A couple of days ago, Tim Challies shared an article asking whether we ought to think about turning off our church live streams. You can read it here. The article really helpfully lays out some of the issues we ought to think through. Tim says his own church has continued with streaming their service but keep it behind a password so they can limit who accesses it. You can read his post to see his reasoning. As a follow up, I thought it might be helpful to explain why we have chosen to continue live streaming our service and to keep it public.

Tim comments:

The most common rationale is that it proved valuable for shut-ins or others who legitimately could not attend on a Sunday morning. Once housebound people had grown accustomed to having access to a livestream, it seemed cruel to cut it off. It also proved helpful in helping prospective attendees gain a sense of how the church functions and worships—a sense that was superior to merely reading words on a website. And then, of course, it was affirming to see unknown and anonymous people tuning in from around the city and far beyond. For these reasons and others the streams stuck.

I think most of this is true. Let me give some particular examples. We are aware of at least one person who began watching our live stream and became a believer through what they were hearing. They subsequently started attending a church as a result. We had a number of people, seeing the problems with the health & wealth Pentecostalism they belonged to and not wanting to jump out of the frying pan and into the fire, watched our live stream to check us out extensively before coming and committing to be with us. There are people in dangerous living situations in our community with whom we have contact – living in situations where they cannot freely attend our services – for whom our live steam is a spiritual lifeline. We’ve had numerous people check us out ahead of time and determine to come based on what they have seen. I strongly suspect we had a number of people check us out ahead of time and determine not to come because it is obvious we are a bad fit for them, saving them and us from any potential heartache down the line. All of these things are evident positives that are not theoretical, but specific examples worked out in real life.

So, what of the cons? Tim argues:

Most obviously, this kind of ministry consumes resources that are often scarce—there are costs in time, money, maintenance, and manpower.

This is not a consideration for us. Our live stream runs off a mobile phone via YouTube. It is entirely free to air and operates off various members’ phones so that, if anyone is away, there are multiple options to make it happen any morning on hardware everyone has already. Before we set it up, we ensured that it was a wired-in system requiring practically no setup. Prior to the service, we setup a stream online and on Sunday morning we put a mobile phone onto a tripod stand and plug in a USB-C connector that runs to a USB interface which is permanently wired into our sound desk. We then press a couple of buttons on the mobile phone and we’re live. If you factor in both the stream and hardware setup to go live, we are probably talking 5-10 minutes effort all in which costs us nothing to run. I think we can safely say the resources expended are moot.

However, Tim is right that there is a bigger issue to consider:

Of greater concern is the way streaming may change the very nature of the corporate gathering—the very meaning of what it is to be “together”—by extending it to those who are not physically present.

He notes that this changes the dynamics in the room, it may change the way sermons are preached to include anonymous observers online and it may even encourage disobedience by causing some not to attend when they could. Happily, we considered all these factors when deciding whether or not to keep our live stream.

One of the key principles was to determine who the church meeting is for. Tim is absolutely right, the church is a corporate gathering of God’s people. It is our view that those watching online are not part of the meeting. Indeed, they are not meeting at all. They are observing a meeting as outsiders who are not part of the meeting itself. It is important that we understand this when it comes to how we then function within the meeting when a live stream is running.

Tim states that streaming changes the nature of corporate gathering. But the truth is, as I note above, it doesn’t change anything at all. The reality of the matter is some people will observe a corporate gathering without being part of the corporate gathering. Whilst we are pleased for people to watch online rather than simply sit at home and not engage with the scriptures at all, we are very clear that they are not gathering with us and what they are doing is necessarily less than actually meeting with God’s people. Clarity on this issue is really important.

One of the ways we make this very clear – aside from occasionally saying it as part of the meeting – is that we turn off the live stream at the point of communion. We do not want to give anyone the impression that they are part of a meeting that they evidently aren’t part of. We don’t think it is possible for them to take private communion in their home. We know there are some who would do this, thinking they are partaking of communion, when in fact they are on their own, at home, not part of a corporate gathering but simply watching others partake. We decided we would make it clear that individuals cannot take private communion by simply stopping our live stream at communion. Those who want to be part of a gathering, who want to partake of communion, need to commune with us.

Another way this is clear in our meeting concerns the corporate involvement of the membership. I appreciate what I am about to say is much harder in the form of meeting in which one man leads, preaches, exclusively leads prayer and is essentially the only voice heard throughout the meeting. Our meeting, however, incorporates more elements of congregational involvement. Every week, we have a time of open prayer. This is something you simply cannot involve yourself in if you are watching online. Similarly, we have an open time of testimony each week. Again, you cannot engage if you are watching online. Even the songs we sing, it is difficult to properly engage watching online. These things make it evident that those watching online are not part of the meeting itself and are not gathering with us.

Likewise, we ensure the leading and preaching is centred on those in the gathering. Because we recognise those watching online are simply observing a gathering of believers with whom they are not meeting, we don’t preach or lead for their benefit. We actively ensure the teaching is aimed at and serves those who are gathering together. We make sure the leading – made easier by our various open elements of the service – is for the benefit of those in the room. The only nod to anyone online we make is to tell them when the live stream is about to be turned off. In our context and setup, the potential costs of changing our understanding of corporate gathering and of altering the way we preach I think are clearly minimal and largely not at issue and therefore do not function as cons for us.

I think Tim’s third concern is the most likely issue for us and carries the weightiest warning. He says:

[T]here is the concern that streaming may enable disobedience. Many churches stream their services as a means of serving people who have no other church to attend. This sounds noble. But don’t you think it’s likely that the stream is also (or perhaps even primarily) enabling people who could attend a church close to their home but prefer the preaching or worship of a church they watch on a screen? It may feel affirming when we gather the statistics of people who are watching from far-off locations, but how do we know those people aren’t using our stream to foster their own disobedience? In most circumstances, wouldn’t the ideal outcome be that zero people are watching our livestreams because they are all in their own churches?

