Last week I attended the Disciple Leaders Network annual meeting in Oklahoma City. On Monday night they asked a group of us who work in the technology in ministry space to talk about discipleship and technology.
I thought the questions we discussed were particularly interesting and that you might be interested in them.
There were four questions overall. Here's the first one along with my expanded response.
How do you think technology has changed the way discipleship is practiced?
On the positive side.
- Greater relational engagement. The culture of scripture assumed a disciple was regularly present with their teacher to learn from his life and habits as well as his words. Today's communication technology helps busy people stay in touch with each other in ways not seen since the start of the industrial revolution. When used wisely and intentionally, people share prayer requests and process life together regularly using email, text, and other Apps.
- Greater content engagement. Never in the history of the world has content been so available for followers of Christ. The work that has been done to provide the Bible, study tools, and of course teaching is incredible. You can hear the best preachers in the world as well as your own pastor anytime, anywhere. Personally, I love that I can quickly do a greek or hebrew word look up on my phone while listening to a message at church.
- Better ministry feedback. The advancements in ChMS, CRM, and reporting technology we've seen the last few decades are able to give church leaders far more timely and better feedback than they've ever had. Because technology makes capturing vital information about church engagement so much easier, that same technology has better data to work with, and leading edge reporting tools can now automatically deliver information to whomever needs it exactly when they need it.
- Broader impact. The Great Commission challenges us to reach and include every people group on Earth in God's plan. Out of obedience many churches today have relationships with other churches and ministries around the world. Today's technology enables people to travel more easily and affodably than ever in history. And, the same tools for engagement that help a local church connect, grow, and know what's going on are easily adopted for broader use on a campus a few miles away or a church on the other side of the world.
On the negative side.
- Overreliance on technology for learning. A most basic definition of a disciple is that he or she is a learner. Today we can search for any passage or any idea from scripture and get an astounding amount of information. The integration of Arificial Intelligence into a basic search on any platform even provides a well-curated synopsis of that information. With current AI apps, you can actually interact verbally with the AI to dig in further. These can be really helpful tools, but learning is more than acquiring knowledge. Learning that impacts a disciple's life requires meditation, memorization, application, and shared experience. All of these are beyond the scope of technology.
- Overconfidence in technology for relationships. One of my mentors taught us that, "ministry is carried on the life." By that he meant that discipleship requires personal, life to life interaction. You can hear something and talk about applying it, but when you see someone accept, encourage, forgive, or confess their sin to someone else; that's when you feel the significance of the call to Christ-follower transformation. The "one-anothers" of scriptures can not be done by technology. They require people interacting directly with people. Sometimes technology can facilitate that interaction, but it can not replace human touch.
- It regularly distracts people from conversations. I just discovered the word phubbing (phone snubbing) by doing a search on the distracting use and presence of phones in relationships. 5 years ago a Pew Research Center study found that 51% of people surveyed say their romantic partner is at least sometimes distracted by their cellphone. I bet it is way higher now, and just as bad for any other type of relationship. While walking our dog recently I saw a guy open the car door for a girl about a block away. I thought how refreshing to see a young man be so respectful. Then, as they drove away I noticed she was not looking at and talking to him as I expected, but head-down looking at her phone. Ugh.
Jesus discipled his followers using the common technology of the day in which he lived. In the generations since, Christ-followers have not only used the common technology of their day, they have often initiated further development of that technology in order to more effectively reach people for Christ.
I love that we get to follow the footsteps of previous gospel-centered technology innovators. For us at Churchteams that means innovating better software for the church to do a better job of making disciples of all nations.
