The internet has changed everything: The way we communicate, work, spend money, share information, and the simple task of entertainment.
Over the last couple of years the internet has changed the way we enjoy television. Services like Hulu and Channel Surfing have provided users the ability to watch content whenever they want. Apple has even gotten into the game by selling Apple TV as well as selling movies and television shows in the iTunes store.
It is now very uncommon to find any network station that does not have content available for online viewing. It has become a must instead of a luxury.
With this easy access to media and entertainment and the churn of technology that propels it, there’s always the question of what’s next?
Jim Long posed the question of how technology is changing how much we watch television. Check out this video after the jump…
The access to entertainment is literally at our finger tips. And I feel like this is something that will continue to change and grow over time. Jim Long goes on to bring up some very interesting points and questions in his blog post following this video (find the post here)
What strikes me as interesting is how churches can be affected. As churches continue to explore the area of technology and live streaming, how does the need for accessibility of content and the opportunity to view “previous” services change churches strategy for the online community of viewers?
The ability to watch when it works for you is one of the greatest features about online television, it almost becomes an expectation. As churches continue to explore streaming their services online is there more demand for the ability to watch the service whenever you want?
Church, On-Demand…?
Lifechurch.TV is one of the few churches that have online church available throughout the week. They have multiple different times the services run, but it is still not instant or completely on-demand.
There are set times available to watch and participate. Some churches have a place for you to watch previous church services from years past but usually do not provide that online church “feel,” more of just a thing to watch and then move on. With television entertainment continually moving more towards 24 hour broadcasting online, will churches start to have broadcasting available online 24-7/365?
If churches start to operate like online television will it take away from the online church experience?
Ben Miller says
I was wondering recently why Lifechurch.tv is not more on-demand. I would guess that the reason is that they want to simulate the concept of people getting together at the same time for church. However, I have to wonder how many people come to the site, see the sign that essentially says “Come back later” and then don’t come back for whatever reason. I know I’ve done this before on their site.
Kyle Reed says
I have done the same thing. And I actually have thought about this myself. But after thinking about how you would make it on demand it would be very very tough. Essentially you would have thousands of individual services going on at different times and I really think would take it to a more individualistic mindset then community online.
Scott says
Kyle, that’s definitely one reason we do very little “public” on-demand video content of our entire experiences. We believe that genuine community and life-change CAN happen in an online environment and we do our best to focus our visitors’ attention toward coming back when there are other people around to share the experience with.
We do offer on-demand messages from our experiences at http://www.lifechurch.tv/message-archive, but we don’t publicize it much since we’re at 45 live experiences at Church Online. We also publish a bunch of video content on our YouTube channel/page/space/whatever at http://www.youtube.com/user/LifeChurchtv.
We’ve looked into offerings like Roku or Boxee, but the ROI isn’t quite there yet for that. Sometimes it’s better to “wait-and-see” than jump on the latest tech when it comes to innovation. Bobby Gruenewald and Terry Storch do an amazing job of leading through those decisions. (Yes, that’s me schmoozing my bosses. 🙂
Kyle Reed says
exactly right. They do an amazing job of thinking through it all.
I think a lot of people would say, “why not just make it on demand like a podcast or vodcast?” But in return what are you giving away and settling on?
I do not think that fits the mission of online church and the community that it is creating.
Great example Scott.
Chris Hill says
No church that I know of has anything exciting or diverse enough to broadcast 24/7. Then again, I’d probably feel strange turning to the Church for entertainment anyway. 😉
Bradley says
The ministry that I work with – The Church of The Apostles in Atlanta – is available completely On Demand. We do broadcast live on Sundays, but within about 30 minutes of the end of the service we post the entire broadcast online for viewing at any time.
We’ve found that we have a large number of people who come to the site on Mondays just to view the service. Its working very well for us.
If you would like to see what we do you can take a look here: http://j.mp/9iyCYm
Kyle Reed says
That is great. Thanks for the link.
Is it available for viewers to download as well?
Bradley says
The services are not available for local download, but the user does have the ability to skip directly to any portion of the service by scrubbing along the timeline. We wanted to make sure that someone was not forced to download all of the music portion of the service if they just wanted to skip directly to the sermon.
