Ministry in the Digital Age

Strategies and Best Practices for a Post-Website World

David T. Bourgeois

• Publisher: IVP
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9780830859962
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christian Ministry

"Christianity is fundamentally a communication event. It is God revealing God's self to the world. And God uses a large variety of media to accomplish that revelation."—Shane Hipps, author of Flickering PixelsViral videos and retweeted posts fill the air around us. In the midst of constant news feeds and mobile alerts, ministries have unprecedented opportunities to connect with people yearning for community with others and God.But how? In this post-website world, it?s no longer enough to have a static website and hope that people find it. If you want to get your online content in front of your audience, you need to have a digital presence in the streams where they?re already active.David Bourgeois offers a practical step-by-step guide for discerning and implementing a digital strategy for your ministry. He provides an overview of how Christians can use technology and communication media wisely, with concrete ideas for churches and nonprofit organizations. Discover how you can make the most of every opportunity to extend your ministry?s electronic reach and impact.

1

What Hath God Wrought?

So we are at one of the great inflection points, I would argue, in our history. I think this is going to be as big as Gutenberg when it plays out.

Thomas Friedman[1]

When I was a little boy, I frequently wished that I could have lived during Bible times. Have you ever wished that you lived during the time that Christ walked the earth? Do you ever wish you could hear him speak and see his life? Or maybe you want to experience the time of Moses and the exodus from Israel? Or see the full splendor of God’s blessing on Israel during the reign of Solomon? Many Christians would like to live in an era in which they could sense God moving. Well, fasten your seatbelts! It is my belief that we are living in one of those times right now: a time in which we will begin to see God working in a mighty way.

God’s Story Is All Around Us

In Matthew 24, Jesus’ disciples ask him to describe what it will be like when he returns. As part of his response, Jesus says to them, “And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come” (Matthew 24:14).

If you’re like me, you have read this passage many times before, trying to understand just how this will happen. Will we send missionaries to every single people group on earth? Will we translate the Bible into every language? Maybe. But I believe that God will be using digital technologies as the primary tool for accomplishing this.

This capability is just the next step in an evolution of communication technologies that has taken place since the time of Christ. In fact, Christians have frequently been at the forefront of utilizing these technologies as tools for fulfilling the Great Commission. To understand the role of these new and powerful technologies today, let us first take a look at how Christians have used technology in the past. We can then use this history to see how God is moving today.

The Roman roads. One of the very first technologies to be used for the cause of Christ was the road system implemented during the time of the Roman Empire. Though the Jews hated being under the rule of Rome, it was just this circumstance that allowed for the gospel to spread so quickly after the ascension of Christ in Acts 1.

The possibilities of spreading the gospel afforded by this swift and safe method of travel were fully exploited by the early Christians, and both the New Testament and the literature of the second century simply take for granted journeys of enormous length which would scarcely have been possible after the fall of the Empire until modern times. . . . It is clear from the pages of the Acts that Christians made the maximum use of the Roman road system, and that it formed an unconscious directive to their evangelism. What a merchant could do for financial advantage, a Christian could do in the cause of the gospel.[2]

It is here, in those first few years of Christianity, that we see our brothers and sisters in Christ embracing the use of technology as a method for spreading the gospel.

The codex. During the time of Christ, the sacred Scriptures were written down in scrolls. But by the end of the first century, a new medium was coming into existence: the codex. A codex is much like today’s book, with pages bound together and a cover surrounding the outside. The text was still handwritten, sometimes on both sides of the page. As you might imagine, a codex is much easier to transport than a scroll. It is also much easier to conceal, allowing a persecuted church to more easily distribute their Scriptures. While those in the early church did not invent the codex, they were quick to see its value and take advantage of this new technology.[3]

The printing press. In 1440, Johannes Gutenberg invented the first movable-type printing press. Before the invention of the printing press, copying written materials was a slow, tedious process. This ability to standardize the creation of printed materials revolutionized communications and had a huge impact on the world.

The impact of the printing press cannot be overstated: it brought about advancements in science, increased literacy rates and changed the power structure of information management. More importantly, it changed the way we viewed our world. After the invention of the printing press, there was an explosion of printed materials available to read. Because of this, it became imperative to be literate.

Christians were also among the first to immediately see the value in this technology. Martin Luther used it to transmit his Ninety-Five Theses; Gutenberg himself used it to print Bibles. And not only did he perfect the printing press; he also understood its implications for the furthering of God’s kingdom. Gutenberg, in a preface to the Gutenberg Bible (1454), wrote, “God suffers in the multitude of souls whom His word can not reach. Religious truth is imprisoned in a small number of manuscript books, which confine instead of spread the public treasure. Let us break the seal which seals up holy things and give wings to Truth in order that she may win every soul that comes into the world by her word no longer written at great expense by hands easily palsied, but multiplied like the wind by an untiring machine.”

The telegraph. On May 24, 1844, a new communication technology was introduced that had a transforming effect on the way the world communicated. The telegraph allowed, for the first time, information to be transmitted from one place to another in an instant. What used to take several days to communicate could now be done in just a few minutes. This new technology had a profound effect on our society over the following decades. It rewrote the rules of business, provided a new form of interpersonal relationships and brought a new optimism that the world could become a better place. Recognizing the importance of his new invention on that fateful day in 1884, inventor Samuel Morse sent the first message: “What hath God wrought?”[4]

While the application of the telegraph to reach the world for Christ was more limited than some of the previous technologies mentioned here, this was yet another step toward the fulfilling of the Great Commission. Again, as with Gutenberg, those living through this time of change saw God’s hand working. In 1858, Charles F. Briggs and Augustus Maverick wrote the following in their book about the telegraph.

