It was only a matter of time before the mobile revolution caught up with the online church revolution.
The result: A Hawaii church, New Hope Christian Fellowship, will become the first to livestream its services via the iPhone. Other churches, like Flamingo Road, have been offering that kind of mobility for a while using U-Stream’s iPhone app.
I’m a fan of anything we can do to break down the barriers for people to experience church and hear the word of God. As Bobby Greuenwald of Lifechurch.tv has pointed out, the mobile handset will be the predominant way to access the Web in the not-too-distant future, especially in the developing world. That’s reason alone to refocus our web projects to the mobile phone.
But as my post about “What can Web Campus attenders tell us about church,” seems to indicate, there’s definitely a question about whether the convenience of church might affect the significance of church.
I think it’s legitimate to ask whether there’s a special form of attention that’s required in worship, rather than in just consuming information? Can you get as focused on God if you’re viewing while riding the train or walking down the street?
To reframe a comment made by John Piper regarding the need to twitter during a service, isn’t it part of worship to stop for God?
Naturally, many people will want to create a “private sanctuary” — real or atmospheric — so they can pay complete attention to a church service on an iPhone. But i think there’s no question that the technology will effect the nature of our engagement, as John Dyer’s blog warns us.
What’s your take?
