I saw Matt Carlisle’s retweet of this John Saddington post about the IRS disallowing “church” status to “online only” uhhh  “churches”.  Quite the interesting issue,  given that  I am not the Netopian that I once was,  and fall on the  side of insisting that online activity should be considered an EXTENSION of what I can only refer to as “brick and mortar” church.  But it is complicated when we start creating divisions between “real” and “virtual” which many take to mean “real” vs “artificial”.  I still know that there are MANY instances where online communication is more REAL than supposed “real” face to face interactions,  taking into account how some social barriers and inhibitions one may face-to-face,  especially ftf with certain people,  may actually handicap or prevent such ftf interactions,  but blossom into great conversations  online. Then there’s the issue of “online worship”,  and what elements of worship can effectively exist  online,  and what,  if any,  cannot.

Here’s John’s summary/description of the IRS ruling:

The Court of Appeals essentially cited legal precedents which emphasized an associational test. This test defines a church as an organization where it’s members meet regularly for worship in a formalized fashion.

This will most certainly impact and bring to question the rise (and continued rise) of online gatherings with new web-based technologies. I know a few ministries that have contacted me personally in the past explaining how excited they were to create completely-online ministries and churches – they are climbing an uphill battle from a legal standpoint.
Federal Court: Online Worship is Not a Church | ChurchCrunch

I respond:

John,
Interesting. I come down in favor of providing online participatory and spectator/edification resources, but am unsure about “Online only” being rightfully called “Church”. I say this based on the concept of the church being the family of God, and I think we would have a bit more pause in considering a group of people who only interact online a “family” in the legal sense. There’s no arguing that families can extend and enhance their communication via online communication, and there’s no question in my mind that churches also can extend and enhance their life online. I’m not even against the idea of “Online Only” Christian education and para-church activity; but the FAMILY concept is what gives me pause on this one. I’ll definitely be blogging on this one. Thanks for posting it , John, and to Matt Carlisle for retweeting it (I saw Matt’s retweet first in my Twitter stream)
Dale

and add:

I also am much more concerned about the Google/Verizon issue; the idea of the wireless spectrum getting limited to “premium” content providers seems to me to be an ominous trend that will impact online efforts of churches and other non-profits much more than IRS status.

I wanted to get this ball rolling.  Visit the Church Crunch post link above ad read the comments.