Justin at Radical Congruency had a post the other day about 'E-mail church'. He addresses the idea that church is more than a building and a schedule of meetings. Do we really need to meet to have 'church'? Isn't it church when we gather for dinner, meet to pray, just talk about God or even email, blog or chat? I think so. God's church is all about the people and the relationships they develop. In the first century they didn't have snail mail or books in the way we know them, let alone telephones, email, instant messaging, video conferencing, magazines, TV, electrinic buletin boards, blogs, etc. 30 years ago or so, Christians could not have imagined having relationships without a telephone, 60 or so years before that letters may have been indespensible, maybe 120 years earlier you had to go next door.
I know that I have come to rely on the thoughts and pespectives I get from others online to help me in my relationship with God. I can't imagine life with out these e-relationships, this e-church.
Great thoughts. They did have a form of snail mail, though - Paul's introduction to Romans indicates that he had a relationship with the believers there that was based on long-distance communication, without any face-to-face interaction (except with the people who had been to visit him). So you can credit Paul with the idea of non-meeting-centered church.