The Fading of Face-to-Face Fellowship

Welcome to another Thursday UNFILTERED blog post, the only blog that thinks the disciples falling asleep in Gethsemane proves small groups had attendance issues from the beginning.

Not long ago, followers of Jesus were starved for real, live gathering. I’m not talking about the kind you get at a Sunday morning service where you listen to the same person speak for 25 to 45 minutes and shake the hand of the stranger in the nearby pew for three seconds. (“Not that there’s anything wrong with that.” HT to Seinfeld)

I’m talking about the conference, the mastermind, the convention. These weren’t line items on a calendar. They were pilgrimages that people were excited to attend.

People drew from their savings and burned vacation days to sit in a room under teaching and preaching that lit them on fire, to sing to the true God next to people who walked out as family, to be wrecked by something no download could ever hand them.

In-person presence was worth the price.

I remember the first conference I attended where my mentors Stephen Kaung (co-worker with Watchman Nee) and DeVern Fromke (co-worker with T. Austin-Sparks) ministered. The experience is forever burned into the circuitry of my brain.

I gladly paid the registration fee and drove from Florida to Richmond. (And I hate driving long distances worse than I hate poison).

But for me, it was well worth the inconvenience.

Today? The fire for in-person events has cooled to a flicker.

* There is little interest among today’s leaders in hosting a Christian conference on the deeper things of God.

* In the rare cases where there is one, registrations crawl. Even veteran leaders would rather stay home than book the flight.

* Most leaders—pastors, teachers, preachers—show little interest in ministry masterminds where they could connect with fellow leaders. Thank God some do. In my book, those are the elites in God’s work today.

What changed?

Streaming, YouTube talks, and podcasts have turned ministry into a vending machine. It’s available anytime, anywhere, no shirt required.

And convenience did what convenience always does. It whispered that showing up in the flesh is optional and that the same benefits could be secured simply by watching or listening on your phone.

Why drive four hours or fly across the country when the message lands in your earbuds in four seconds?

2020 really hit the brakes. The pandemic trained an entire generation to accept a glowing rectangle as a stand-in for the real thing.

Stir in exhausted schedules, zero margin, and a slow-drip individualism that treats faith like a private snack instead of a shared inheritance, and you get exactly what you’d expect.

Most Christians today consume more and share less. More content. Less life. Less transformation.

But something dies in that trade.

Transformation shows up stronger wearing skin. It comes through people you can see, touch, and get gloriously interrupted by. The hand on your shoulder mid-prayer. The testimonial spilled over a shared meal.

Listening and watching to someone preach down heaven live and in person.

When it comes to live spoken ministry vs. watching or listening to a YouTube talk, the difference is enormous. (I explained the difference in a recent article called The Supreme Artists.)

None of this travels through a fiber-optic cable or a Wi-Fi router.

So here’s the dare: Fence off your calendar for in-person gatherings that cost you something. Pay the registration fee. Book the plane ticket. Take the seat. Shake the hand. Smile at the face in front of you.

If you’re a pastor or church network leader, host a conference that focuses on the deep things of God. Lord knows we need them in this hour of profound shallowness.

Don’t play the game and invite the celebrities, but bring in those who major in the deeper life.

Human presence (in-person interaction) isn’t waste to be trimmed for efficiency. It’s the soil in which genuine discipleship grows.

A screen can inform you. But what happens in the room better forms you.

These testimonials from deeper life conferences illustrate my point.

Related:

A Full Immersion Conference (No Shallow End)

Live Seminars (upon invitation)