Dr. James Emery White

The idea of a hybrid church is simple. When we talk about a hybrid vehicle, we are talking about something that uses two or more distinct types of power, such as a submarine that uses diesel when surfaced and batteries when submerged, or a car that runs on gas and electricity. When we are talking about a hybrid church, we are talking about a church that is also harnessing two types of power—the physical and the digital.

The digital revolution has taken place. There’s no going back. Churches will either embrace the new world – which means the new mission field and the new way of reaching it – or become obsolete, irrelevant, and completely out of touch with the world they are trying to reach.

But what does that mean? What would a strategy, based on this, look like? I’ve written an entire book to answer that question, titled Hybrid Church, but let me introduce its depth in a simple way. The church I founded more than 30 years ago, Mecklenburg Community Church (Meck), has always had a strategy. And, for more than 30 years, it hasn’t changed.

The steps themselves are probably not new to your thinking, but the way they are applied – at least, in a truly hybrid model – may be. By truly going hybrid, Meck is growing faster now than at any other time in its history. Our average in-person attendance from January to June of this year compared to January to June of last year has increased by 40%. Our online attendance has increased by 50%.

So what are we doing differently as a hybrid church? First, here’s our six-step strategy:

Meck’s Six-Step Hybrid Strategy

1. Hi!

2. Come and See

3. Get Connected

4. Cross the Line

5. Grow

6. Make a Difference

Now, to explain how becoming hybrid changes things, let’s detail the first three steps, beginning with “Hi!”

Step One: “Hi!”

The first step is to reach out to a post-Christian, unchurched world and say, “Hi!”; meaning, introducing ourselves to who it is we are trying to reach. The first thing we want to do is initiate some kind of relationship with people, some point of contact.

That’s been at the forefront of Meck’s strategy from day one. We build a relationship with someone who isn’t involved in a church and/or who isn’t in a relationship with God. This used to be done solely through personal interaction. We would talk about the importance of intentionally building relationships outside of the church. For example, I did it through coaching my son’s basketball teams and getting to know the parents of the other kids. Or through strategic patronage—building a relationship with a barista or the person who cuts my hair. Reaching out to neighbors, friends, coworkers, family.

This has been foundational to our thinking and our way of living out our mission, and it still is. Without a doubt, the way someone far from God draws close to God is if someone close to God goes far to reach them. 

But in a hybrid world, you need to have the digital come alongside the physical. The online with the embodied. So starting with “Hi!” means not only a physical hand across a backyard fence, but also a digital hand across an online fence.

The importance of this can’t be overstated.

James Carville was the lead political strategist for the successful election of Bill Clinton, then governor of Arkansas, to the Presidency of the United States. He distilled the campaign to three messages: “Change vs. more of the same,” “Don’t forget health care,” and most importantly, “It’s the economy, stupid.” 

The U.S. was in the midst of an economic recession, and the incessant focus on the economy by Clinton ended with his unseating of then President George H.W. Bush. This despite Bush earlier polling a 90% approval rating following the invasion of Kuwait. If you didn’t live through that like I did, it’s hard to convey how stunning that political turnaround was. But Carville was right in seeing that the real issue – what mattered most to people – was the economy, and then painting Clinton as the one best able to turn it around.

If I had to distill a message to pastors, church leaders, and any and all others interested in the vitality of the church in relation to the practice of ministry, it would be this:

“It’s the internet, stupid.” 

It’s where we now say “Hi!” It’s where the majority of the people you are trying to reach live. 

Americans, on average, visit more than eight websites a day, amounting to more than 3,000 websites per year. As the chief marketing officer at Squarespace said, “Browsing the web plays a central role in our daily lives.” One could even argue that it plays the central role. 

Yet one recent study found that only 21% of church leaders agreed that they have a “well-defined digital ministry strategy to engage with people who are outside the church and outside the faith.” Which means, of course, that almost 80% don’t.

So step one in our six-step strategy is to say “Hi!” to the unchurched world, to build a relationship, and to do it both in person and online. 

And the ways you do that are not complicated. You have an online presence – an online existence – that is interactive and welcoming. And you make sure your website, your postings on Instagram and TikTok and X, your digital marketing, an online campus and services are all designed to reach out.

But then, of course, comes step two: “Come and See.” And in a hybrid world, that has changed, too.

And that’s what we’ll explore in the next blog.

James Emery White

 

Sources

James Emery White, Hybrid Church (Zondervan), order from Amazon.

Kate Mabus, “Online or In-Person? Gen Z and Millennials Find Digital Life More Memorable, Study Shows,” USA Today, July 1, 2021, read online.

Carey Nieuwhof, “3 Shocking Statistics That Show How Quickly, Radically (and Permanently?) Church Has Changed Since 2020,” read online.

