The internet has become the hottest place to build a church with a growing number of congregations creating online offshoots that go far beyond streaming weekly services.
The sites are fully interactive, with a dedicated internet pastor, live chat in an online "lobby", Bible study, one-on-one prayer through IM and communion.(Viewers use their own bread and wine or water from home.)
On one site, viewers can click on a tab during worship to accept Christ as their saviour. Flamingo Road Church, based in Cooper City, Florida, twice conducted long-distance baptisms through the internet.
"The goal is to not let people at home feel like they're watching what's happening, but they're part of it. They're participating," said Brian Vasil, Flamingo Road's internet pastor.
The move online is forcing Christians to re-examine their idea of church. It's a complex discussion involving theology, tradition and cultural expectations of how Christians should worship and relate. Even developers of internet church sites disagree over how far they should go. Many, for example, will only conduct baptisms in person.
The staunchest critics say that true Christian community ultimately requires in-person interaction. They deride the sites as religious fast food or Christianity lite.
But advocates consider the internet just another neighbourhood where real relationships can be built. Rob Wegner, a pastor at Granger Community Church of Indiana, which will soon launch its internet campus, calls the web the church's "front porch". Pastors who back the sites say they feel a religious duty to harness this new way for reaching the spiritually lost.
At Seacoast Church, based in Mount Pleasant, South Carolina, online viewers can repent by posting a private record of their sins on a cross. Thumbnails of viewers' Facebook profiles appear during worship on Central Christian's Facebook Church so people can click on each others' pages to quickly connect.
On the Granger site, visitors will be able to choose "seats" in an auditorium, then click on surrounding seats to exchange Facebook and Twitter addresses.