Fellowshipping with the brethren is important to the growth of individual and group of believers. This is why the Bible instructs us not to forsake the assembling of ourselves. One of the growing trends today in the Body of Christ is virtual fellowship. Services are being held online where members can join from anywhere, they are without necessarily coming together physically. This has helped more men who may ordinarily not be able to join the services to join and be blessed from anywhere they find themselves. The restrictions have been reduced since God is a Spirit. He can be worshipped from anywhere.

However, virtual meetings should not completely replace the physical ones. Social media can help us fellowship but it is not a perfect substitute for physical meetings. There are a lot of benefits from physical meetings that cannot be gotten from virtual ones. The physical bonding helps foster trust and communion. We can also read the mood of the people and help can be provided for those who need it. These are part of the benefits that may not be present where fellowship is restricted to virtual meetings.

Apart from these, there are distractions that come with online meetings. People’s concentration is not always like when they gather for physical meetings. Some people join but they mute their microphones, put off their cameras and continue with whatever they feel like doing. There are also technological failures with social media that can make virtual meetings to be unproductive like the physical ones. Internet disruptions and low battery on devices do sometimes hinder people from maximising the blessings in a fellowship. We should strive to be in physical meetings except when it is completely beyond our control or when the meetings are purely virtual.