Editor's note: This description, intentionally provided in approachable language, is meant to offer United Methodist pastors/leaders a way to explain the limits of the internet for worship to their communities. For an approach to this topic with more historical, liturgical, and theological history, see Using Our Rites and Resources.

Christians around the world have created ways to worship for when we are together as the whole congregation and when we are apart in our separate places, at home, or in a hospital, or somewhere away from most of the rest of the congregation.

When we are together for worship, we worship in ways that help us support each other together at the same time.

We sing hymns together at the same time. It’s good to hear each other sing. This helps each of us sing better.

We may pray at the same time. It’s good to hear each other pray. This helps us know we are being prayed for while we pray for others.

We may say we have done wrong, hear the pastor tell God forgives us, or say a creed together at the same time. It’s good to hear each other say these things. This helps us know all have done wrong, that God forgives each of us, and that we all have faith.

We can touch each other in a friendly way, with a handshake or a hug. It’s good to know and feel that we love each other.

And we can give and receive the same bread and cup with our own hands and our own mouths in the same place when we have the Lord’s Supper. It’s very good to know the bread we receive is the same bread we all prayed over, and the cup we share is the same cup we have all prayed over. This makes us know and feel we really are one in Jesus. 

When we are apart in our separate places, we may pray alone or with just a few others. It’s good to pray alone or with just a few others, but it is different than praying with others when we are all together. We can’t hear as many others at the same time. They can’t hear us at the same time. And we can’t touch or give anything to others in our church who aren’t with us. The pastor may visit to pray with us, especially if we are sick, or if we or someone we love is close to death. The pastor may hold our hands to comfort us or put oil on our foreheads to help us feel better, or make the sign of the cross to remind us we belong to Jesus while we live and even when we are about to die.

When we are together at our church or other places where all of us can be together, we can have baptisms, or we can see people getting married, or we can give and receive the same bread and cup at communion.

When the only way we can be together is through the internet, by watching worship leaders on a screen, it resembles when we are apart. We can’t pray together at the same time. It sounds bad. We can’t sing together at the same time. It sounds very bad! And we can’t touch each other or give each other anything other than looks or sounds. There are times when touch is very important. Being able to touch or hug can make us all feel happier at weddings, and help others feel better at services for those who have died.

It may make us sad that we can’t do a lot of the things we can do when we are together, even with the internet. The pastor can’t put water on someone to baptize them if they aren’t in the same place together. The people who serve communion can’t give people who are not there the same bread and cup over which they prayed together at the same time. Through the internet, we can’t touch or hug the people we see on the screen when they are happy, because they just got married, or the people who are sad because someone they love has died. We each know that physical presence is necessary for our most sacred transitions: baptism, marriage, and death. None of that works over the internet. 

We are sad when we can’t be together. We are sad when we can’t do the things we like to do when we are together.

So while we can’t be together, remember what we can still do. The internet can help us see and hear each other a little more than if we didn’t have it. It just can’t help us touch the people we see on our screen, like at weddings or funerals, or give things to them, like at baptism or the Lord’s Supper, or receive things from them, like a handshake or a hug when we share the Peace.

It’s okay to feel sad about what we can’t do while we are apart.

Yet it’s also good to remember what we can still do.

And it’s even better to think how happy we will be when we can be together again, and do the things we can do when we are together!