Hybrid church- a new reality?

Lockdown may have been a hardship, but may well prove to be a very significant blessing for the Church

Drawing from the observations made after our Foundations 13 conference (see article in previous issue), it was clear that God has, in His wisdom and mercy, provided a new way for individual Christians to grow in Him and to fulfil their destinies within the Body of Christ. Flockdown – the unprecedented separation of the Church’s flock from their places of worship – has allowed us all to experience not just the breadth and depth of teaching and testimony from all corners of the Body of Christ worldwide, but also experience Him and others from the safety and comfort of our own armchairs.

This is the new thing (and being new, the only way to convince the naysayers is to get them to experience it firsthand). The secular world has taken a lead on this and have seen how well things have functioned during Lockdown and, in order to save costs no doubt, have moved their focus onto the virtual world. Twitter has already told its staff that they don’t need to return to the office again, Cambridge University have declared that all lectures will be online for at least another year and Facebook have said that up to 50% of the workforce could be working from home in the next 5-10 years.

The old thing is human contact, something that must never ever be neglected, especially since the COVID-19 restrictions are gradually lifted.

… not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching. (Hebrews 10:25)

The formula is a simple one. We continue doing the old thing, in terms of meeting together, but perhaps we see it as a new start, by tearing up the rule book (the traditions of man) and revert to the original template (the Bible). This may be a daunting task and it certainly would be if it wasn’t for the new thing, our virtual treasure-trove of resources.

Go up into the mountains and bring down timber and build my house, so that I may take pleasure in it and be honoured,” says the LORD. (Haggai 1:8) So we rebuild God’s house with the timber available to us.

Our starting place

Here’s a good one: They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. Everyone was filled with awe at the many wonders and signs performed by the apostles. All the believers were together and had everything in common. They sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need. Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favour of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved. (Acts 2:42-47)

Surely this has been the “holy grail” for every group of Christians desiring to “return to the roots”, such as the house church movement of the 1970/80s. It’s not just nostalgic dreams but a sincere desire to please God and honor Him. Unfortunately, these groups failed to factor in one thing, our inherited Greek mindset and now those that survive have become denominations with structures and controls in place. To live the dream, we first need to re-educate ourselves to think Hebraically; honoring God, reflecting Jesus and listening to the Holy Spirit, rather than creating our own structures and plans as buffers. Thankfully we follow a God of the second chance and our Haggai story is reminding us of this. He will never give up on His Church.

So let’s revisit that passage and look at possibilities for Hybrid Church.

The necessary ingredients …

The apostles’ teaching: this, for us, would be solid dependable teaching from the Bible. The apostles at the time of Acts were, of course, chosen by God, so were to be trusted. Sadly, this is not the case today with a plethora of teachers, from a variety of mindsets, traditions, viewpoints and perspectives. Who can we trust with the truth? This is a significant question. Can we always be sure that in a small fellowship there will be those suitably gifted who can be trusted with this key function? Hybrid Church will give access to teachers who, presumably, will be vetted for doctrinal purity.

Fellowship: in the sense of meeting together there seems to be plenty of evidence, certainly in the case of our Foundations 13 conference, that Christians can fellowship spirit-to-spirit over computer or phone screens as well as the flesh-to-flesh interactions more familiar to us.

Breaking of bread: as long as we don’t insist on the use of an intermediary, such as a priest, to administer the emblems, then there is no reason why we can’t share the bread and blood “virtually”. Is there really a difference between sitting next to a person in this activity and sitting either side of a computer screen? God is blessed the same, either way and so should we be.

Prayer: this activity has but a single purpose, communication with God. As God is everywhere, physical location is not relevant. Many moving and successful prayer meetings have been conducted during Flockdown. Hybrid Church would also give access to willing available prayer warriors, from wi-fi enabled prayer closets all over the country! Our local church just saw this in action, with our UK prayer network activated in response to a spiritual emergency!

