I was thinking about this the other day. Why are we doing ‘streamed’ worship, with so much emphasis on the ‘live – in real time’ aspect? I mean, really, wouldn’t it work just as well to just post videos or music to the site rather than going to all the effort of making sure everyone can access what is happening in real time?
I suppose there are different answers for that. For me, one of the answers is that worship is about connecting. It’s about connecting to God, of course, but it’s also about connecting to one another. To get pedantic, even for the ancient Hebrew people (during their journey through the wilderness, for example) heading to the Tabernacle was a group celebration; they were in this thing together.
There’s something different about being part of a group of people engaged in musical worship than there is in having my iPod on and engaging in some one-on-one soaking; in the group context we are all sharing the same concepts about God at the same time, or singing the same words to Him at the same time… even if I’m lost in my own world in a group worship context, I’m still ‘connected’ to those around me; I’ve still experienced the same ‘worship time’ they have, even if my journey was personal and distinct from what the others around me experienced. And that only happens in the collected multi-person situation (meaning when I’m with other people!).
On occasion I’ve left a particularly impacting public worship time with a real sense of awe and wonder, and I’ve known – through talking with others – that other people had the same experience. That became something we shared. That doesn’t happen from my ‘alone’ times of worship; I can still connect to God and have a profound exchange with Him – and I wouldn’t trade those times for anything – but I can’t really share that with anyone around me. Only in the group setting is there the chance to share the experience of true worship with other human beings.
It’s the same for this new-fangled idea of online live worship, I’d say: if I’m not able to be in the Café with a bunch of friends while the worship session is happening, I can still connect with the larger group by experiencing it ‘live – in real time’ on my computer.
At the bottom of the Worship Café viewer there is the “Live Feed” section where anyone is free to add comments. Usually the comments I see there are from people saying what they liked about the worship time they just ‘watched’. (We’re thinking of changing the title on that little posting section from “Live Feed” to something like “What’s on your mind?” or something like that, because we’d really like it to be a place where we can all interact about what we might be hearing or sensing or feeling while the live worship is actually happening). Some of the coolest times have happened when someone will make a comment on the post and then someone else will reply to that comment; a back-and-forth dialogue will emerge, and there’s something so cool about knowing that I’m “live”, in the moment, in real-time, experiencing something with someone from the other side of the country (literally) or wherever, and that we can communicate about what’s going on for each of us in that moment. That’s very cool. Even if I’m not part of the dialogue and am just seeing an exchange develop between others, it is still a wonderful sensation to know that other people are interacting in this worship time that I’m a part of right in this moment.
There is a lot of talk in the media and pop psychology these days about how we as a society are growing more insulated from one another, even while online social networks develop and get stronger, et cetera. To my way of thinking, live streamed real-time worship is a way we can actually connect. Connection, after all, happens in real time, not in posting a message and receiving a reply a couple of hours or days later. To me, the privilege of having a site like worshipcafe.net where I’m able to interact with worshippers from all over right in the moment when live worship is going on, even if I’m not in the same room as the others are, is a valuable concept that I want to both enjoy and explore even more.
To me that’s worth the effort it takes to stream this worship live right while it’s happening.
What about you? I’d love to hear what you think about this…
- Malcolm
- Malcolm
