Opting to Worship Online
More college students turn to the Internet each Sunday
Ballahmoni Kollie
Issue date: 11/14/07 Section: Religion
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Pitts, a junior at Lincoln who hails from Greenville., S.C., prefers to watch her home church services on the Internet.
"I love watching my church on the Internet," says Pitts. "It makes me proud to see my pastor and get the weekly sermon every Sunday."
More and more college students who travel miles away to attend school, are turning to the Internet to watch and listen to their home church service. It is a way, they say, to remain connected to a religious style of worship that they have grown accustomed to over the years.
On a recent Sunday, Pitts is in the computer lab with headphones on mouthing her hallelujah's silently. She listens attentively to the choir and follows along as her pastor delivers the gospel.
Pitts does not feel obligated to log onto the website of the Redemption World Outreach Center, her home church back in Greenville, but says that the experience has become apart of her regular routine.
"I'm doing it for myself," she says.
Before she arrived at Lincoln, Pitts faithfully attended church with her family each Sunday. Like most religious students, when she arrived on campus, she was unsure of where she would worship. During her freshman year, she attended Chapel, but eventually stopped going.
She says that she was bothered that some students who attended Chapel on Sundays did not practice a religious life throughout the week.
"I'm not saying all of them were putting up a front, but some of them you can tell are faking," she says.
Shelly Aboagye, a junior, agrees.
"I love going to Chapel when Dr. Green is preaching," says Aboagye. "But when I see students who I see every weekend drinking and carrying on, I feel they are pretty much faking the Holy Ghost to show they are more holy than the rest of us in church."
Pitts says that she does not have to physically attend church services in order to worship God.
"I don't have to prove myself on the computer," she says. "I don't have to dress a certain way to go to church or worry about people talking about me. I feel free watching church on the Internet. I don't have to be in church to feel the spirit of the Lord."
In addition to the Internet, some students are also watching popular preachers on television. Bishop T.D. Jakes, and Bishop David G. Evans, an alumnus of Lincoln who serves on the Board of Trustees, broadcast weekly sermons on cable television that are popular with some religious students.
Pitts plans to stick with the Internet, saying that she feels incomplete if she misses a church service.
"I'm not saying I'm a saint, but church can save people and it has changed me," she says. "No matter if I am in church or in front of my computer, I still feel the spirit of the Lord."
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