Page 35 - Digital Church in a Lonely World

According to the writer of Hebrews, laying on of hands is considered a doctrine, right alongside baptism.

Take a look at some other examples of laying on hands in the New Testament:

ACTS 8:18 (NLT)
18
When Simon saw that the Spirit was given when the apostles laid their hands on people, he
offered them money to buy this power.

1 TIMOTHY 4:14 (NLT)
14
Do not neglect the spiritual gift you received through the prophecy spoken over you when the
elders of the church laid their hands on you.

Can this be cleanly substituted by a prayer app?

To be clear, casually attending an in-person church service does not necessarily provide all of these
elements of community. I’ve pastored long enough to know that people can arrive late, leave early
and attend a church for many years with minimal human interaction. That’s why the conversation
should not be about whether in-person services are better than online. Rather, it should be about
understanding biblical community and using every tool at our disposal to achieve it.

In-person church attendance is not a magic bullet, but it provides

dimensions of human experience that, up to this point, are not
available to be substituted for online tools.

We know that simply attending a weekend church service is not a guarantee of community, but it does
play an important role in bringing people together. Once we are together, we must still decide if we are
going to an event or if we are a part of a mutually contributing community. In my own local church
community, it feels like there is a constant need to educate people that church is not an event, it is a step
toward real-life relationships.

In-person church attendance is not a magic bullet, but it provides dimensions of human experience that,
up to this point, cannot be substituted with online tools.

DIGITAL CHURCH IN A LONELY WORLD 35