15 learnings for 15 years of #churchonline

I celebrated 15 years at my church yesterday, which means I've been doing ministry online for 15 years.

Here are 15 learnings for 15 years of #churchonline:

1. There is always something new people are chasing

2. The new thing is usually causing fear that it could hurt their church

3. As more churches use the new thing in a practical way more churches embrace it

4. Many think the new digital thing or technology will just fix their church

5. New church SAAS/Tech companies overpromise what their service is going to do for their church

6. Less big swings with new digital/tech and more practical solutions should happen at your church

7. Things are changing in culture but our church's mission/vision/objective are the same

8. Leadership is staying focused on your objectives and not getting distracted by the shiny new thing

9. Doing evangelism online is so powerful and scalable

10. Doing discipleship online is often overlooked because people think things can only happen in a room

11. Zoom online groups can be powerful for new & far away people for many reasons (synchronous groups)

12. WhatsApp, Signal, Telegram are powerful for building deep relationships (asynchronous groups)

13. You can leverage digital training/moments to launch in-person events globally (a.k.a. house churches)

14. The church should be more positive in how we talk about culture/other churches. No grumpy old men tones. Online loses the tone of the inflection & context when it's just a tweet/post.

15. God can, is, and will continue to use digital/technology to accomplish Kingdom goals in the coming centuries!