5 Reasons to Keep Your Online Service After COVID-19

Many congregations are beginning to or are at least thinking about opening their church buildings for in-person worship services. Most churches have for the past number of months been having online services only.

What should congregations do with their online services once the pandemic is over?

One option is to end the online service. That might make things easier and cut some of the workload. But is that the best decision? Here are five reasons why churches should keep their online services even after the pandemic is over.

1. It broadens the congregation’s reach geographically. People within your city, across the country and in other continents have access to your service. While this may never put bums in your pews, churches are to build the kingdom of God and not just their local kingdoms.
2. It provides options for worship for those with disabilities. There are people of all sorts of disabilities, including mental illness, that struggle with attending physical church services. There are some people with disabilities who have had the most access during the pandemic that they have ever had.
3. There may be future events that cause us to cancel an in-person service. Hopefully we will not have to cancel for this many months again, there may be snow storms or other events that prevent people from going to the church. If an online service is ready to go, worship can go on.
4. Online services are helpful for new people considering your church. They can hear the preaching and get a taste of the worship before actually visiting. While this can feed into the consumer mindset, the reality is people will attend where they enjoy church most.
5. Online services can be a means of outreach. This is related to the previous point. There I talked more about Christians looking for a church. Here I am talking about non-Christians who are interested in learning about the faith but are nervous about going somewhere that thy don’t know the expectations. Members of the church may share the online services on social media, getting it in front of their friends and family.

At our church, we intend to keep our online service going indefinitely. It may change over time but it will continues.

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