(Yahoo! Internet Life Magazine,
December 1998, pg. 78)
Dave Arch got his start in a garage in 1974. He grew his
organization and nurtured it, then, earlier this year, he created
a virtual storefront and moved his expertise exclusively to the
Web.
Sounds like a classic story of a high-tech garage start-up, doesn't
it? The thing is, Arch, isn't running a business, he's running
a ministry.
Arch might be better known to Netizens as the pastor in Ask-A-Pastor!,
which is the name of the Web site (http://www.askapastor.org)
this 46-year-old preacher runs out of his basement in Papillion,
Nebraska, a suburb of Omaha. For almost a year now, Arch has ministered
by modem, teaching monthly Bible classes, offering counsel, shepherding
a small but growing flock of families that dial in for guidance.
Now, before you get your Sunday dress in a bunch thinking that
Arch is taking the human touch out of religion, understand that
he doesn't want the hard drive to replace the local church. Instead,
he hopes his virtual chapel will provide entree to a generation
of people he thinks feel alienated by churches and are perhaps
more comfortable sitting before the altar of the microprocessor.
Arch insists that the virtual ministry strips away the formalities
and inhibitions churches sometimes inspire. "Some people
go to church," Arch says, "and they don't know whether
to sit or stand or kneel, and they say, 'Jeez, this is like a
foreign language.' They want faith. It's just such a trip for
them."
Arch knows a thing or two about running a church made of actual
bricks and mortar. He started a church in Papillion in 1974 in
his garage which he decorated by laying carpeting over the conrete
and putting a sign on the door that read, "Chapel Entrance."
The congregation grew to 400, and Arch spent a decade as pastor.
Running his own church took an emotional and physical toll. So
Arch, a father of three daughters and a son, spent the next 13
years as sort of a motivational speaker to the students in the
Omaha schools.
Last year, when he returned to the pulpit as pastor of a church
in Minneapolis, Minnesota, he realized that church culture had
not kept pace with modern life and was losing track of a new generation
of people: those who think Silicon Valley is the cradle of civilization.
And he's not alone in reaching that conclusion. Many churches
have gone online to spread their gospel worldwide. The Catholic
church, for example, is Webasting papal addresses live from St.
Peter's Basilica (www.vatican.va). (We suggest they call their
setup the Vaticam.)
Through his work, Arch has learned some of the blessings -- and
some of the limitations -- of cyberspace. He has noted for example
that people who send e-mail are more candid than those who seek
advice in the flesh. But he concedes that fully assessing people's
emotions without seeing their facial expressions is difficult.
His basement office features a new Macintosh, but there is at
least one remnant of the old days: On the door is the same "Chapel
Entrance" sign. "I looked at this setup the other day
and thought, 'This is weird: this has become my chapel,'"
he says. "The computer is my pulpit." Amen