Today’s intro is from Renovaré Content Manager Grace Pouch:

Written before the pandemic, Analog Church already held a challenging message: resist the temptation to digitize more and more of church life for the sake of efficiency and relevance. We need physical spaces, material sacraments, flesh-and-blood gatherings.

But after the pandemic… Is this message still valid? 

After all, digital spaces like webinars, podcasts, YouTube worship services, Zoom prayer meetings — even this email newsletter — have been lifelines for so many. And for that, we can be grateful.

So is digital church a stopgap, or can it be a substitute for in-person church? 

Jay Kim believes it’s the former. 

As a Silicon Valley pastor, Kim uses technology regularly. (In fact, he’ll be Zooming in as a panelist on our upcoming webinar.) But even with all the gifts digital connection has to offer, Kim believes the need for in-person worship and fellowship is more important than ever. Scot McKnight notes, ​“There’s a theology behind what Jay Kim very helpfully calls Analog Church, and it’s the incarnation. God became one of us.”

Here at Renovaré, we are a remote team that provides a lot of online resources and experiences. But we know that spiritual formation always has a local address. Developing Christ’s love for people requires that we be with people — at some level, in some real space — because, as Sherry Turkle writes, strictly digital interactions ​“may offer the illusion of companionship without the demands of friendship.” 

In this week’s episode of Friends in Formation, James Catford describes in-person church as ​“untidy.” That’s a gentle British way of saying that a physical gathering of real people with real needs is a hot mess. When two or more Christ-followers come together we hear tummies growling, see tears flowing, bump up against difficult personalities, and endure tedious talking that can’t be muted. We come to know people ​“warts and all.” It is the best way to learn to love our neighbor.