Has anyone else found him or herself wishing students happy birthday on Facebook instead of actually sending birthday cards, or is it just me? How about actually calling students to invite them to an event instead of sending a mass-text to a pre-made distribution list? Furthermore, I’ve heard youth pastors seek advice about how to persuade parents to allow their teenagers to join Twitter and Facebook because it would be easier for their ministry!
As youth workers, we often pride ourselves on being early adopters of new technologies, and that’s fine as long as we’re not stupid about it. This is coming from a youth pastor who loves his iPhone and iPad, uses social media to connect with students, and maintains a blog to connect with parents. Facebook and mass-text services are good ministry tools, but they must be kept from replacing actual real-life ministry.
If a student calls you on the phone, do you think, “Why is he or she calling? Something must be wrong!” Maybe we should turn that around: If a student heard your voice on the phone, what would he or she think? If I’m honest (which I’d rather not be), I’ve often fallen prey to death by tech in my ministry.
It’s a lot easier to be rejected via text message than in person or to have a student click Not Attending (or not reply at all) to your next Facebook event invite than to invite them in person and have them make up some lame excuse. It’s definitely quicker to send a mass-text about a last-minute schedule change. I get it, because that’s what I do, too! However, maybe after I click the Send button, I should create a phone-tree with my youth leaders and make a few calls to make sure they got the message in a more personal and relational way. I want students to know how my voice sounds on the phone. I want them to be more than a phone number or just another Facebook friend.
Form Shapes Content
As Marshall McLuhan famously wrote, “The medium is the message.” How we communicate shapes the content because communication happens via the sender and the receiver. We must not adopt new mediums of communication in our ministries without thinking about the theological issues related to how the sender and the receiver will understand the message differently because of the medium. We’re wiser than that! I’ve heard all the arguments for relevance and changing with the times, and I agree with many of them. However, we need to be wise enough to recognize the lie that says we always need to be riding the newest technology wave to be current. I am convinced every teenager I know would find a birthday card in the mail more meaningful than a Facebook page full of birthday messages.
In a culture that focuses more on form (the medium) than content (the message), we need to be countercultural. Look at most music videos today: What you’ll see is form (style, drama, sexiness, etc.) upstaging content (a meaningful commentary on an important issue). Sure, “Gangnam Style” is catchy; but is it lost on us that the only words in English are sexy ladies and style? Technology makes the form of our ministry a lot sleeker, but that sometimes can lead us to spend so much time and energy on improving our form that we lose time to devote to substance.
If we’re using tech to enrich the substance of our ministries, then it will work in the background. When technology is used well, it isn’t noticed—think of a teenage girl who just discovered makeup but hasn’t learned a little goes a long way. If students are walking away from youth group talking about your iPad, maybe you shouldn’t use your iPad anymore. If you have clever sound effects and transitions for your PowerPoint presentations, maybe they’re drawing more attention to what’s being projected instead of supporting the message being delivered. Don’t misunderstand me: I love my tech and use projection when it will supplement what I want to communicate effectively, so I’m certainly not saying technology is bad. However, there was a time when I was using PowerPoint as a crutch rather than being well prepared. I continue to struggle with discerning when tech is truly helpful and when I’m using it because it’s flashy, trendy or cool. Let’s grow together as we utilize technology to strengthen our ministries instead of relying on them so heavily that we’d be lost without it.
God Came in Flesh, So Should We
Don’t kill your ministry by relying on technology to do what a physical body should be doing. God sent His Son in real human flesh. After the resurrection, instead of giving us the Holy Spirit and sending out real-life Christians to preach and teach and suffer for the gospel, God could have sent the Holy Spirit as a vision or dream to countless people at a time in order to proclaim the gospel message. Instead, God chose to use, and is still using, a long-term plan with unreliable messengers. God could’ve reached more people more quickly through miraculous means, but He didn’t. The church was born slowly and with great suffering. Why should we expect anything less today?
Vacationing at the Airport
I like to think about technology (especially social media) as an airport. No one goes to the airport for vacation, yet many people go there to get to their vacation destinations. Airports are important, but they aren’t an end in themselves. They help get us where we’re trying to go! Technology and social media can be fantastic tools for maintaining relationships with students who are in college, have moved away, or have chosen to withdraw from community. When we allow ourselves to rely on technology to maintain relationships, we’re settling for vacationing at the airport. Sure, there will be people who cut us off and try to keep us from boarding the plane and others who stand us up at baggage claim so the relationship never gets off the ground. We always need to be using technology with wisdom in order to deepen face-to-face relationships for the sake of the gospel.
Can you truly say along with the apostle Paul, “We loved you so much that we were delighted to share with you not only the gospel of God but our lives, as well, because you had become so dear to us” (
Let’s not be trendy in church. Let’s be contextual and culturally wise, but not trendy. What we need today is not more technology, but more wisdom and deeper relationships that are saturated by love for Jesus.
Mike McGarry is working toward his D.Min. in ministry to emerging generations at Gordon-Conwell Seminary. His passions include his wife, Tracy; playing with his kids, Matthew and Hannah; watching the Patriots destroy the competition; and studying church history and theology while drinking strong coffee. Learn more at CrossWalking.net.
