The church has generally done an OK job of going online over the past few months. It has provided a welcome option during this time when physically gathering for worship has not been an option.

But after over three months of being only online, a couple of things are clear.

First, many people aren’t coming back to worship very soon. Many places haven’t resumed worship and those who have are experiencing very low numbers or worshippers at their physical services.

Second, no matter what happens to our physical worship, most effective congregations are going to be online for the long term. It doesn’t matter whether your on-site worship is significant or missing in action. A big part of most congregation’s future will be online.

Since online worship is here for the long haul, if we are going to reach new people and provide an evangelical environment, then we have to begin to teach people to see online as more than a temporary place to hold us over until we can go back to normal. We have to see online ministry as real and here to stay.

It is time to stop thinking about online worship as transitional. In many congregations it is the primary ministry platform. If you don’t invite people to participate here, you have stopped inviting people completely – since no one is inviting anyone to on-site stuff right now.

Online invitations are not so different than invitations to physical gatherings. You have to have a missional and discipleship focused ministry, an effective faith community, and a good quality online worship experience to invite people to. People need to build meaningful relationships with people – either developing existing ones or meeting new people. And then people need to invite others to join them online and find ways to interact with their invitees before, during and after the online experience.

The skills and tools of invitation are, at their core, pretty simple and readily available. Part of what people need in order to share the church’s message of God’s love for us in Christ is encouragement and a bit more imagination. Your job as a leader can offer them both – no need to wait for physical worship to return to “normal” (whatever that is).