Adam Lehman says
What I love is that you’ve thought through what you want your On Demand to be about. I have no problem to using ON DEMAND to reach and engage people.
I do have a problem with simply doing something because the church down the road (on down the web) is doing it.
Churches ought to spend more time dreaming up ways to engage people rather than trying to keep up with latest trends in ministry. (and it sounds like you’re doing that…)
VietChristian.com says
I ponder on this many times. on-demand vs live-broadcast! I’m sure special event requires live broadcast. If providing only on-demand, no one will bother attend the live broadcast. Ain’t we living in the on-demand era?
Dave Adamson says
Great discussion. I totally get why we need to have it. This is something we’ve been discussing at Liquid Church in New Jersey as we contemplate expanding our Church Online campus. If churches are to remain contemporary and relevant then we have to keep up with trends and with the felt needs of the world.
The questions I have about Church On-Demand are:
– Do we really want to provide church “on-demand”? People already expect the church to meet their needs as they define them and prioritize them. Is this always what is best for them? Don’t we have a mandate to move people beyond their own personal gratification?
– If one person logs in to watch a service on demand, is that “really church”? As the Church Online Pastor at Liquid Church I’ve argued the definition of church for 2 years … this takes the argument to a whole new level! I totally believe Christ is present during online services … but how does that work when some guy in Australia logs on by himself at 4am in the morning and has no interaction with anyone?
– Does on-demand reduce church to “just” a service. Would we just be providing a service for people instead of engaging them in the work of Christ?
– I get why Apple, Hulu, Channel Surfing and other companies are providing on-demand, but does the church have the same goals as these companies?
– Sometimes a pastor/shepherd needs to grow and care for the flock by providing what they NEED instead of what they WANT. How does this fit into the church on-demand subject?
I don’t have a definitive position … I’m processing it by asking these types of questions. And I’m looking forward to seeing how God will position His Church in the future – and what local churches are doing now to prepare themselves.
Kyle Reed says
excellent questions.
keep us up to date. Would love to hear the conversation. Maybe even a blog post from you?
Dave Adamson says
In the process of writing it Kyle!
Alex says
Im really angry when i read things like that.
No offense to anyone, but..
You say “If churches are to remain contemporary and relevant then we have to keep up with trends and with the felt needs of the world.”
Can you explain me, sir, where do you excatly get that from ?
You know, im really angry when I read that.
Tho I can understand you motivations to “keep up with the pace” and stay current, accurate, relevant, etc…. those ways to getting there are just *wrong*. And with a big W flashing in red.
Trying to “follow trends” to try to stay current, relevant is going to produce the exact opposite, as a result. And please note, that in many, many cases, that is exaclty what is happening.
1. You cannot be relevant when you blindly follow any move. People who *are* accurate and relevant, are the ones who are making others follow, who are leading. True leaders are accurate, and relevant. People “following the trends and move” are usually totally blind, thus it’s very hard for them to be relevant.
2. There is a totally false thinking among evangelicals that “keeping up with trends – no matter what those trends are- is a good thing”. Im not sure where it’s coming from.
3. When you check out people in “the world” who are indeed accurate and relevant, you will notice that very few of them follow any trend.
And i believe deeply that “living with our time and generation” has nothing to do with following trends.
4. I really DO NOT believe that the world needs to have us believers following them trends.
5. I believe strongly as well, that we are by definition contemporary. You, and me. No matter what trend you or me are following or not following. We are contemporary by definition, as we live ourselve in this present time, what makes us, by definition, contemporary.
And in many, many, many different domains, people in the world starve to see “contemporary” people who are indeed living out of the “common trends”.
Now, what i believe strongly, is that we have to be interested in what happens arround us, either we are talking about ethical matters, morality, technology, political matters, social matters, ethnical matters, education matters, etc… get interested in those subjects, and bring our values, etc. according to where each person is gifted (would it be for economy, politics, social care, education, health, or technology,etc …. – and new medias of course)
Now, I believe there is a difference between getting into the suject, and following a trend, as you will notice, the trends that lead the world, either in ethical matters, morality, social things, educational things, cultural matters, etc and ***even in technology and even more in new medias – this is where my whole point is***, those trends that lead the world are they really coming from above ? or from man, and is lost nature, and corrupted motivations ?