For the record, we do not stream our service because we think it may serve people who have no other church to attend. This isn’t a positive consideration for us. We do stream for those who cannot legitimately attend our church but want to do so and we do reckon it better for people who will not attend any church to watch our live stream rather than do nothing at all. Nevertheless, we do have to contend with the negative problem that our live stream might encourage those who could attend a local church not to attend. We may be actively encouraging people into disobedience. But several things can be said here.

First, I would prefer to ask questions of those who will not attend – preferring a live stream to actually gathering – rather than stopping the live stream for those who can’t attend. We should ask if the live stream encourages disobedience, but it strikes me there are two much bigger questions worth asking first: (1) why do people prefer the live stream to obediently gathering; and, (2) why are we so desperate to get them into church?

Those two questions are usually linked. Those who prefer a live stream to obeying Jesus and gathering with God’s people – let’s call it like it is – are probably not believers. If they are not believers, why are we so keen to get unbelievers to obey Christ as unbelievers when such obedience will do nothing for them? Why do we want to turn nominal believers who sit at home apart from the gathering of God’s people into nominal believers who are present in the gathering of God’s people? There may be reasons we want to do that, but I don’t think we should automatically assume that is what we necessarily want to do nor to think that doesn’t come with significant costs of its own.

Of course, someone will shoot back that the grounds of our faith is not our church attendance. Very true. They will insist that one can be a believer even if they don’t go to church. Still true. I would suggest an unwillingness to meet with God’s people as Christ commands may evidence a heart that is not right with Jesus and therefore doesn’t belong to him. But I concede it is possible for one to be a believer and not gather. So, are we encouraging disobedience in such people with a live stream?

Again, I think the emphasis is in the wrong place if we frame the question that way. The issue isn’t the live stream, but the unwillingness of a person to gather. If we recognise the live stream is not gathering, the question really boils down to this: how are we to view, and what are we to do about, those who refuse to gather? I think this brings a bit more clarity to the issue and makes clear how we aren’t encouraging this sort of disobedience. Those who refuse to gather with us when they could, disobeying Jesus’ commands to meet with his people, should be placed under church discipline and, if they do not repent, removed from the fellowship.

What, then, of those who refuse to gather when they could from elsewhere who don’t belong to our church? Ultimately, these are beyond our purview. It is for their own local churches to discipline them if they belong to one. But if they don’t belong to a local church when they could, three things are worth saying. First, we need to ask the question mentioned above about whether such nominal believers really are better inside or outside the gathering. Second, if people are settled on not going to church, it seems better for them to engage with a live stream than for them to not engage with the Word at all. Third, if they claim to be believers and insist they sit under the Word, our church’s teaching will encourage them into a church gathering in line with what the Word says and is therefore not encouraging disobedience. Again, we then have to ask questions of the individual who – despite what they hear from the Word – insist they would rather stream than gather. The issue in my opinion is the individual, not the live stream.

Set against all that, we have to weigh the benefits. We have seen unbelievers engage with our live stream and subsequently trust in Christ. We know of people in dangerous living situations who access our live stream as their only means of engaging the Word at all safely. We know of those who have actively come to us and joined the church because they could watch the live stream over a number of weeks. There are a number of our people who would love to be with us and are unable to be with us because they are either infirm, ill or work shift patterns that cannot be avoided. We revisit what we preach on Sunday in our midweek community groups, the live stream gives people access to the teaching after the fact so they can engage most helpfully midweek. When set against these benefits, and seeing that the majority of cons are not actually costs to us at all, it doesn’t seem sensible for us in our context to turn off our live stream.

We are conscious – whatever the reason people give for not wanting to gather (whether they are credible or not) – it is better for them to access the Word at all than to simply not gather nor access Bible teaching. Those who watch the live stream who could gather with a local church are unlikely to start gathering with a local church because we turned off our live stream. I am convinced there are deeper issues at work here that need addressing; the live stream itself is neither the cause nor the answer to them.

A final point worth considering is this. In all the talk of turning off the live stream, why is the focus on those intent on disobedience; those who by their own disobedient choices are actively missing out on the benefits of gathering? Why are so many of us letting unbelievers, nominal believers or disobedient believers (or however you categorise those watching without gathering) dictate what the church should or shouldn’t do? Just as we can fall into the trap of making the unbeliever or nominal believer our de facto worship leader by over-concerning ourselves with how they might view the worship that goes on inside our gathering if and when they come, why do we fall into the same trap concerning whether or not to run a live stream? Why shouldn’t the benefits to our members – for whom the church exists and operates – outweigh in and of itself the potential misuse of those benefits by unbelievers, nominal believers and those who don’t belong to our number? Similarly, why should the mission of our church to our community – in which the live stream may be a helpful part – outweigh the potential problem of misuse by those who already show in their attitudes and choices they are disobedient and potentially unbelievers? These simply don’t strike me as concerns of equal weight and importance.

Of course, I am not suggesting the answer should be the same in every community and context. What I have written here is based on our community and context. The questions Tim outlines are good ones and I think the questions I outline here are also important. The relevant questions we should all be asking are the same in every context. However, I don’t necessarily think the answer will be the same in every context because it is largely driven by contextual concerns. Nevertheless, you can see how and why we have decided to keep our live stream running publicly for our community for the reasons given above. You can read Tim’s answer which helpfully lays out questions and reasons that got him to the point of keeping the live stream behind a password. No doubt you will find others advocating turning the whole thing off altogether. But I hope in all this, as Tim’s article also seems to hope, we will at least ask the relevant questions.