About the Author

James Emery White is the founding and senior pastor of Mecklenburg Community Church in Charlotte, NC, and a former professor of theology and culture at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, where he also served as their fourth president. His latest book, Hybrid Church: Rethinking the Church for a Post-Christian Digital Age, is now available on Amazon or from your favorite bookseller. To enjoy a free subscription to the Church & Culture blog, visit churchandculture.org where you can view past blogs in our archive, read the latest church and culture news from around the world, and listen to the Church & Culture Podcast. Follow Dr. White on X, Facebook and Instagram at @JamesEmeryWhite.

James Emery White is the founding and senior pastor of Mecklenburg Community Church in Charlotte, NC, and a former professor of theology and culture at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, where he also served as their fourth president. His latest book, Hybrid Church: Rethinking the Church for a Post-Christian Digital Age, is now available on Amazon or from your favorite bookseller. To enjoy a free subscription to the Church & Culture blog, visit churchandculture.org where you can view past blogs in our archive, read the latest church and culture news from around the world, and listen to the Church & Culture Podcast. Follow Dr. White on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram at @JamesEmeryWhite.

Editor’s Note: This blog is a favorite of the Church & Culture Team and has become a Thanksgiving tradition. Enjoy, and Happy Thanksgiving!

The barracks where Corrie ten Boom and her sister, Betsy, were kept in the Nazi concentration camp Ravensbruck were terribly overcrowded and flea-infested.

Corrie and Betsy had been able to miraculously smuggle a Bible into the camp, and in that Bible they had read that in all things they were to give thanks and that God can use anything for good.

Betsy decided that this meant thanking God for the fleas.

This was too much for Corrie, who said she could do no such thing. Betsy insisted, so Corrie gave in and prayed to God, thanking Him even for the fleas.

Over the next several months a wonderful, but curious, thing happened: They found that the guards never entered their barracks. 

This meant that the women were not assaulted. 

It also meant that they were able to do the unthinkable, which was to hold open Bible studies and prayer meetings in the heart of a Nazi concentration camp.

Through this, countless numbers of women came to faith in Christ.

Only at the end did they discover why the guards had left them alone and would not enter their barracks:

It was because of the fleas.

This Thanksgiving, give thanks to God for every good and perfect gift (James 1:17), but also thank Him for how He will use all things for good in the lives of those who trust Him (Romans 8:28). 

In a time of economic uncertainty, in a time when many are facing physical and emotional challenges, there can be little doubt that such a trusting prayer of gratitude will be challenging to consider.

But when you feel that challenge, take a moment and remember the fleas of Ravensbruck.

And thank God anyway.

James Emery White

Sources    

Corrie ten Boom, The Hiding Place.

About the Author

James Emery White is the founding and senior pastor of Mecklenburg Community Church in Charlotte, NC, and a former professor of theology and culture at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, where he also served as their fourth president. His latest book, Hybrid Church: Rethinking the Church for a Post-Christian Digital Age, is now available on Amazon or from your favorite bookseller. To enjoy a free subscription to the Church & Culture blog, visit churchandculture.org where you can view past blogs in our archive, read the latest church and culture news from around the world, and listen to the Church & Culture Podcast. Follow Dr. White on X, Facebook and Instagram at @JamesEmeryWhite.    

James Emery White is the founding and senior pastor of Mecklenburg Community Church in Charlotte, NC, and a former professor of theology and culture at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, where he also served as their fourth president. His latest book, Hybrid Church: Rethinking the Church for a Post-Christian Digital Age, is now available on Amazon or from your favorite bookseller. To enjoy a free subscription to the Church & Culture blog, visit churchandculture.org where you can view past blogs in our archive, read the latest church and culture news from around the world, and listen to the Church & Culture Podcast. Follow Dr. White on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram at @JamesEmeryWhite.

It takes courage to be a parent today.

First, there is the erosion of childhood. One of sociologist Neil Postman’s most provocative works was titled The Disappearance of Childhood. His thesis was that children are being robbed of their innocence, their naiveté, their ability to even be a child. He contended that in our world, we ask children to embrace mature issues, themes and experiences long before they are ready. Or, as Postman put it, in having access to the previously hidden fruit of adult information, the child is expelled from the garden of childhood. 

What Postman predicted has, of course, come true. It is virtually uncontested among sociologists that the behavior, language, attitudes and desires – even the physical appearance – of adults and children are becoming indistinguishable. This has led to a new and startling cultural trend, which is the tendency of children to grow older younger.

Related to the disappearance of childhood is the rise of sexual fluidity. A recent Gallup poll found that 5.6% of U.S. adults identify as LGBTQ. But one in six in Generation Z consider themselves LGBTQ. That is 15.9% of the entire generation, or at least those age 18 to 23, which was the age segment surveyed. As the Gallup research found, it’s not so much a true shift in sexual orientation, but rather a new openness to all things sexual. Generation Z has become sexually and relationally amorphous. It’s the refusal of either the homosexual or heterosexual label, the male or female label. The idea is that all labels are repressive. Sexuality should be set free of any and all restrictions and allowed to follow its desire, moment by moment.