That is the important question we have to ask oursleves when we approach subjects like those quoted above, as well as technology, 2.0, new medias, social web, Facebook, information age, etc… and even semantic web.
So, in this point of view, we hardly can go anywhere and be truly relevant if we follow contemporary trends, in subjects quoted above, as well as in technology, IT, 2.0, social web, etc…
You conclude by saying “I don’t have a definitive position …” which is I think a normal thing, as those times we are living in, technological stuff are pretty unsure… and everything changes every 6 months or so.
In another way, it’s a very dangerous place to be, not to have a definitive position.
Theres a great deal of talk going on about virtual church etc. (and it seems to me that is what is blog post is about)
As i understand that some of those subjects can be tough to adress, let’s not, please, follow contemporary trends to find our answers. Because they are not there.
Thats all that i wanted to say, i mainly wanted to adress the issue of not following all what those SF geeks are doing and saying. Zuckerberg, Page, Brin and Arrington dont have the light. If what the Bible says is correct, unless they are born again, they are lead by a devilish nature, totally corrupted nature and motives, and corrupted goals. Creating corrupted trends. Though they can be gifted and highly gifted in certain cases, that gift is not “redeemed”, and certainly the deep motivations, and mind, and vision of the world, and vision of the future ? Are far from beeing from above. Let’s not forget that.
Thus said, what you said is very very correct “sometimes we have to give people what they need and not what they want”, and raises a very deep issue about all what come with the extreme manner people deal with information nowdays. They want it now. Right now. One click away. they won’t be waiting for it 2 days or even less 2 weeks! I remember, when I was a kid, we’d have to wait sometimes 2 weeks, or even 3 weeks to receive a book in our postal *real* mail box. But. How boy. When that precious book was finally there. Oh boy. What a joy. What divine joy and praises. I would open it up. I waited for it 3 weeks. Not sure it would arrive! But its there. And what a blessing. I was blessed just looking at the cover !
Now, people click on stuff 500 times a minute. Heh. They dont enjoy it, are greedy, want more, want it now, and you tell me that above all that they want it ON DEMAND ?
Please, friends.
Let’s not follow trends.
God is not in trends.
I believe God sent this little girl at the end of this show.
The only valuable thing in all this page is what this little girl said.
Blessings, and Love.
Alex.
Kyle Reed says
Alex, thanks for the thoughts.
I do not know if you are taking offense to what was written on the post or a comment.
I have gone back and reread your comment and then the post and do not really see where you are coming from.
I can understand the idea of leading and being influenced by God as well as what he has gifted us with, but I also see that technology gives us a chance to leverage that to share a message.
Sure Jim Long might be talking about online television, but inside of this demand has to bring up the question of the effect of on-demand type mindset. It can be a dangerous one. One that teaches people that church is about them. But it can also be very positive, one that provides people a resource to go online and participate with a community.
I think filtering things in through who you are is a great way to continue to create and ask questions. Having a strong and biblical worldview is going to allow you to take everything in and process what you is seeing and hearing.
Glad you are processing this stuff.
Alex says
Thanks for the reply.
I was myself mainly replying to the comment from Dave Adamson.
I think this whole subject here on this thread is real important. I might sound a bit harsh , but I do it on purpose (but with deep love inside =) )because I think this subject is really important. And i may want to shake some thinking, but not people, and again I say much love, and thanks for engaging those subjets.
But I think thoses sujbects are important ones, and can need some “hard talk” at times, to adress hard issues.
I worked myself in the IT world and was the CEO of a little startup company (staff of 15 people) for 4 years.
To get to the point, the more it goes, the more I see that “virtual communities” are in many ways doing much more damage that they are doing good.
They way we deal with information today, as well as in the secular world or in the Christian world, is, to my eyes, more and more damaging on a long term basis.
I reacted this way in my last comment to point out that, too many times, i see too many people “going with the flow” a bit too quickly when it comes to web related technology.
