This time last year, across the world, congregations were scrambling to figure out how to do church online. Whether livestreams on Facebook or YouTube, pre-recorded videos, or “Zoom church” (a phrase few of us in February 2020 would be able to comprehend), attempts to replicate embodied worship gatherings in digital form became the new normal—for longer than most of us hoped or anticipated.

Over time it became clear: Digital-only church isn’t great for our spiritual health. In addition to exacerbating our tendency to view church through a “content for consumers” lens, it’s also lonely, isolating, and—at times—depressing. I cried during Sunday morning services on more than one occasion last year, as I watched my church’s worship team lead the scattered flock in prayer and singing, via laptops in isolated living rooms. It was a blessing to have at least some semblance of “gathering,” but screens were clearly a poor substitute.

Now that many governments are lifting restrictions on in-person gatherings, churches are asking many questions about what’s next, including: Should we continue online church offerings, even after they’re no longer the only option? Analog Church author Jay Kim is a pastor who thinks well about the church’s embodied nature in a digital, disembodied age, and his thoughtful reflection on the post-COVID church is worth your consideration. While he believes online expressions can continue—if they are done in participatory rather than consumeristic ways—Kim is clear that in-person gatherings must become the priority once again.

“We’ve lost much this past year in our isolation,” Kim writes. “Online technology has held us together tenuously. But it’s not enough. There is grieving, rejoicing, feasting, and everything in between to be done—together, embodied, and fully present as one. May our longing lead us back home, to God and to one another.”