Needed: Online Missional Strategist

by Mark Tidsworth, Team Leader

They are a church who is definitely being reshaped during this crazy time. They experienced several church traumas even before this Coronavirus came along, so they were eager to engage the ReShape Transforming Church Initiative, proactively hitting the reset button. During a recent coaching session with them, I learned they discovered potential grant funding through their denomination. Their pastor was on it, already identifying three possible ministry initiatives for their proposal. One of them caught my attention since it reflected something we are recommending to churches in these days. Unsure what to call it, their pastor simply said, “We need someone to lead our online ministry who wants to introduce those to Jesus who don’t know Jesus.

This pastor was describing the need for a new function in their church; either taking shape through a new staff position, through a team of disciples, through adjusting the current pastor’s job responsibilities, or through some other creative way. I was able to contribute a phrase we’ve been batting around in conversations - ”perhaps you need an Online Missional Strategist, or maybe an “Online Missioner.”

We were talking about the need for something different than an online communications coordinator. No, what we were discussing was a person(s) who see the internet as a legitimate place where many people gather, recognizing the missional opportunities for God’s Church online. This is a person(s) who recognizes we are Christ-followers wherever we are, called to join God’s mission to bring the kingdom to earth as it is in heaven, including online. This is a person who may coordinate a church’s online activity, but has a higher purpose and priority in their ministry – Christian formation and disciple development. Online Missioners or Online Missional Strategists are eager to engage others online around the good news of the gospel in all its various expressions. They are on the lookout for opportunities to engage disciples from their church and potential Christian disciples in discussions around the issues of our day in connection to faith. They host Bible studies, discussion groups, learning pods, and many other activities yet to be discovered…online. Online Missioners may be your church’s current pastor who senses a call to serve in this way, requiring the need to overhaul that pastor’s job description. Online Missioners may be a lay person who has a burning in their bones to serve in this way. But clearly, Online Missioners are not simply Communications Coordinators, as helpful as online coordination may be. These are people who sense God moving them to be the presence of Christ in our online world, leading our church’s online ministry efforts.

So who are the churches who would do this kind of thing; who would make a position for Online Missioner(s) or transform their pastor’s role toward these ends? Well, those churches who recognize the online nature of our world, to state the obvious. I suspect we will emerge from CoronavirusLand as hybrid churches who engage in-person and online participants. Those churches who insist on snapping-back to church-as-we-have-known-it will miss significant missional opportunities already underway. Those who recognize they opened their Satellite or Second Campus in early March will likely be those who continue those “campuses” when they have the opportunity to forsake them.

How about your church? Perhaps you are like the church who’s undergoing ReShaping, discovering emerging church practice in the now. May God bless us all as we follow Holy Spirit nudges while living in CoronavirusLand.