It always surprises me how quickly an idea can go from introduction to expectation, from mere inquiry to accepted standard. And once an idea has become mainstream in that way, it is difficult to revisit and evaluate it.
One of these is the idea that churches should livestream their worship services. What was rare in the days before the pandemic became almost universal during it as circumstances proved to be a kind of technological accelerant. Yet with those days now far behind us, the livestreams continue. I don’t know the percentages, but I’d say a church is now more likely to have a stream than not. It has somehow become almost intuitive to churches that they ought to stream their Sunday morning services. The video ministry has taken its place beside the children’s ministry, women’s ministry, men’s ministry, and all the other ministries a church is expected to have.
I’m sure it made sense for churches to quickly pivot to streaming in those early days of uncertainty. It made sense for churches to keep the streams going during days when meeting together was difficult or forbidden and perhaps also during the days when people were shy about being in big crowds or being in public with as much as a sniffle. I’m sure churches were wise to adapt.
But few churches considered the exit plan and whether the livestream ought to be temporary or permanent. Few considered when and if they would wind it back down. Several years have gone by and in most cases, it proved to stick around. Why? The most common rationale is that it proved valuable for shut-ins or others who legitimately could not attend on a Sunday morning. Once housebound people had grown accustomed to having access to a livestream, it seemed cruel to cut it off. It also proved helpful in helping prospective attendees gain a sense of how the church functions and worships—a sense that was superior to merely reading words on a website. And then, of course, it was affirming to see unknown and anonymous people tuning in from around the city and far beyond. For these reasons and others the streams stuck.
What most churches failed to do, though, was carefully weigh the pros and cons, something that is always a wise exercise when adding new technology to any part of personal life, family life, or church life. As always, the benefits tend to be quicker and easier to identify than the drawbacks. The benefits are exactly the ones I laid out earlier. But what how about the drawbacks?
Most obviously, this kind of ministry consumes resources that are often scarce—there are costs in time, money, maintenance, and manpower.
Of greater concern is the way streaming may change the very nature of the corporate gathering—the very meaning of what it is to be “together”—by extending it to those who are not physically present. This is an ongoing battle in a digital world and we have long claimed that churches are bucking this trend by remaining a place where people still gather physically. But a livestream both changes and complicates that dynamic.
And then there is the way preaching may change when a stream is present. When the preacher knows his words will not go beyond the room, he directs his words to his people, to his flock. This gives him the freedom to address their concerns and their needs. But when preaching to an anonymous group outside the room, he is now preaching to strangers. To whatever degree he preaches to this on-screen audience, he will be tempted to perform rather than preach.
Finally, there is the concern that streaming may enable disobedience. Many churches stream their services as a means of serving people who have no other church to attend. This sounds noble. But don’t you think it’s likely that the stream is also (or perhaps even primarily) enabling people who could attend a church close to their home but prefer the preaching or worship of a church they watch on a screen? It may feel affirming when we gather the statistics of people who are watching from far-off locations, but how do we know those people aren’t using our stream to foster their own disobedience? In most circumstances, wouldn’t the ideal outcome be that zero people are watching our livestreams because they are all in their own churches?
Wouldn’t the ideal outcome be that zero people are watching our livestreams because they are all in their own churches?Share
(On that note, it has often struck me as ironic that some of the pastors who are most adamant that watching services online should never displace or replace attending local services are the very ones who broadcast their services each Sunday morning. And they often have the budgets and personnel to create streams that are of the highest quality. The messaging seems more than a little mixed to me. Perhaps these influential men could model something positive to everyone by cutting their livestreams and urging people to find a church in their own setting.)
So here is my suggestion: The leadership of every church would be wise to take time to carefully consider the past, present, and future of their livestream. They can consider whether it is truly serving their own local church and whether it is truly serving the wider church. To that end, here are some questions they may want to ask:

When and why did you begin livestreaming? What was the reason you began it and how do you currently evaluate its success?
What is your biblical case for a livestream? What biblical principles support or contradict it?
How is the livestream impacting your local church and how is it impacting the wider church? How certain are you that your stream is not enabling disobedience in Christians who ought to be attending a local church?
If the ideal scenario is for zero people to watch your livestream (because they are all in your church or another good one) how can you help make that happen?

As the elders of Grace Fellowship Church, we evaluate our livestream on a regular basis. For the time being, we continue to offer it as a help to those who are legitimately unable to attend church due to illness. However, to ensure it is being used for only that purpose, we put it behind a password. Anyone who wants to watch it simply needs to email our sound team to receive that password. That’s probably not a great solution, but it is the one we have settled on for the time being.
My hope is that each church will evaluate its own livestream to consider if and how it furthers the mission of that local church and the mission of God’s wider church. May we all think carefully, pray earnestly, and be faithful to what God has called us to.

May you know the Lord’s blessings as you honor and serve him this weekend.

