Who are the 3 Potential Goals For Online Worship?
Generally, a church should consider which of the three following communities they intend to reach with their online worship:
New Front Door: This online worship is only intended to support people who are investigating our church before visiting in-person. We only hope it gives people some sense of what the in-person worship is like.
In-person worshippers: Many parishioners are unable to be in-person on Sunday morning. For example, soccer moms or homebound folks might appreciate a live-stream.
A Distinct Worshiping Community:you can create a distinct worshiping community that meets online, and thinks of themselves as a distinct worship service of your church.
There are a few variations on these three categories, but these are a good summary of the three different goals most churches pursue.
Which of these is the priority for your church? It is important to wrestle with this, because we would approach these three goals very differently. In some cases, there are ways to accomplish two of these goals at the same time.
For example, if you only want to create a distinct worshiping community, you might do this on Zoom! However, this approach means there is little overlap between this community and your in-person community, and it will not help with the New Front Door goal.
Want to think through the implications of this? Set up a zoom meeting, we’d love to discuss how these goals fit your church!
