Are the growing number of people attending online services really going to church? Patricia Engler makes a strong case here with an exhaustive analysis that virtual churches cannot experience real fellowship.

“Can virtual churches have real fellowship? This question matters not only because Americans are reporting less in-person religious service attendance amid more online attendance but also because virtual technologies continue advancing. Multiple churches hold services in entirely digital environments,3 raising questions about what unintended consequences this use of technology may entail. On the plus side, technologies that allow virtual church participation have blessed countless people who, whether for health or other reasons, cannot physically attend church. But for Christians who can attend, does in-person fellowship matter? . . . In the end, examining the concepts of koinonia, the church, virtuality, technology, and anthropology through a biblical worldview lens reveals that fellowship as God intended involves embodied dimensions that virtual environments cannot replicate.”