defining virtual church | sojourns with Jesus

Defining the term virtual church may be helpful for discussion. I haven’t found a consensus definition on the web or in books that I have read. I do appreciate any resources. The working definition provided may be lacking.

Virtual church is where individuals connect for religious/spiritual experiences through a medium other than a local physical gathering of saints and sinners be they believers, skeptics, or seekers. Virtual church would include connections made through the radio, television, and now primarily the internet such as chat rooms, social medium (twitter, facebook, myspace), video streaming, or some combination thereof.

Reading blogs, books, and other print material does not qualify since it is not essentially a bi-directional communicative medium. Essentially these are mono-directional communication.Though blogging is stretching this concept. Radio and television were limited bi-direcitonal communicative medium. The internet is creating a instant bi-directional communicative medium not bound by physical restraints.

The internet innovation has made it more interactive and is the most rapidly growing medium for the virtual church concept. Read Disconnected, Jim Baker and Virtual Faith and Disconnected, Virtual Church for my thoughts. Both at 500 words.

Your comments and thoughts are welcome and appreciated.

http://facebook.com/profile.php?id= Anonymous
http://facebook.com/profile.php?id=1042886172 Robert Rappold

I think the term 'virtual church' is a bit of a misnomer when applied to some sort of web based life. As if you can raise a dog in real life or raise a 'virtual dog' on the internet and have the same experience. I think a definition is inherently hard to come by because it is out of sorts with Christ's church. The church is a body of people tied together through Christ and with Christ for the purposes of being Christ's hands and feet, being saved by grace to do good works, in other words. It is an entity of people, NOT a me-based web experience. For lack of space, the phrase defined… Virtual Church: A web based pseudo-Christian experience intent on separating believers from other believers for the sole purpose of division in the body of believers.