of the internet church: should you count them in your weekly worship number? Listen Now

After reading the comments left in response to this podcast, I think that the concept of the core, the congregation, and the crowd, which Rick Warren introduces in The Purpose-Driven Church might prove useful in the discussion of the pros and cons of counting online viewers as worship attendees. Warren visualizes the core, the congregation, and the crowd as a series of concentric circles with the core at the center, the congregation encircling the core, and the crowd encircling the congregation.

Warren also describes the core, the congregation, and the crowd in terms of level of commitment with the core representing the highest level of commitment and the crowd the lowest level of commitment with the congregation somewhere in between in its level of commitment. I think that the core, the congregation, and the crowd may also be described in terms of degree of physical attendance and levels of engagement with the core representing the highest degree of physical attendance and level of engagement and the crowd the lowest and the congregation again somewhere in between.

These three groups do not have rigid boundaries and an individual may be in transition from one group to another.

In this model those who view a church’s digital worship services or listen to its podcasts would be located in the outer circle, in the crowd. We should track them but not count them as worship attendees.

People in a church’s crowd may move one of two ways – inward and to the point of becoming a part of the congregation and eventually part of the core or outward and to a point where they take little or no interest in the practice of any form of religion or spirituality. They may drift to the crowd of another church or even to the fringe of a body or organization of individuals practicing another form of religion or spirituality. They may join the growing segment of the population that views religion and spirituality in highly individualistic terms and dismisses the need to practice their beliefs as a part of an organized religion and/or a physical community. Due to their individualistic view of religion or spirituality, their beliefs are likely to be syncretic, blending Christian and non-Christian beliefs. They may have selected a touch of this and a large dab of that from the pallet of religious and spiritual beliefs that may be found online.

It is much easier to hold a mixture of beliefs when an individual is not a part of an organized religion and/or a physical community that holds its members accountable for what they believe and reinforces and strengthens orthodox beliefs while discouraging heterodox or heretical beliefs. This may explain at least in part why a growing segment of the population is rejecting organized religion and/or physical community for a highly idiosyncratic belief system, one peculiar to a particular individual and not shared with others, and for virtual community.

One of the dangers of counting virtual or internet attendance as if it was physical attendance is that we are letting a segment of the population that is strongly influenced by our increasingly secular culture in many areas of its life and which may have little or no experience of physical community and its benefits define community for the church. We live in age in which churches are showing more and more the influence of that culture while at the same time appearing oblivious to its influence. Virtual community is not the same as physical community and considering them to be on the same level is problematic. Virtue community lacks dimensions that are found only in physical community. When we equate the two, we underestimate the importance and value of these dimensions.

What I have observed on the campus of my university and elsewhere is a younger generation that, while connected digitally, is often socially isolated and frequently has difficulty in relating to others, peers as well as older adults. in face-to-face interactions. I have also observe a lack of empathy and a lack of guardedness or restraint in expressing antipathy and hostility. Internet bullying is a manifestation of the latter as is flaming in which many people team up to attack a single victim.

When an individual is a member of a physical community, the group dynamics that are operative in that community may help that individual to not only become less socially-isolated and able to relate better to others but become more empathetic and more guarded or restrained in their expression of negative feelings toward others. All of these behaviors are desirable in a follower of Jesus Christ.