For instance, I deleted completly and permanently some time ago my Facebook account, and I see better now the damage Facebook did in some domains of my life. Its not “big things” at a time, but rather, little by little, months after months, that things get to change, you start to change your habits, loose some habits and get new ones, because you are following “the wave”.
I feel free again from Facebook, and since then, I get the joy to definitly stop virtual and web “relationships” or “social things” with my peers, and I can see now how many things in those 2.0 trends are just destroying social fields in people life, in relationships, months after months. Its not a “one shot thing”. Its over a long period of time.
God did not created us to live and share social dimensions behind a screen. Im totally sorry. This is why web “1.0” was not that much an issue, because communications using “1.0” apps where quit “limited”, and “straight to the point”.
2.0 added a social dimension, which is why we call it social web.
And theres a difference with “sending a letter to a mailbox (1.0)” and “immersing yourself, your emotional and part of your social life in this mailbox at the cost of true, verbal, visual, shaking &moving, laughing and crying, relationships (2.0)”
God created us a whole. God created communication in a certain way. Well, the 1st thing he created, when you think about it, when he created man, is communication. Communication between man and God. Can you imagine that God would have used a “computer screen” to comunicate with Adam in the garden ? No. And our soul, emotions etc are what the devil is trying to destroy, by taking out of our communications and social sphere, little by little, here a bit, there a bit, over a long period of time, all the beauty that God created in communication.
I believe it.
And it leads people to mental troubles (information overload and its devastating effects), to distorted and corrupted habits to communicate with one an other (when i see parents texting there children all day long or even worst, facebooking them… my heart cries.. really) and at the end, distorted and corrupted relationships, lack of sharing, isolation, depression, and people living more and more alone.
Yes it’s not true in everycase. I believe strongly you can have a fair use of every technology. As well as web 2.0, VOD – video on demand, or “preaching on demand”. Sure you can have a fair use.
Dave Adamson says
Hey Alex.
No need to be angry mate! I didn’t say we needed to FOLLOW trends … just keep up with them – and by this I mean understand what they are, what the positives and negatives of following them are, and then decide whether or not to apply them to our Christian/church context.
If you assume I believe in adopting any and every tech trend that comes along then you miss the whole point of my post. I was suggesting in fact that there are a lot of unanswered questions that need to be answered before I would adopt something like church on-demand.
How we use technology has to be driven by one truth – our message remains the same, but the way we share it/ express it/ communicate it needs to change to ensure the message is getting through. If church on-demand gets the message of Christ and His grace to a fallen world, then I’m for it. I’m not certain of this yet, which is why I’m keeping myself informed of this latest trend while I process and pray through the impact of it’s implementation.
Hope this clarifies my position for you Alex.
Alex says
Thanks for the reply.
I was myself mainly replying to the comment from Dave Adamson.
I think this whole subject here on this thread is real important. I might sound a bit harsh , but I do it on purpose (but with deep love inside =) )because I think this subject is really important. And i may want to shake some thinking, but not people, and again I say much love, and thanks for engaging those subjets.
But I think thoses sujbects are important ones, and can need some “hard talk” at times, to adress hard issues.
I worked myself in the IT world and was the CEO of a little startup company (staff of 15 people) for 4 years.
To get to the point, the more it goes, the more I see that “virtual communities” are in many ways doing much more damage that they are doing good.
They way we deal with information today, as well as in the secular world or in the Christian world, is, to my eyes, more and more damaging on a long term basis.
I reacted this way in my last comment to point out that, too many times, i see too many people “going with the flow” a bit too quickly when it comes to web related technology.
For instance, I deleted completly and permanently some time ago my Facebook account, and I see better now the damage Facebook did in some domains of my life. Its not “big things” at a time, but rather, little by little, months after months, that things get to change, you start to change your habits, loose some habits and get new ones, because you are following “the wave”.
I feel free again from Facebook, and since then, I get the joy to definitly stop virtual and web “relationships” or “social things” with my peers, and I can see now how many things in those 2.0 trends are just destroying social fields in people life, in relationships, months after months. Its not a “one shot thing”. Its over a long period of time.
