The megachurch just had to be uber-cool: It was painted black. Not the skivvy black favoured by fashion designers, but charcoal like a remains of a cooling campfire. A street sign in the shape of a crucifix hung from the outside wall of the converted warehouse in Seattle’s industrial suburbs and bore the words “Jesus Saves”. To get there you had to hurry past the homeless people permanently mushroomed under a freeway overpass, but that edginess gave attending the church extra street cred.

Inside, there was a lounge setting – again, black – and a faux fireplace that intimated they were more shopfront props than a greeting area. No one sat. No one lingered. With only two minutes to spare, a young welcomer gave a curt hello to our party of four from Sydney, then ushered us into the world-famous Mars Hill Church.

As far as the eye could see, there was an expanse of comfortable seats – all black. Out of an estimated 2000 chairs available, only 30 per cent were filled. Maybe parishioners here arrived fashionably late. Maybe it was the summer holidays. Maybe it was the 7pm service. Maybe Seattle was still greatly unchurched. Or maybe the series of public stumbles by Mars Hill’s figurehead Mark Driscoll had thinned the ranks. Maybe.

A hipster with an epic beard and shaved head tested the upper levels of human hearing with the first few guitar riffs as about 40 young adults hurried in late to join the rest of the singing congregation.

The songs were the same mixture of contemporary and garage hymnals heard across Sydney churches every weekend.

The service leader stepped up and warmly welcomed everyone for the night. The audio-visual team, all dressed in black, zoomed in on him as he set the stage for Driscoll to appear and preach on Acts.

There was no hint of nervousness about allegations of plagiarism or a pressing need to answer why senior staff had left. This was church. We were all here to hear the word of God. Amen.

When the service leader merged into the shadows, we all sat up in our seats. We wanted to see and hear for ourselves the man himself, who had not only shaken up the religious landscape of America but lit firecrackers under the seats of Sydney Anglicanism in 2008 with his pointed 18 obstacles to effective evangelism that he believed were choking ministry and the laity.

I’d seen him preach once at St Thomas’, North Sydney on that same tour, when the towering minister Simon Manchester had introduced him to a packed congregation as Christianity’s version of comedian Jack Black. If Manchester had been a circus act right at that moment, he would have been tied to a spinning wheel because the normally jokey Driscoll was throwing plenty of daggers.

Back then, Driscoll had entertained us with his normal routine: lambasting us single Christian “boys” for not marrying the amazing Christian women sitting among us, who were all allegedly standing at the altar waiting for the first “real man” to come along. The belly laughs had rolled back then but over the years, as the quest to find a wife became a lonely and confusing road for me, his tired one-liners felt like spears thrown at the soul.

But here in Seattle, this was an opportunity to see the man in his own backyard. A question that had nagged me about his vodcasts would finally be answered: why do you never see his congregations?

The lights dimmed and suddenly a digital Driscoll flickered to life on five giant screens, broadcast from a place far, far away. My companions and I looked at each other: were we at a church or a movie theatre?

After almost an hour of staring at those five giant screens, listening to a sermon that had little to do with expository teaching, they faded to black. There were two more songs and an invitation to join communion at the front. There was no reading of the Bible beforehand or “This is my body given for you; do this in remembrance of me” – just a queue.

Once the main service ended and the auditorium quietly emptied, my friend challenged us to meet our brothers and sisters over supper. We walked into a large coffee room lined with spoons, sugar and mugs – but no people. Maybe it was getting late. Maybe they’d shared coffee before the service. Maybe.

After being challenged by a security guard for looking at the deserted children’s area – but not for taking photos, which is what the sticker warned against near the front doors – we passed a black mailbox squatting in the corner like a bulldog, its maw hungry for donations. We’d learn later when reading the church’s annual report that the mailbox was mostly decorative. A sizeable chunk of donations to Mars Hill come from overseas – Christians like you and me listening to podcasts from our bedrooms, gyms, cars and loungerooms.

Don’t get me wrong. This is not a piece written to kick Driscoll while he is down. He is a brother in Christ, albeit one who needs wisdom, repentance and prayer as his leadership is put under a very public magnifying glass. No, Mars Hill Church is a wake-up call for our digital generation.

Christians should never outsource relationships.

The lesson learnt from Mars Hill is that church isn’t like wi-fi – an invisible and transferable connection. Whether you sit in the pews or stand in the pulpit, we as Christians must be in genuine personal relationship with Jesus and other Christians. Hebrews 10:25 is clear: “Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another – and all the more as you see the Day approaching”.

Meeting with other Christians creates friendships, honesty, support and accountability. The “you” shrinks into unity. And unity is at the heart of community. School, sport, neighbours and workplaces may offer community but ultimately they’re shallow and temporal. Church community, for all its flaws and personalities, aims to emulate Jesus by glorifying God, welcoming the stranger, mending the broken and loving those who think they’re unlovable. It’s encouraging one another because we need to be regularly part of each other’s lives, just as Christ is in ours.

Mars Hill is missing that community. The church feels like a giant game of Guess Who? There’s no way that Driscoll or his leaders could know more than a handful of the people at their scattered “campuses” and even fewer of their virtual audience. And if they’ve outsourced fellowship to Bible study groups, then they’ve outsourced their authority, too. Driscoll is no more than a talking head.

If anyone thinks this doesn’t happen in Australia, they need to think again. Once, while visiting a church a few years back, a new minister’s appointment was announced with great excitement. However, it was made clear he would only preach, and leave the pastoring to other staff.

In my mind, that’s no different from Driscoll appearing on a projector screen. The man was separating himself from the people he had been charged to lead, reducing his role to a weekly motivational talk.

Churches should never outsource their leaders. They should never outsource personal relationships. They should never outsource communion to an individual worshipper. And they should think carefully about why they produce sermons for the wider world.

For the greater part of the past decade, many churches have established online sermon libraries.

This has allowed Christians such as myself to be introduced to celebrity preachers such as Driscoll, John Piper and Tim Keller. Local pastors themselves even recommend podcasts, which in itself is no different from handing around cassette tapes of Martyn Lloyd-Jones or Don Carson back in the day when dinosaurs wore legwarmers.

However, little debate has been given to what impact this has on modern spiritual life as we quickly turn to trusting pastors who only know us as “Download + 1”.

For many people, there’s no problem in listening to downloads. There are excellent Christ-centred sermons produced by faithful ministers that help Christians who are sick, isolated, persecuted or travelling. It’s when they become the primary source of a person’s spiritual walk that they become a problem.

First, digital sermons can encourage individualism. Theoretically, a layperson doesn’t ever need to step into a church again. It’s easy to stay home on a Sunday and download podcasts to feel “churched” for the week. There’s no commitment to serving, local outreach, fellowship or praising God through song if you don’t leave your bedroom.

Second, it undermines the local pastor. Downloaded sermons are no longer just supplemental to studying the Bible. They’ve become challengers. A flock suddenly has 10 shepherds – most whose voices come from far-flung fields – to whose hands the different sheep go and nibble the sweetest clover.

Third, and leading from this, is no one polices the enormous library of digital sermons. Somewhere on Google, there are false teachings justifying every type of sin to lure people away from the truth.

We know this is true because these teachings have infected not only the Western church but our own friendship circles.

A while ago, Driscoll’s catchy slogan was: “Burn your plastic Jesus”. Maybe it’s time to “Unplug your digital church”.