Why online worship is virtually impossible

On his blog, Nick Charalambous has been engaging the question of whether church and worship can be conducted online. He has many thoughtful posts about the issue, but this section from one in January sums up the question nicely:

Could you not have a physical campus-less church and still be the church as Christ intended it?…

Is the disciple-making machinery of church the worship service or the community the worship service creates?

If the technology is here, or coming soon, where sophisticated worship services can be experienced in all their intensity anywhere in HD, the real work ahead for the church is learning how to guide and manage community, the kind of authentic community that, in Acts, added to its number daily and changed the history of the world.

I think a lot is going to boil down to questions about what’s the role of the weekly service in daily worship? And how important will it be to have a weekly physical gathering spot that belongs uniquely to a specific community of believers?

In other words, does worship need a common physical foundation as has traditionally been found in the church sanctuary? My answer to that question is yes. Without a weekly gathering spot we lose the sensuality of worship that God built into it.

Worship is inherently physical. It can’t be fully experienced by clicking a button or watching a screen. Let’s look at ways that worship engages our five physical senses.

1. Hearing. In one sense, this is the easiest sense for the online church to satisfy. We hear God’s Word read and taught by preachers. We hear prayer. We hear the worship band and worship leader. Worship can also include the absence of hearing, as found in moments of silence and reflection. One weakness of online worship, however, is that we can’t hear each other. If I do sing along, no one hears my joyful participation, or perhaps notes my lack of participation.
2. Sight. Again, another one that is served fairly well by a computer or television screen. We can see the leader. We can see Scripture texts and various artful symbols of God and his works. As with hearing, online worship, for now, doesn’t have the capability to let me see the people I am worshipping with, people who are made in God’s image. Young believers can learn and be encouraged by the behavior of older or more mature saints. The simple ability to see multiple generations of a family worship together communicates profound truths about the body of Christ that is lost if all we see is the preacher and the band.
3. Touch. God’s people don’t just assemble, they rumble. Right hands of fellowship are extended. Holy kisses are exchanged. Feet are washed, oils are poured out. We touch each other, but we also touch the sacraments of the Lord’s Supper when we break the bread and hold the cup. Baptism also requires touch.
4. Taste. The bread and wine of communion obviously engage this sense. The New Testament church often extended their fellowship into meals. Interestingly, one of the first things we’ll do in Heaven is feast, so good food is a small taste of Heaven. In a more spiritual sense, God tells us to taste and see that he is good (Psalm 34:8).
5. Smell. This is listed last because it’s one sense that we don’t engage nearly as much in contemporary worship as the other four. In Old Testament times, however, worship would have had very strong odors with the sweet smells of incense mixed with the more pungent smells of animal and crop sacrifices. To some extent, we do add some pleasant odor to worship with flowers and personal deodorants and fragrances, which some are more likely to wear on Sunday than most other days. Even though we don’t have as many obvious physical fragrances, Ephesians 5:1-2 and Philippians 4:18 tells us that our worship, including giving, is a fragrant offering to him.

When God condemns idolatry, he often does it by pointing out how sense-less the idols were. From Psalm 115:6-8:

They have ears, but cannot hear,
noses, but they cannot smell;

they have hands, but cannot feel,
feet, but they cannot walk;

nor can they utter a sound with their throats.

Those who make them will be like them,
and so will all who trust in them.

Our God, on the other hand, is a sense-able God who asks to be worshiped in a sensual way.

When we try to worship through a computer screen, we have to first take leave of our senses.