I’m grateful to Baker Books for sponsoring the blog this week with news of a new book by Andrew Davis titled The Glory Now Revealed. Be sure to check it out!
Today’s Kindle deals include some newer and older works.
(Yesterday on the blog: Welcoming the Uncomfortable Work of God)
The Final T4G
Collin Hansen reflects on the forthcoming final T4G. “More than 15 years ago I crowded into the Galt House Hotel ballroom, just across I-64 from the Ohio River in Louisville, Kentucky, with 3,000 pastors and students. We gathered for the inaugural Together for the Gospel (T4G) conference without much idea of what we should expect. We got something we could never forget.”
Back to the Word
I’m with Andrée Seu Peterson: “I’m just about ready to give up the rational conversational approach to social intercourse and to start quoting straight Bible to people. The further we go, the more reason isn’t working anymore. In these sputtering last gasps of the Enlightenment, language itself is deconstructing before our eyes.”
James Bond Converts to Conservatism
As I read Samuel James’s analysis of the latest Bond film, I realized that I’ve never seen a Bond film. He looks at how Bond has changed over the years and what it may mean.
A Theology of Disappointment
“Oddly enough, disappointment can be an indicator you are seeing the world correctly. No one enjoys feeling disappointment. In itself, disappointment is akin to the sadness of loss, and ultimately we were not designed for it. But like all emotions, disappointment is a gauge of how a person perceives his life—what he believes about it and wants from it. When you’re living in a broken world, sometimes believing and wanting the right things means you’ll be disappointed.”
When Does Marriage Begin In God’s Eyes?
Femi Osunnyi provides an interesting answer to the question.
Jesus Spoke a Persian Word From the Cross
“One way to distinguish Central Asia as a region is to say that it is the part of the world dominated by Turkic or Persian-related languages. … These hundreds of millions of people are overwhelmingly Muslim – and they might be surprised to hear that Jesus spoke a word from their ancestral language while on the cross.”
Sin-Coddlers Are Not True Friends
Trevin Wax looks at older and newer definitions of “friend.” “True Christian friends understand the pervasiveness and pull of sin. They’re not shocked by your misstep. They don’t make you feel worse than you already feel. They don’t heap judgment and guilt upon you. But neither do they excuse or minimize your sin. They see something better in you. They know the work of Christ and trust the power of the Spirit. They call you away from sin because they’re calling you to holiness, to the Christlikeness that marks your destiny.”
Flashback: When Jesus Says Stay
He wanted to follow Jesus. He wanted to be close to Jesus. He wanted to live a life of radical obedience. But Jesus told him to stay, not to go. Do not follow me.

We must have cast our sins on Him before we can cast our cares. —F.B. Meyer

I wasn’t quite asleep but I also wasn’t quite awake. It wasn’t quite real, but it also doesn’t seem right to call it fake. Like a story that had already been written or like a tale that had already been told, it flashed into my mind in the briefest of moments.

In what must have been some kind of a waking dream, I saw myself lying in bed when an angelic envoy roused me with a message. And as surely as Mary knew, as surely as Joseph knew, as surely as Zechariah knew, in my dream I knew—I knew the messenger was reliable and his message authentic. “God sent me to tell you that Christ will return in exactly one hour.” My heart rose. My mind reeled. My feet raced. Leaping from bed, I ran downstairs, grabbed my coat and keys, and sprinted out the door. I knew exactly where I needed to be.
One scene faded into the next, and I saw myself arriving at Glen Oaks Cemetery. There is no place on earth I like to go less but need to go more. There is no place on earth where I feel greater hope or deeper sorrow. Yet this was just where I knew I ought to be. Flinging the car door open, I leapt into the predawn darkness. Up and down the rows of graves I began to run, shouting out the glad tidings. “It’s time! It’s time,” I cried! “It’s time to rise!” I ran up one row and down the next, up one row and down the next, my feet pounding over the uneven turf.
I watched myself pause briefly by the grave of a young man whose parents had written just three short words on his gravestone. They are words Aslan had once whispered to Lucy when she was overwhelmed with fears and uncertainty: “Courage, dear heart.” And those words have often given strength and courage to me as I’ve passed by that granite monument. “Michael,” I cried “it’s time! It’s time to rise! Just a few more minutes and it’s time!”
I took off running once more, but paused almost immediately, this time by a nearby grave where, just a few short weeks ago, a family had gathered to sing sweet hymns of comfort in both English and Hindi. “It’s time, my Christian sister,” I said in a shout! “It’s time to rise!”
I saw myself run on and on, up and down the silent rows, crying out the news. I stopped again, this time by a plot where another young man is buried, a young man whose parents once approached Aileen and me to encourage us, to console us, to pray down heaven’s comfort upon us. “It’s time” I shouted! “It’s time! Just a few more moments and you will rise! Your body and soul will be joined together and you’ll rise! It’s time!”
The eastern horizon was beginning to glow with the first light of day. The earliest rays of the sun were threatening to break through the clouds hanging low over Lake Ontario. The clock had ticked down to just one minute and now my feet carried me to the spot in that cemetery that has become most familiar.
With my face glowing golden with the sunrise, I paused where I’ve paused so often. On the edge of that patch of grass that has been tended by my hand and watered by my tears, I dropped to my knees. In a tone that was confident and unwavering I said, “It’s time, my boy! It’s time! Just one more minute and we’ll hear the cry of command. Just one more moment and we’ll hear the voice of the archangel. Just a few more seconds and we’ll hear the blast of the trumpet. It’s time, my boy. It’s time! It’s time to wake! It’s time to rise!” I began the final countdown: 5 … 4 … 3 … 2 … 1 …
And then—and then I became aware again. I became aware that I was in my living room, not the cemetery. I became aware that it had been a dream, not reality. But I also became aware that my face was wet with tears and my heart rich with joy. For though it was only a waking dream, it was a dream grounded in the best of all promises, the surest of all hopes.

“For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord.”