Dear Church, with the new CDC guidelines, there is absolutely a way to do church online/by extension in a way that not only glorifies God but allows people to remain in community in a way that is theologically healthy. #Onlinechurch #churchonline #ChurchAtHome @ZonderAcademic 
The earliest Christians didn't always get to meet together; they had their own trials preventing the routine we have today. This is why Ignatius of Antioch notes that the church is where the shepherd is. Polycarp reminded his church that we are aliens who transcend our places.
Likewise, the challenges of Irenaeus' day caused him to describe the church as solely a calling of the Holy Spirit, not building/location. Tertullian and Origen both emphasize that the church happens when the people of God gather to worship, a few here and there is still church.
In the 1000 years between the end of the early church and the Reformation, the expectation moved slowly and surely from community to institution. And the Christendom ethic aided this. This is why Martin Luther didn't care for the word church; it was too limiting. #coronavirus
From a community perspective, the way church organizes in the Majority World is closer to the way earlier iterations of the church appeared. It's not simply a "church is not a building issue" but goes to the heart of how the church is supposed to engage the world.
Which is why when we do online church/church by extension, we are still doing church. Because it is not really about the "doing" anyway, it is about the "being." In his wonderful book, Images of the Church in the NT, Minear notes that the Bible never defines "church."
This is because when we "do" church, it is not really about the "doing" as much as it is about the "being." Case in point: Paul Minear's Images of the Church in the NT looks at all 96 NT metaphors for church--all of these images depict how we are the church no matter how we meet.
We can still be a faithful community even in a time of quarantine. WW1 forced Christian communities to leverage technologies to get spiritual care to men on the battlefield. This included even the sacraments, baptism, and proclamation.
In fact, even though it is not 'front and center' of most church history books, when times were challenging the church has always leaned into the connections between God and people and not the place, the building, the institution.
It's not about being against those things. It's about realizing that Xian community is built on connection. That same connection occurs in person, online, at home, on the battlefield, in quarantine. That's because God cast a vision for a church that is bigger than any human idea.
