Keeping the faith from comfort of home
Virtual reality, apps help churches reach outside their walls
“In some parts of the country, people are expected to attend Wednesday, Sunday morning and Sunday evening services. That’s a lot of commitment.” Lauren Hunter, founder, ChurchTechToday
Instead of ceremoniously sitting in a sanctuary on Easter Sunday like millions of Americans, dozens of experience-driven parishioners from all around the world took a walk into Jesus’ tomb, peering at the massive stone that once blocked the entrance before taking a tour of the cross where their savior was crucified.
No plane tickets to Jerusalem were required. All they needed was an internet connection and a VR headset.
This is a radical change from how many experienced church as kids.
“When I grew up, there was no such thing as tech in church. You weren’t allowed to text, you weren’t allowed to take videos, you weren’t even allowed to have a phone,” said Lasha Hubbard, 26, who attends New Direction Baptist Church in Nashville.
“If it wasn’t in the book – meaning the hard copy Bible – you couldn’t use it. Today, everywhere you turn, there’s someone using an app or looking up at a screen.”
As churches across the nation install giant screens in the sanctuary and professional-grade cameras to live stream services, others are embracing technology on a whole new level.
Some perform digital baptisms where avatars are immersed in pools of watercolored pixels. More exist entirely online with no geographical footprint, while others recruit coders to develop apps to enhance Sunday service.
Virtual reality
“We are leaving the information age and entering the experience age of VR (virtual reality) and AR (augmented reality),” said D.J. Soto, pastor of VR Church, which he says is one of the first fully computer-generated religious institutions.
One week, churchgoing avatars attended service on top of a skyscraper that’s hovering in the clouds. By the next week, they could be teleported into a grassy field with a Dubai-like skyline in the background.
Roughly 150 people attend each week. “Our sermons are less stage-delivered,” Soto said. “They’re more engaging. We want people to really experience the Scripture, so I’ll have everyone follow me as we go through the story.”
To attend the church, congregants with virtual reality headsets use AltspaceVR, a social media platform that provides digital meeting spaces for avatars. On AltspaceVR, there’s a calendar that lists events you can attend such as computer-generated comedy nights and cyber open-mic nights. The events list is home to Soto’s VR church.
Soto set out to create a “radically inclusive” worshipping experience after quitting his job at a megachurch in Reading, Pennsylvania, in 2016. Months later, Soto started the virtual reality congregation.
“There are certain conversations that are tough to have in physical churches,” Soto said, “And some people who don’t identify with any specific religion may have a hard time finding where they fit in.”
Soto’s computer-generated church aims to fill that gap.
The digital pastor says the simulated environment is welcoming to people with religious traditions and atheists alike. “Let’s have discussions for or against God, and let’s be respectful. Everybody is invited to a VR church,” Soto said.
Embracing technology and radical inclusivity might help churches like Soto’s survive during a time when adults of all ages are leaving religious institutions in record numbers.
Unsurprisingly, millennials are leading the wave.
Just 42% of the connected generation are members of churches, while 62% of Gen Xers attended church when they were about the same age as millennials, according to a new Gallup poll.
Since 2000, when 70% of Americans went to church, baby boomers’ attendance dropped by 8%, and traditionalists (born in 1945 or before) dropped by 9%. Now, the percentage of Americans who report belonging to a church, synagogue or mosque is at an all-time low – averaging 50% in 2018, Gallup found.
Online church
While only half of Americans attend church, more than three-quarters (77%) say that they identify with organized religion. So decreasing in-person membership could contribute to an uptick in virtual churchgoing.
“Nowadays, you can really build out your own faith plan without going to church,” said Lauren Hunter, who founded ChurchTechToday, an online technology resource for pastors. Hunter noted that people may choose to listen to religious podcasts or watch worship leaders on YouTube instead of attending a physical church.
Live-streaming church services is nothing new, and religious groups have been making recordings of their sermons and selling them ever since cassette tapes were popularized.
What’s different today is that some pastors don’t preach out of a physical church at all. While not going as far as virtual and augmented reality services, they’re fully digital.
“Many churches depended on people walking in, and we’re going into a phase where less people are doing so. Now we have to be more proactive, so we can really amplify what we’re about,” said Jay Kranda, an online campus pastor at Saddleback Church, based in Lake Forest, California.
Kranda became an online pastor in 2012, overseeing a weekly crowd of 20,000 people who watch for 30 minutes or more on average.
“In the beginning, a lot of churches thought the internet would hurt and keep people from coming. But it’s actually one of the best ways to reach new people,” Kranda said. He engages with the congregation through various livestream services and apps such as WhatsApp and Facebook.
One of the most common criticisms of digital churches is that it contributes to a growing isolation epidemic, which is recognized by the medical community as having physical, mental and emotional consequences. So Kranda tries to funnel members of the online congregation to a local church.
“In some ways, I’m responsible for what I’m enabling,” Kranda says. “Loneliness is a big issue, and we talk about things like that . ... The fear is that people just watch online and think they’re a part of our church.”
Solely watching and engaging with church online isn’t just a fear. It’s a trend.
Some people call themselves “bedside Baptists” and “pillow Presbyterians,” for example, meaning loosely that their spiritual journey may not always require that they attend a physical service.
“Over time, people have sort of shifted their priorities,” Hunter said. “Not that church isn’t a priority, but in some parts of the country, people are expected to attend Wednesday, Sunday morning and Sunday evening services. That’s a lot of commitment.”
Apps
That type of perpetual attendance “isn’t sustainable in the world we live in today,” Hunter said, so parishioners embrace digital technology to “replace all the extra Bible study or mid-week fellowship with live streams and apps.”
Churchome Global is another example of where the online digital church may be headed.
The app, which is the brainchild of celebrity pastors Judah and Chelsea Smith, lets users pray for fellow members by pressing their thumbs against prayer emojis as rotating hearts float from the bottom of the screen.
The Churchome Global app is billed as “a new way to church” as congregants are encouraged to post, share and attend digital events.
Churchome says the app was created to engage people who wouldn’t otherwise go to church.
Other churches have apps that allow users to monitor their local events calendar and register for small group gatherings, while new apps like ChurchRyde enable people to carpool to and from Sunday services.