Why Our Church Will Keep the Livestream

Our church will keep our livestream post-COVID for the same reason that we introduced it pre-COVID: online worship is a catalyst for Christian community.

As a Lutheran pastor with a commitment to the ministry of Word and sacrament, I appreciate both the centrality of in-person worship to the Christian life and the fears that online worship experiences could pull people away from these vital activities. There are some things you just can’t do virtually.

And yet in my seven years of experience with streaming—both as the church planter of a young congregation and now as the pastor of a 110-year-old congregation—I’ve discovered the technology many feared would disconnect people from authentic Christian community can actually become a catalyst for people to experience that very community. That includes, for our church, an increase of in-person attendance.

Over the years I’ve seen three key benefits to streaming worship. Read More

Gospel Coalition also published an article on livestreaming from another perspective. The church of the two pastors who wrote that article will no longer be livestreaming its services. The church will be recording its services and posting videos of them on its website for people who were unable to attend a service to watch at a later time. Their rationale for discontinuing livestream, however, treats those who are unable to attend a service in person,  as second-class Christians and fails to recognize that they are members of the Body of Christ as much as those who are present at the service. They are united in a mystical union with Christ and with the other members of the Body of Christ by the Holy Spirit. Our physical gatherings are only an visible sign that points to that spiritual reality. Their absence from our physical gatherings does not diminish that union. Livestreaming recognizes that, while they may be physically absence, they are present in spirit, and affirms their membership in the Body of Christ. Recording the services for later viewing , on the other hand, conveys a different message.