Redeeming Technology, Part 6: Technology and the Church
Redeeming Technology, Part 6: Technology and the Church
How should churches respond to technologically-driven cultural shifts?
In response to our technology discussion, I received a question that I think is worth responding to publicly:
I’m really benefiting from your thoughts on technology, and I appreciate your analysis on how it is affecting us as individuals. But I’m wondering if you have thoughts on the way technology is affecting communities. Specifically, I have in mind church communities. I’m a pastor, and it feels daunting to keep up with all these changes you have outlined. For example, you spoke about how technology is changing people’s expectations of real-world experiences. How people are becoming dull to life, with short attention spans, and needing constant stimulation. Is it right to change our approach to ministry and even worship to fit that? I’m not really sure what I’m asking, but as I listen to all your analysis, it just feels overwhelming to keep up as a pastor.
You can feel the exhaustion in is his question, can’t you? And I think I do know what he is asking. We have an entire society of people trained in the ways of technology, and then they approach churches according to those expectations. They expect Church life to reflect their technological life of constant stimulation, instant gratification, lack of contemplation, and so forth. What do we do? Do we seek to meet those expectations? Does the Christian Church need an overhaul to fit this technological age?
The pastor says it feels overwhelming to keep up. Well, my suggestion is churches do not try to keep up. Instead, let our churches be protesting communities in defiance of the madness of our technological society, offering our world a rival vision for the good life.
I am not against reforms, and I do think appropriate contextualization is essential. After all, the last technological information breakthrough before the internet was the printing press, and God used that technology to bring about the reformation and countless Bibles and theological works printed and circulated. I am not resisting technological change and its implication upon the mission of the Church. But we must not uncritically seek to follow massive changes such that we remake our ancient faith in the image of advanced technology.
The world is not impressed by our attempts to mimic the broader culture. In fact, they find it cheesy at best and downright disingenuous at worst. I liken it to parents trying to be cool. It never works when parents seek to mimic their kids—dress like them, use their vernacular, keep up with their trends, and so forth. What do kids want from their parents? Kids just want their parents to be parents, and they will love them for it.
When churches try to recreate themselves according to changing cultural trends, we are not fooling or impressing anyone. No church will ever be able to compete with the entertainment of Netflix or the stimulation of TikTok’s algorithm, for example. And to try it is as cringy as a parent trying to be cool. But much like kids want parents to be parents, so too, our society does not want trendy churches; they want churches to be churches. It is precisely the fact that our faith communities have something different to offer our weary world that makes our churches necessary and increasingly appealing.
Rather than blindly following our culture, churches can choose instead to lead our culture as prophetic communities bearing witness to the world of a better world. Within the perils of our technological society, there must be the presence of counter-cultural communities inviting the weary to discover another way. And research shows that invitation is gaining appeal. There is growing intrigue, not just with the notion of faith, but specifically the ancient, reverent, and transcendent expressions of the faith.
Our world is increasingly less interested in cheap imitations of what they experience daily. That everyday experience is what they long to escape, even if they don’t have the words to express it. What they seek from religion is that which can be found nowhere else (a discussion for another post is the growing appeal of Islam in the West, not because of Muslim contextualization, but precisely because Islam is a religious protest to the weariness of the Western context).
Therefore, my advice to churches is you be you, because what you are is beautiful and good. Churches cannot match the world’s technological offerings, but the world cannot match what we have to offer: Our holy worship, sacred Scriptures, mysterious sacraments, ancient history, spiritual disciplines and rituals, prayer and simplicity, confession and repentance, and most of all, our gospel of grace in our otherwise graceless society. These are what we offer that is found nowhere else.
What I am arguing is that the “How do Churches keep up with technology” question does not need to be answered. We don’t need to keep up. The Christian mission, though appropriately contextualized, is not supposed to imitate the culture but instead embody a new culture, namely the Kingdom of God. It is a sacred space where the ways and practices of God’s Kingdom are on display, and this is what the world around us is hungering to discover. They don’t need or want to experience a rather poor imitation of what they always experience. They need to experience Christianity in its truest form, which is able to provide all that technology is stealing.