Ripon's innovate webchurch featured in The New Statesman

The Church on the Net, the innovative website on Christian faith begun by a church in Ripon, features in the current edition of The New Statesman magazine.

In a guest article, The Age of the E-Church, Nicola David, project leader of the Church on the Net and a member of Holy Trinity, Ripon,  writes about the sites purpose and its claim to be a web church. “The big question around online churches usually centres around ‘But is it really church?’. For online gatherings of Christian believers, this may be a more crucial question. For Church on the Net, however, where its visitors tend to have had little or no contact with Christianity, church can be a much looser concept” writes Nicola.

She adds, “If a visitor learns a little about Jesus, reads a line or two of scripture, feels challenged to consider their spirituality, and is moved to say the short prayer published each week, who is to say that’s not church for that person, at that time?”

The Church on the Net began in July 2007 and aims to explain core elements of Christian belief, allowing visitors to remain anonymous. In the New Statesman article, Nicola says that it has proved an important and effective website for individuals. “Some very moving personal testimonies have emerged from people who have belonged to Church on the Net, developed their belief there, and used it as a springboard into a physical church.”

Click here to read the New Statesman article, the Age of the E-Church.

Click here to visit the Church on the Net.