IRL - Online as it is in Heaven

Phillip Dieke

For nearly a decade, the youth, college, and young adult ministries I led were built around programs: weekly worship services, Bible studies, and service events filled the calendars of already overly programmed people. While these offerings were meaningful and often built community, they didn’t always lead to deeper spiritual formation. And what about those whose schedules didn’t allow them to attend? I began to wonder: What if we stopped asking people to come to church at a set time and instead met them where they already were—on their terms, in their space?

My first experiment was a hybrid Bible study for young adults. Many of them traveled frequently for work and couldn’t attend midweek gatherings. So, I moved our study to Google Hangouts (this was pre-Zoom). It allowed people to join from anywhere, and the “public,” searchable format even welcomed guests from around the world. It was an exciting and productive experiment until one evening, a participant took offense at my progressive interpretation of Scripture. After a heated exchange, they hijacked the session and shut it down. That moment made it clear: I couldn’t simultaneously teach in- person and moderate an online space. And while hybrid gatherings helped bridge geographic gaps, they still required people to be available at a specific time.

Soon after, I pitched the idea of starting a podcast. Unlike scheduled programs, podcasts offered asynchronous connection—people could engage whenever and wherever it worked for them. We launched Scripture Unscripted as a digital-first approach to discipleship. Each week, we read a passage of Scripture and reflected on it through the lenses of tradition, reason, and experience—epistomolgical pillars of our United Methodist theology. Occasionally, we invited guests to share their insights or lived experiences with the text. Over nearly three years, we built an international audience of 3,000 listeners—something that felt significant at the time.

We later launched a second podcast, Ruminate This, a daily contemplative reading of Scripture using the ancient practice of lectio divina. This offering invited listeners to engage Scripture not just with their minds, but with their hearts. While we were encouraged by stories of people encountering Scripture in new ways, we also missed the sense of community that often comes with shared physical space.

These early experiments opened my eyes to the potential of digital ministry. I became an early advocate for reaching people who might never walk through our church doors. But not everyone saw the value. Even when our “Ask a Pastor” page became the second-highest result on Google for that search term (second only to askapastor.com), and I was fielding questions about faith, theology, and our church from people around the world, some colleagues questioned whether this was a good use of my time. There was a persistent belief that digital ministry was somehow “less than” in-person ministry—some even doubted whether it was real ministry at all.

During this season, I fortunately connected with Sarah Stonesifer Boylan, the Digital Missioner at Virginia Theological Seminary. Through her work, I found a network of others exploring digital ministry. It was there I met Rev. Jim Keat, Digital Minister at The Riverside Church, who said something that has stayed with me:

“Virtual isn’t the opposite of real. It’s the opposite of physical. And they are both real.”

That insight has become a guiding principle in my work. The experiences people have listening to a podcast, joining an online Bible study, or building community in digital spaces may not look like traditional church—but they are no less real.

As a United Methodist, my ministry and theology have been influenced by John Wesley. When he took the Gospel to the coal mines people questioned if it wasreal. Sharing the Gospel to the poor working in the coil mines was a very different experience than sharing it from a pulpit in a chapel. The experience was different, but it was very real. Wesley went beyond the bounds of the norm to take the church where the people are. Digital ministry is showing us the Gospel is not bound by walls, the Spirit is not limited by geography, and just as grace shows up in bread and grain it also shows up through bits and bytes