Many Catholic churches big and small around New Zealand are streaming daily Mass online.

Many faith groups are having zoom and skype meetings.

And many virtual communities are forming to meet and pray online.

On its website, The Diocese of Auckland says "watching Mass online is not ideal and is offered only as an interim measure while public health issues persist."

"Many of this country's Catholic priests and bishops are streaming Mass each day, from their own homes, even though only they are able to be present in person," says Father John O'Connor, the church's Acting Director of Liturgy.

This follows the example of Pope Francis, who began live-streaming his daily morning Mass in the Vatican several weeks ago.

The Church is posting online Mass links on its National Liturgy Office website. The page has regular updates of links in New Zealand and overseas, including to the Pope's daily Mass, held at 7 pm New Zealand time.

The lockdown has coincided with the 40-day season of Lent and Easter, the most important days of the Christian calendar.

The diocese of Dunedin has a webpage with a collection of resources for use at home.

Source

• scoop.co.nz
• catholic.org.nz
• Image: business2community.com

Online church is not just necessary, it's important, even essential. The speed, convenience and world-wide reach of the internet is a wonderful tool. The digital world is a great place to network about faith.

But church will never be entirely digital. Screen-to-screen is no substitute for face-to-face. Digital reality cannot replace actual reality.

Real Church, But Not Enough Church
I've heard people complain that online church isn't real church. I disagree. Online church is real church for a lot of people.

Especially for those who are restricted from attending church IRL (In Real Life) because of handicaps, geography, work schedules, and more.

Online church is real church, but it's not enough church.

There are some aspects of church that we can get online, like teaching, worship, even conversation. Some churches have online pastors who are available to answer questions, receive prayer requests and lead people to Christ. That's real church!

But there are a lot of aspects of a full church experience that require flesh-and-blood people to actually hang out in the same physical space together.

From receiving communion, to laying on hands for prayer, to working out our conflicts, a full church experience requires our physical, human presence.

What If The Church Was Invented Today?
A couple years ago, I saw a commercial for an electric car. The ad was built around the question "What if the car was invented today?"

The answer, not surprisingly, was that there's no way we would be running our cars on fossil fuels. It would be as unimaginable as computers having a gas tank. It ended with the tag line, "The question isn't why electric?, it's why gas?" Continue reading

• Karl Vaters is pastor of Cornerstone Christian Fellowship in Fountain Valley, California.