I love Chris Wilson’s post on “Flipping Churches” and I’m mad that he beat me to it! (Not really.) Currently, I teach in a middle school, and I’m actively working to flip my class. I haven’t quite achieved a full flip, but I’m getting there.
At the same time, over the past few months, I’ve been in talks with the full-time pastors at my church, and I think we’re all on-board with the idea that our church should be flipped. The perennial question, though, is daunting: how?
What does a “flipped church” look like?
Of course, there are dozens of flipped classroom/school examples: Khan Academy, TeacherTube, etc. What do we have in the way of churches? (Not to draw too hard of a line, but there’s a difference here between a “flipped” church and an Internet church. A flipped church places content online to enhance/deepen the teaching that goes on at the church. An Internet church is an actual attempt at creating a place of worship in cyberspace.)
Only one actual church came to mind as I pondered this: LifeChurch.tv, makers of YouVersion and a host of other tasty digital treats. They have a slew of resource pages, one of which is aimed at resourcing individuals and families.
Other than that, I don’t know of many flipped churches. Now, universities are another issue.
Both Biola University and Dallas Theological Seminary have flipped their schools, using two different methods. Biola has created a website, called Open Biola, wherein it is posting its courses online for free! I don’t believe all of their courses are online, but there does seem to be a fairly decent amount of material offered. Of course, for sometime now, DTS has offered its courses online via iTunesU.
Would you flip your church?
I’m really eager to begin flipping our church soon. Currently, the plan is to create detailed e-books (more like “e-pamphlets”) and offer them as free downloads alongside short video segments that distill the e-book content in easy to digest chunks. I’m hoping to have something really cool to share in a few weeks, but what about you?
Would this help your church, or would your time be better spent in other ways? If you have flipped or would considering flipping your church, how would/did you do it?
[Re: Open Biola – HT Apologetics 315 | Image via GS+ via Compfight cc]
Joe Wickman says
Hey man. I think the reason you can’t think of more than one example of a “flipped church” is that the church, unlike other entities, is an organism. Its essence and its ends are fundamentally different than that of business or even schools.
I’m not a technophobe by any means. And I think you should absolutely proceed with enhancing all the online resources of your church. But I have a feeling that, in the decades-long evaluation of “e-church” we will find that there is simply no substitute to life-on-life contact, and that happens best in person.
Just my two cents.
Phil Schneider says
I totally agree, Joe. I was once tasked with “planting” an e-church, a task that was doomed from the start for all the reasons you list.
From the ashes of that failure, this idea arises. It’s not about replacing the church, but rather, it’s about extending the teaching arm of the church into the digital age so that more people can benefit.
Paul Clifford (@PaulAlanClif) says
I actually realized that our church does this, not officially, but here’s the story. Our Worship leader is from Australia. His mother (who still lives there) was affected by our online services that she watches in the middle of the night to see her son. She decided to form a group of people who watch these services which she calls “Quest Outreach” (our church is Quest).
In effect, isn’t this just like a book club or movie discussion group? Watch at your leisure and we’ll discuss it together at a later time.
Our life groups already use the weekend service as curriculum, so since we have services in two towns over the span of two days, a lifegroup might be discussing a service that one person saw online, one saw in Frankfort, two saw at 9:30 on Sunday in Lexington, and two saw at 11:30 in Lexington on Sunday, etc. They don’t share space at the same time or place for the service, but do for the discussion of it.
The more I think about it the more I like it. I like the corporate aspect of it, but if our groups met later in the week, everyone would have a chance to see the previous message and understand what we’re all talking about.
Together is better, but together for part is better than always apart.
Paul
Phil Schneider says
Great comment, Paul! That’s totally awesome, and I agree with your statement:
“Together is better, but together for part is better than always apart.”
And the story about your worship pastor’s mother is just incredible, but I think that many would call it an exception to the rule, an unicorn of organic e-church growth, if you will.
I do wonder, though, if such “unicorns” will become more and more common as technological proficiency increases and good resources, like your church’s service, are disseminated across the net.
Either way, it’s absolutely amazing what your church is currently apart of worldwide. Keep it going, keep it growing.
Thanks for the comment.
Raoul Snyman says
A very first-world thing.
In South Africa, where I live, Internet access is expensive (I’m one of the privileged few who has uncapped Internet, at 10Mbps, and that costs me $110 per month), and our church in particular is not very wealthy (we have to share a pastor with another church because we can’t afford a full-time pastor), so few people have proper Internet access.
I’d really like to see how we can use the Internet at our church, but the fact of the matter is that it would have to be completely mobile-centric and completely different to anything described up here.
Phil Schneider says
That makes complete sense. Without sounding too much like an excuse, let me say that I write from a first-world perspective because that’s where I live. These are the problems I’m equipped to resolve.
As far as Africa being “mobile-centric,” I totally agree. This is where the focus of ministry in Africa has to be in the coming years.
I actually wrote a little about this last summer—https://churchm.ag/africa-the-new-mobile-missionfield/