Is it time to forget tech and run to the hills?
With all of the recent news stories about ISIS and persecuted Christians, the recent SCOTUS ruling on same-sex marriage, the developing news about Planned Parenthood and the perceived rampant immorality in our culture, some pastors and communication leaders that I talk with believe that we are in the End of Times.
Hence, many are not as interested in developing new communication strategies for their churches, and they want to take to the streets with the Gospel message, just as the new church did in Acts. They view investing in ‘all this technology’ as a distraction and the least effective approach.
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While I appreciate the good intentions of some of my ministry partners, totally abandoning or not adequately investing in your online strategy isn’t the right approach. Here’s why!
With the 2016 Presidential campaign, I noticed the Republicans are being asked about their views on homosexuality and biological evolution. I am most interested in the current discussion about the latter. Simply put, do Christians believe the earth is about 6k years old, or do we take the Noah’s flood ‘story’ as literal or allegorical?
Going outside of my character (I love a good, in-person conversation any day), I joined a bunch of Facebook groups devoted to creation vs. evolution (or atheism vs. theism). What I saw was amazing and sometimes scary 🙂
People were engaged in passionate discussions about these issues. I learned a lot about how people think and gained a greater understanding of why most millennials prefer this form of communication. The scariest part, in my opinion, is the overall impact it’s having on many college-aged students who are being challenged to rethink their religious belief, in light of the popular scientific consensus on the issue.
In fact, I discovered that there are a growing number of Christians who believe in evolution (theistic evolutionist), in addition to Christians who believe in the literal Genesis story of Creation. Many of my friends from college were ‘retweeting’ and ‘facebooking’ the statement made by the Pope about evolution, when he suggested that God is not ‘a magician, with a magic wand.’
Though I respectfully disagree with the Pope on this issue, my research into creation and evolution demonstrated to me that vibrant, faith-oriented conversations are happening on the Internet (on desktop and mobile). Churches and ministries need a digital strategy (online ministry) more than ever, because more and more people rely on social media as the main source of information, a place to discuss spiritual issues and ask faith-based questions.
Hence, I always encourage pastors and communication leaders, who are deeply concerned about preaching the Gospel, to invest more in technology and online ministries and not less. To accelerate their growth, churches need to ramp up their online ministries’ presence, rather than shut them down.
Stay tuned for tomorrow’s Tech Tip Tuesday email, addressing the 4 Reasons Why a Digital Strategy Is Necessary, even in Light of Current Events.
Thanks,
Jason
Ps. On most Mondays (#MinistryMondays), I will be sharing with you great information like this, to help challenge the way you think about tech in ministry . This will usually be followed by a #TechTipTuesday email that shares tested, step by step ideas on how to fixed any issues raised.
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