ArticleBlog | Worship and the digital church: Making the ‘faceless’ visible
Worship and the digital church: Making the ‘faceless’ visible
Author: Andy PeckPost Date: 13.09.24
Mark Cartledge explores the different forms of digital churches, both in-person and online congregations, and considers how to include the ‘faceless’ members of our churches.
Our faces are important, not just to us but to other people as well. When I stand in front of a congregation to speak or lead an act of worship, I am keen to look at the faces of people before me.
I want to know that I am connecting with them as people. However, it is hard to connect with people online, who may be watching the service via the Zoom platform. Typically, I cannot see their faces and know their reactions to what is happening in the congregational space. How can we pay more attention to them, and create a closer sense of connection with them?
Including everyone
It could be stated that the church is fundamentally a body of believers, called out of the world (the ekklēsia) to be a people for the praise and worship of God. Indeed, the first mark of the church is the declaration of the wonders of God (Acts 2:11). People who know each other, and have fellowship with each other, experience the grace and mercy of God flowing to them from others in the body of Christ. The idea of the body is very important, both literally and metaphorically. God has given each of us bodies and our faces, in a sense, ‘present’ ourselves to the world through expressions and speech. We know people by hearing them, seeing them or sensing them. In the interactive and hybrid digital mediation of worship, I believe that we need to pay more attention to people on the other end of the Zoom platform. How can we include them more into our worshipping practices?