God did not created us to live and share social dimensions behind a screen. Im totally sorry. This is why web “1.0” was not that much an issue, because communications using “1.0” apps where quit “limited”, and “straight to the point”.
2.0 added a social dimension, which is why we call it social web.
And theres a difference with “sending a letter to a mailbox (1.0)” and “immersing yourself, your emotional and part of your social life in this mailbox at the cost of true, verbal, visual, shaking &moving, laughing and crying, relationships (2.0)”
God created us a whole. God created communication in a certain way. Well, the 1st thing he created, when you think about it, when he created man, is communication. Communication between man and God. Can you imagine that God would have used a “computer screen” to comunicate with Adam in the garden ? No. And our soul, emotions etc are what the devil is trying to destroy, by taking out of our communications and social sphere, little by little, here a bit, there a bit, over a long period of time, all the beauty that God created in communication.
I believe it.
And it leads people to mental troubles (information overload and its devastating effects), to distorted and corrupted habits to communicate with one an other (when i see parents texting there children all day long or even worst, facebooking them… my heart cries.. really) and at the end, distorted and corrupted relationships, lack of sharing, isolation, depression, and people living more and more alone.
Yes it’s not true in everycase. I believe strongly you can have a fair use of every technology. As well as web 2.0, VOD – video on demand, or “preaching on demand”. Sure you can have a fair use. But, at a high cost, of a very and real balanced life, and understanding of those dangers, and not getting caught up in those “Silly – con valley trends”.
Which, when you have a look at your facebook account if you got one, you will hardly find this highly balanced between life and new medias among most of your FB friends, watching most of them spending incredible amount of time (at the cost of true social relationships) on either facebook, twitter, blog, or anything on line.
A real good balanced usage of new medias is possible, but it might be the case for 2% or 3% of internet and social media users. A usage that indeed is a true blessing in the whole life of the person, and not destroying some other part of their life.
Facebook is now the n°1 website in term of trafic in the States, and Google is now 2nd…
I really believe this trend is going to get amplified more and more in months and years to come.
And people are going to loose more and more grounds in their true relationships and true communication.
What was 20 years ago 60 minutes a day of “true constructive” relationships with your close friends and family went to (maybe, its just arbitrary numbers here) ….
went to 30 minutes a day 10 years ago, and then to …
to 15 minutes a day 5 years ago.. and then to..
to 5 minutes a day nowdays….
That is what i see arround me. This is a real trend going on. It’s just the way it is.
So to end this, i would say, church on demand is not bad in itself of course. But when people lives are extremely balanced with all others aspect of what God calls us to be, to do, to share, and the way and time to spend with our peers, family, church brothers and sisters, and close friends.
And this, more and more, is for most people a balanced life that 2.0 and social media apps are not something that help them with… but instead, a POWERFULL worldwide trend, initiated by some young freaky geeks in San Fransisco, that I highly doubt has its roots in the “wisdom from above”.
Hope those thoughts might be helpfull in a way or another in the debate.. As you understand, its a subject that is truly on my heart.
Blessings again, and much love 🙂
Alex
Alex says
Im really angry when i read things like that.
No offense to anyone, but..
You say “If churches are to remain contemporary and relevant then we have to keep up with trends and with the felt needs of the world.”
Can you explain me, sir, where do you excatly get that from ?
You know, im really angry when I read that.
Tho I can understand you motivations to “keep up with the pace” and stay current, accurate, relevant, etc…. those ways to getting there are just *wrong*. And with a big W flashing in red.
Trying to “follow trends” to try to stay current, relevant is going to produce the exact opposite, as a result. And please note, that in many, many cases, that is exaclty what is happening.
1. You cannot be relevant when you blindly follow any move. People who *are* accurate and relevant, are the ones who are making others follow, who are leading. True leaders are accurate, and relevant. People “following the trends and move” are usually totally blind, thus it’s very hard for them to be relevant.
2. There is a totally false thinking among evangelicals that “keeping up with trends – no matter what those trends are- is a good thing”. Im not sure where it’s coming from.
3. When you check out people in “the world” who are indeed accurate and relevant, you will notice that very few of them follow any trend.
And i believe deeply that “living with our time and generation” has nothing to do with following trends.
