TruthBook Religious News Blog

By Scott Andron
McClatchy Newspapers

Article Last Updated: 10/19/2007

MIAMI — Every Sunday morning, while hundreds of congregants converge on Flamingo Road Church in Cooper City, Fla., Stephanie Smith boots up her computer and joins the services — from 1,400 miles away.

Instead of attending a bricks-and-mortar church near her home in Fort Worth, Texas, Smith hooks her computer up to her big-screen TV and watches a live, Web-based videocast via Flamingo Road's "Internet Campus." Some Sundays, she invites family and friends to join her.

Smith is one of a growing number of Americans for whom the Internet plays a central role in their spiritual lives.

Among evangelical Christians, and the largest "megachurches" in particular, many pastors are taking their Web sites far beyond an online ad with a schedule of real-world services.

Many pastors are coming to see the Web site as a ministry in itself, not only as a way to bring people to church, but as a way to bring them to God — even if they never set foot in the physical building.

While most houses of worship now have Web sites, few use them as aggressively and creatively in seeking new converts as evangelicals, for a variety of reasons.

For Roman Catholics, important sacraments like communion are hard or impossible to translate into binary digits. Jews generally don't seek new converts, although the Orthodox Chabad Lubavitch sect, for example, has extensive Web offerings aimed at attracting non-observant Jews.

But "conservative Christians jump on any new medium they can to find new ways to spread the Gospel," said Scott Thumma, a professor of the sociology of religion at the Hartford Seminary in Connecticut.

And megachurches "are doing the most fascinating and interesting stuff on the Web, but they are doing it because they have millions of dollars and thousands of people to draw on."

Like many Web sites run by large evangelical churches, Calvary's includes a step-by-step guide for nonreligious people seeking to convert, links to request "prayer support" for people going through a difficult time, and a searchable video archive of Pastor Bob Coy's previous sermons.

Looking for advice on your marriage? Sex? Forgiveness? Just type in the word, and a list of relevant sermons will appear. Want his advice every day? Subscribe to his podcast and listen on your MP3 audio player. Want to get saved right there in front of the computer? Pastor Bob will pray with you on a recorded video.

For at least one church, the Internet is so central that the church has a "dot" in its name. Lifechurch.tv has 11 campuses in six states, including a new congregation that meets at Palm Beach Central High School in Wellington, Fla. Its 12th campus is on the Internet, and the church tries to give online participants the same experience as those worshiping in person.

All the campuses receive a live sermon via satellite from the main campus in Oklahoma. Before and after the sermon, a local minister is on hand to lead services, announce upcoming events and pass the offering plate.

Internet participants — 700 to 900 on a typical weekend — can join in by clicking an icon to raise their hands in response to the pastor's words.

And after the formal service, they can chat — either by typing or using a webcam and microphone — with the pastor or each other.

Several other churches, including Flamingo Road and Calvary, also offer ways for online participants to interact during services.

Thanks to online shopping, online dating, online social networking and online darn-near-everything-else, many young Americans don't distinguish between their friends from school and those from Facebook.

These youngsters just see them all as friends, said David Kinnaman, president of the Barna Group, a consulting firm that conducts survey research for churches and other religious groups.

In fact, Kinnaman's firm predicts that by 2010, 10 percent of Americans will rely exclusively on the Internet for their religious experience.

Labels: church, evangelicals, interactive, Internet, ministry, Scott Andron, spirituality