Signs and wonders: can God perform signs and wonders over vast physical distances, despite the “illusion” of virtual nearness? Of course he is not limited in such ways and we had signs and wonders at our conference, on one occasion writing appeared miraculously on a wall in Somerset as a result of ministry originating in Rotherham!

All together: an interesting one. After three days of our conference, the delegates were in no doubt that they were together with each other, even though their “togetherness” was sharing space on a screen rather than physical proximity. Most felt a real sense of loss when the “leave meeting” button was clicked on!

Everything in common: this is possibly the most neglected Acts 2 activity these days, where communal responsibilities have mostly given way to individual independence. Are we as materially supportive of each other as we could be? It’s all in the honest communication of needs. Interestingly I have seen people more willing to open up to each other virtually, it sems easier to have awkward moments when not in the same room!

Outreach: they used to meet together in the Temple courts. Is there really a difference in whether we meet together in street corners, pubs, rallies, churches … or on Zoom? The formula is the same, one person giving, one person receiving and the Holy Spirit doing all of the work !

Enjoying favour: one advantage of meeting online is the fact that you have a potential audience of millions, whereas our churches and meeting rooms not only have a finite space but are hampered by natural reluctances for people to be lured into “those places”, even if the most marvellous things are happening there!

Multiplication: God provides the multiplications, the numbers added daily and we can trust that He will continue to do so whatever we do. If we are truly ‘restoring His Temple’ then we would expect His favour to be reflected in the growth of new believers.

… with some additions

There are, of course, other timbers to make up His House. Let’s consider those, too:

Worship (sung): this is one of those areas where technology doesn’t perform as well as it ought. Any singing on more than one device on a system like ZOOM is a cacophony and would have us all cringing in embarrassment. Not the best atmosphere for worship! The issue is latency and is down to internet speeds, it is currently just not able to keep us all synchronized. My guess is that this will be fixed as I have seen technology that enables this to work, but not currently with video conferencing. So the best we have at present is singing from one location and everyone listening and muted (though of course we can hear ourselves singing). It’s not a major problem as we are, after all, worshipping an Audience of One and the biggest issue tends to be with the worship team, who can only hear themselves and not any responses to their efforts.

Worship (other): worship comes in many guises, in any expression where we acknowledge our wonderful God in the gifts and talents He has blessed us with. This covers every sphere of human endeavour; from writing, art and crafts, dance, proclamation, testimony, preaching, drama etc. etc. This, I believe is where Hybrid Church can add vastly to the mix, in the form of workshops, where something is initiated at a single location, that can be shared by others, wherever they may be. And these locations can be in any room of the house, garden or wherever. At Foundations 13 we had Monica’s salt dough from the dining room, Nancy’s fermentation talk from her kitchen and Joy’s teddy bear bathroom choir! All forms of worship and all beautiful expressions of gifts and talents that perhaps can only work in a virtual environment!

Dance: human ingenuity knows no bounds. At Foundations 13, Ginnie White taught a dance to a group of around a dozen people, all in their own homes, then it was performed, in Zoom gallery mode, in perfect synchronization to an amazed audience. It was a joy to behold and touched everyone who watched it. Hybrid Church can see this replicated with groups of people at various locations taught by a team in a separate location, by simply watching and following instructions. Hebraic dance is a wonderful expression of worship and we have had many testimonies of transformed lives produced by this activity.

Counselling: Zoom breakout rooms are a wonderful thing. You can have up to 50 of them running at anytime, all secure and private, where two or more people can meet in total confidence, yet from the comfort of their own armchair. Imagine having the
possibility of being counselled by the best possible person, who may be a little old lady from a village in the Hebrides? God can use anyone, and every circumstance, to make us whole again.

Go up into the mountains and bring down timber and build my house, so that I may take pleasure in it and be honoured,” says the LORD. (Haggai 1:8)

We are called to build His house. But He doesn’t just leave us there. I must confess that I had little to add in terms of how this can be achieved and how it will pan out. And then I allowed the next chapter of Haggai to speak into the situation

… to be continued (or read the book!)

This is an extract from Steve’s latest book, Flockdown, available in August 2020 from www.sppublishing.com