Church on the Internet | the vision
The vision is coming together for the Internet Campus at Gateway Church in Austin, TX. At this point I have a very broad vision for the internet campus as we begin to gather some some people and some momentum.
The Reality
The internet is, for all intents and purposes, not unlike any community that a church planter might consider as a mission field. Yes, there are some obvious differences that often take center stage in the conversation but I would like to start by putting those aside. We all realize that there are some mandates in scripture for the actual physical gathering together of believers that we should not ignore. This is true, but we also have a mandate to take the Gospel to the ends of the Earth. So I say this; lets take this thing as far as we can and see what God can do.
What We’re Not Doing
It also needs to be said that what we are not doing is simply re-broadcasting the worship service from Gateway Church. Just like any Gateway campus we need to take the Gateway Church mission, vision and values and apply them to the community that is being targeted.
Church Planting Basics
Become a Part of the Community
When we plant churches in physical communities the first thing we do is become a part of the community. At its most basic level, we need to move there before we can have a church.
This is the first step for the internet campus too. We need to ‘move’ to the internet first and foremost. So the question is; what does moving to the internet mean?
Pre-Launch
Generally we start with some ‘soft launch’ experiences that give us the opportunity to try out our technology and fine tune our programming before the official grand opening.
Grand Opening
The official launch of the church plant. Marketing and word of mouth are all timed to peak at the grand opening.
Implement Leadership Strategy
Once the church is launch the next thing is to draw leaders out of the crowd that has been gathered.
Spiritual Growth Plan
Once we have some more leaders in place the spiritual growth strategies can be implemented.
More Outreach Efforts
The cycle comes back around again as we move the leaders and members of the new church toward evangelism efforts.
So here are the questions:
- What does the ‘target’ person look like in the Internet Community?
- What does a ‘gathering’ look like in the Internet Community?
- How far are we going to take this?
2 Responses to “Church on the Internet | the vision”
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One more thing:
I don't think the question should be how far as we going to take it, but rather, how far is God going to take it? He likes to go to extremes to meet people right where they are, so that leads me to believe that he's going to show up in the lives of many people via the internet as well. Will we stay open and willing to follow his lead? How will we measure success and failure? How real are we ourselves willing to invest in this? What does being a leader within an internet campus look like and how can we "see" the needs of those "attending" an internet campus? Lots of questions, but thankfully we don't have to figure it out alone or tomorrow!
I love where your mind is going with all of this. I love that you see the missional aspect of this. I love that you aren't tossing face to face community under the bus, but giving God the space and time to work this out. I also love that we aren't going to just spit out the weekend messages online and call it a day.
I am not exactly sure who the "target" person is, but the people I know who have said they are interested are people are already spending a lot of time online. I know bloggers, gamers, and social networkers who are heavily invested in the internet and who are interested in seeing how this will play out.
As far as a gathering goes, I guess my initial thoughts are two fold. You can set up online "meeting places" for us to come together and share stories and ask questions at specific times through out the week. We can create facebook pages for specific locations or just states at first. Then we can hopefully move into face to face gatherings within different cities. You can also use Twitter for more instant communication.
Karin