Not all engagement is the same, and that's okay. The unwise thing is equating commitments. Someone who walks forward in a service publicly to say they committed their life to Christ is more engaged compared to a person who liked a post on Instagram. The like is still relevant, but not equal to the altar call. You have to think about engagement in terms of good to best on a sliding scale. A person who is sitting in your worship center on a Sunday morning is more engaged than someone watching at home. The person at your church had to get dressed, maybe wrangle up their kids, and get through traffic. Now, that doesn't mean the online watcher isn't engaged or doesn't have valid reasons for watching online, but let's not equate the commitment levels. A comparable commitment experience to sitting in your church for online watchers are those who host an in-home worship service. These online watchers had to get dressed, wrangle up the kids, but instead of traffic, pick up their house. I would say hosting church in your own home is more engaged than those who are only keeping a seat warm. Understanding the sliding scale of engagement is an important principle when processing the value of online engagement to your local church's goals.

You're trained in seminary and throughout your internship as a pastor never to send people away. A person comes into your doors, and our job is to keep them connected to the church. After that first modem came online, the game changed. People could tune in from anywhere in the world. The online attendee isn't just down the street. Your reachable audience is broader, which means your methodology needs a good old fashion upgrade. Unfortunately, most seminaries are still operating on those AOL CDs.

Below is the process of how we move an online watcher on Facebook, YouTube, or our Online Campus page into face to face community and the critical platforms and tools to accomplish our vision.

I mentioned these two examples because friction can enable and disable the expansion of an idea. The internet has amplified many great things, but this new frontier has introduced further questions. For churches, the lack of friction encouraged ministries to start streaming their services regularly with very little critical thinking about the broader strategy of online. The shift happened in 2016 because Facebook Live became a free feature to anyone with a Facebook page and most churches jumped on the opportunity.