I’ve been excited about Doug Estes book SimChurch ever since I heard about it in the spring.
I’ve been among a number of web pastors/bloggers who have been trying to break through the resistance to online church by explaining both what we are trying to do and not trying to do.
But I’ve been looking forward to someone with credibility and maturity offering up a reasonable, respectable and theologically sound book-length case for why gathering as the church online can be powerful and God-honoring. (Books still seem to be the ultimate path to credibility, no?)
If the Q&A with Doug Estes at ChurchRelevance.com was anything to go by, all practitioners of online church might be strengthened and encouraged — and in some cases humbled, no doubt — by the book.
I was nodding my head all the way through.
(And, selfishly, it was comforting to see echoes of many positions I’ve expressed here over the last year.)
This quote really stood out for me:
“… a lot of testimonies from virtual churchgoers that I saw, read, heard, or heard about are in fact from people the world would write off—but why would the church do this? Just because a person feels uncomfortable in a Western-style brick and mortar church makes them unworthy of Christian community?”
I would read the whole interview. And buy the book.