Which brings us to a third reason courage is so desperately needed: the digital revolution. While Baby Boomers can’t remember a world without TV, and Millennials can’t remember a world without computers, “Gen Z does not know a world without constant, immediate and convenient access to the web.” When Steve Jobs announced the original iPhone as little more than a combination of “three revolutionary projects” – iPod, phone, internet connectivity – even he didn’t know what had been unleashed. And make no mistake—the iPhone changed the world.

And it’s changed the parenting dynamic in so many ways.

For one thing, it means they are able to be the most independent generation in history. They are the first generation to have the “ability to find whatever they’re after without the help of intermediaries – such as libraries, shops or teachers,” or parents. They just Google it. This has made them more self-directed than any other generation before them. But it also makes them the most vulnerable. Never before has there been such a wide chasm between almost unlimited access to information, and almost no access to wisdom.

One more reason for courage: the new post-Christian reality. There have only been three eras in relation to the Christian faith: pre-Christian, Christian, and now post-Christian. 

I think most of us have heard about the rise of the “nones.” The “nones” are the religiously unaffiliated. When asked about their religion or faith affiliation on various surveys and polls, they do not answer “Baptist” or “Catholic” or any other defined faith. They simply say, “I’m nothing,” or check “none.”

When I first begin researching and writing about the nones, they made up one out of every five Americans, which made them the second largest religious group in the United States—second only to Catholics. Not only that, but they were also the fastest growing religious group in the nation. In 2021, the percentage of Americans who self-designated as atheist, agnostic or of no particular faith rose to 29% of all U.S. adults. That is nearly one out of every three adults, up 10 percentage points from when surveyed in 2011. Parents are now raising children in a post-Christian world.

So what is a parent to do? Just throw up their hands and give up?

No. 

It is a time for courage. Specifically, to be informed, be involved, and be in charge.

First, be informed. To be informed is to know what is going on in your child’s world. To be up-to-date, current, knowledgeable. You know what they’re doing and who they’re doing it with. Yet one study found that more than 60% of all parents have never checked their child’s devices, such as their smartphone, iPad or gaming console.

Second, be involved. To be involved means that you are part of their world. You are not a spectator, you’re a participant. Most parents actually do pretty good with this. They take involvement seriously. They are at the soccer games, they are coaching little league, they are invested in their kid’s schools, they are present and accounted for.

It’s the third one that is tricky. Because not only are parents to be informed and involved, they must also be in charge. To be in charge means you are leading their world, creating their world, shaping their world.

And that’s where courage is most needed.

Because it means the following are not in charge:

Your kids.
What other kids do.
What other parents allow their kids to do.
What the dominant cultural values says kids should do.

You and only you should be in charge. But that’s going to take courage, because where you need to be in charge is precisely where you are being challenged not to be. For example, I recently read an article that quoted a child-development expert who said you shouldn’t do any disciplining at all. In fact, you shouldn't do anything that would establish any authority over your children at all.

So let us be clear: we live in a day where there is the disappearance of childhood,

... a digital revolution,

... a rise in sexual fluidity,

... and a decisively post-Christian world.

Which means parents will have to be informed, involved and in charge.

And that, above all else, will take one thing:

Courage.

James Emery White

 

Sources

Neil Postman, The Disappearance of Childhood.

James Emery White, Church in An Age of Crisis (Baker).

“‘Millennials on Steroids’: Is Your Brand Ready for Generation Z?”, Knowledge @ Wharton, September 28, 2015, read online.

Nisha Lilia Diu, “Look out, Generation Z is about to enter your workplace,” The Telegraph, July 19, 2015, read online.

James Emery White, The Rise of the Nones (Baker).

Alexandra Berger, “Most Parents Never Check Their Children’s Devices,” The HR Director, October 7, 2019, read online.

Joe Pinsker, “What ‘Go to Your Room’ Teaches Kids About Dealing With Emotions,” The Atlantic, October 12, 2018, read online.

About the Author

James Emery White is the founding and senior pastor of Mecklenburg Community Church in Charlotte, NC, and a former professor of theology and culture at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, where he also served as their fourth president. His latest book, Hybrid Church: Rethinking the Church for a Post-Christian Digital Age, is now available on Amazon or from your favorite bookseller. To enjoy a free subscription to the Church & Culture blog, visit churchandculture.org where you can view past blogs in our archive, read the latest church and culture news from around the world, and listen to the Church & Culture Podcast. Follow Dr. White on X, Facebook and Instagram at @JamesEmeryWhite.    

James Emery White is the founding and senior pastor of Mecklenburg Community Church in Charlotte, NC, and a former professor of theology and culture at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, where he also served as their fourth president. His latest book, Hybrid Church: Rethinking the Church for a Post-Christian Digital Age, is now available on Amazon or from your favorite bookseller. To enjoy a free subscription to the Church & Culture blog, visit churchandculture.org where you can view past blogs in our archive, read the latest church and culture news from around the world, and listen to the Church & Culture Podcast. Follow Dr. White on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram at @JamesEmeryWhite.