4. I really DO NOT believe that the world needs to have us believers following them trends.
5. I believe strongly as well, that we are by definition contemporary. You, and me. No matter what trend you or me are following or not following. We are contemporary by definition, as we live ourselve in this present time, what makes us, by definition, contemporary.
And in many, many, many different domains, people in the world starve to see “contemporary” people who are indeed living out of the “common trends”.
Now, what i believe strongly, is that we have to be interested in what happens arround us, either we are talking about ethical matters, morality, technology, political matters, social matters, ethnical matters, education matters, etc… get interested in those subjects, and bring our values, etc. according to where each person is gifted (would it be for economy, politics, social care, education, health, or technology,etc …. – and new medias of course)
Now, I believe there is a difference between getting into the suject, and following a trend, as you will notice, the trends that lead the world, either in ethical matters, morality, social things, educational things, cultural matters, etc and ***even in technology and even more in new medias – this is where my whole point is***, those trends that lead the world are they really coming from above ? or from man, and is lost nature, and corrupted motivations ?
That is the important question we have to ask oursleves when we approach subjects like those quoted above, as well as technology, 2.0, new medias, social web, Facebook, information age, etc… and even semantic web.
So, in this point of view, we hardly can go anywhere and be truly relevant if we follow contemporary trends, in subjects quoted above, as well as in technology, IT, 2.0, social web, etc…
You conclude by saying “I don’t have a definitive position …” which is I think a normal thing, as those times we are living in, technological stuff are pretty unsure… and everything changes every 6 months or so.
In another way, it’s a very dangerous place to be, not to have a definitive position.
Theres a great deal of talk going on about virtual church etc. (and it seems to me that is what is blog post is about)
As i understand that some of those subjects can be tough to adress, let’s not, please, follow contemporary trends to find our answers. Because they are not there.
Thats all that i wanted to say, i mainly wanted to adress the issue of not following all what those SF geeks are doing and saying. Zuckerberg, Page, Brin and Arrington dont have the light. If what the Bible says is correct, unless they are born again, they are lead by a devilish nature, totally corrupted nature and motives, and corrupted goals. Creating corrupted trends. Though they can be gifted and highly gifted in certain cases, that gift is not “redeemed”, and certainly the deep motivations, and mind, and vision of the world, and vision of the future ? Are far from beeing from above. Let’s not forget that.
Thus said, what you said is very very correct “sometimes we have to give people what they need and not what they want”, and raises a very deep issue about all what come with the extreme manner people deal with information nowdays. They want it now. Right now. One click away. they won’t be waiting for it 2 days or even less 2 weeks! I remember, when I was a kid, we’d have to wait sometimes 2 weeks, or even 3 weeks to receive a book in our postal *real* mail box. But. How boy. When that precious book was finally there. Oh boy. What a joy. What divine joy and praises. I would open it up. I waited for it 3 weeks. Not sure it would arrive! But its there. And what a blessing. I was blessed just looking at the cover !
Now, people click on stuff 500 times a minute. Heh. They dont enjoy it, are greedy, want more, want it now, and you tell me that above all that they want it ON DEMAND ?
Please, friends.
Let’s not follow trends.
God is not in trends.
Blessings.
Alex.
(ps sorry if this post appears 2 times, got a prob w/ my keyboard)
Adam Lehman says
Maybe it’d be wise to allow certain portions to be on-demand but others to be live.
There are purposes for both. (but you know that…)
Kyle Reed says
I would like that personally. I would love to go and be able to listen to the first couple of songs of the service or something like that.
Jason says
We have experimented with both “broadcast times” and now an “on demand” model. In our experience, our online expression was more about consuming than community. As that was the case, it just made more sense to not use a dying TV model, but make it on-demand for people.
Both can work, for us, it was how are people using the service and what is the best use of the staff/voluteers time.
The only other thing we do is live stream our Sunday gatherings. People seem to love that.
My 2 cents…
Alex says
“Everyone who’s watching this… get a life.” Nuf said.
How and yes. Im in the IT stuff. I know some stuff about those issues. I could write a long comment to tell about it. But it’s all sum up in what this precious lil girl said.
Peace.