A myth is growing in some circles of the blogosphere that online church is not good, not healthy, and not biblical. If we read carefully the criticisms levied against internet campuses, they boil down to some very common and tired themes: Internet campuses and online churches are not true churches because they don't look like and feel like churches are expected to look like and feel like (in the West, anyway). Arguments against virtual church follow the idea that if it doesn't look like church, feel like church, swim like church, or quack like church, it's not a church. This may be a useful test for ducks, but churches are far more complex animals.

This myth is causing even open-minded people to have doubts about whether a church online can be ‘real.' Let's lay aside for a moment that nowhere in the Bible does it preclude online church, in any way. Let's lay aside the fact that church history almost nowhere would lead someone to conclude that a virtual church is not valid (the lesson of ...