For what is the end to be accomplished but the most spiritual ever possible? Not the modification or transportation of matter but the transmission of thought. To effect this an agent is employed so subtle in its nature that it may more properly be called a spiritual than a material force. The mighty power of electricity sleeping latent in all forms of matter in the earth, the air, the water; permeating every part and particle of the universe, carrying creation in its arms, it is yet invisible and too subtle to be analysed. . . . How potent a power then is the telegraphic destined to become in the civilization of the world! This binds together by a vital cord all the nations of the earth. It is impossible that old prejudices and hostilities should longer exist, while such an instrument has been created for an exchange of thought between all the nations of the earth.[5]

Broadcast: Radio and television. At the turn of the twentieth century, we were yet again introduced to a new communications breakthrough. Unlike the telegraph (and its follow-up, the telephone), which had to be connected via a wire and only allowed point-to-point communication, radio allowed one person to reach many locations at the same time. This new “broadcast” technology allowed us to be in multiple places at once, reaching more people with the gospel of Christ than ever before.

Again, Christians were some of the first to see the power of this technology. Sixty of the first 709 radio licenses issued were issued to Christian organizations.[6] Many more paid for time on larger networked stations. Early pioneers included Aimee Semple McPherson, Charles Fuller, the Moody Bible Institute, and the Bible Institute of Los Angeles (now Biola University). Even today, the Far East Broadcasting Company spreads the gospel in 154 languages to people all over Southeast Asia using radio technology.[7]

Speaking of the value of radio for the cause of Christ, Aimee Semple McPherson, founder of the Foursquare Church, stated: “These are the days of invention! The days when the impossible has become possible! Days more favorable than any that ever have been known for the preaching of the blessed Gospel of our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ! Now, the crowning blessing, the most golden opportunity, the most miraculous conveyance for the message has come—The Radio!”[8]

Radio’s big brother, television, continued this trend. Television began taking hold in the 1950s in the United States, and by 1971, it was reported that 47 percent of Americans listened to at least one religious broadcast (radio or TV) per week. Just as before, Christians began leading the way with these new technologies. In 1977, industry magazine Broadcasting singled out Pat Robertson’s Christian Broadcasting Network (CBN) as a leader among all station operators, religious and secular, for its expertise in satellite communications.[9] Broadcast technologies have been very effective. According to Ben Armstrong in his book The Electric Church, more people became Christians between 1850 and 1950 than in all the previous years combined.[10]

That was then . . . As we have seen, Christians have been at the forefront of many of the previous revolutions in communication technologies, using these new tools to reach the world for Christ in new ways. What seemed impossible in Matthew 24:14 has become more and more possible to those who dream big for Christ.

But what about today? What about the part of the story we are in right now? We are no longer in the broadcast era. We are in the digital era.

The Digital Era

The term digital refers to the fact that today’s computing devices, at their most basic level, can only speak in terms of ones and zeroes. This is true for any device that has a microprocessor chip inside of it: computers, mobile phones, digital televisions and even your new car. These digital technologies are revolutionizing the way we interact with each other, and it is through these digital technolo­gies that we will continue to reach the world for Christ.

Of all the digital technologies that have come along in the past few years, the Internet has had the biggest impact. In fact, most of the digital devices developed in the past few years are really just different means for us to communicate over the Internet.

In the late 1960s, the Internet was developed as a digital-­networking platform that enabled computers to communicate. But that definition is no longer enough. Now that the Internet can be accessed on a multitude of devices, anytime, anywhere, we have to expand this definition to go beyond computers.

So what is the Internet? Simply put, the Internet is a platform for enabling communications and applications over a digital network. That is not the official, technical definition, but it captures what the Internet has become today and it is the one we will be using in this book as we work to understand how to best utilize it for ministry.

You’ve got mail. Although it was originally designed to enable computer communications, the real power of the Internet began to emerge when it allowed person-to-person communication. The first sign that this was going to be the case was with the invention of electronic mail, or email. When this “simple program” was first released in 1971 by Ray Tomlinson, it took over the Internet (called ARPAnet in those days). The engineers and academics who put the ARPAnet together could not believe it! Email quickly became the most popular use of this new technology. It was the “killer app,” driving the growth of the Internet beyond just scientific use to something that everybody wanted.

Over the next four decades, we have seen the same pattern hold true: Internet technologies that connect people together have driven the use of the Internet and associated technologies to new levels. From instant messaging to Skype to Facebook, this has continued to be the case. Technologies that allow people to connect with others drive new innovations and trends.

This powerful ability to connect people as never before should draw us, as followers of Christ, to the Internet. It is not about the latest gadget; it is about relationships. That is what makes these digital technologies so powerful for ministry. We need to understand that the Internet should first and foremost be about creating relationships: relationships between individuals, relationships between groups of people and relationships with God.

That everyone may hear. Our world is encircled with fiber optic cable. Fiber optic cable is the primary backbone of the Internet; it allows for digital communications at almost the speed of light. In a talk at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 2005, Thomas Friedman explained how this came to be: “Netscape triggered the dot-com boom, and that triggered the dot-com bubble, and that triggered the accidental, ridiculous, absurd, outrageous, insane overinvestment of something close to a trillion dollars in fiber optic cable in five years. And that crazy, absurd, ridiculous investment of nearly a trillion dollars in fiber optic cable in five years accidentally made Beijing, Bangalore and Bethesda, where I live, next-door neighbors, without anyone, anywhere planning it to happen.”[11]

According to Friedman, the fact that the world is now wired was just a happy “accident.” I beg to differ. Just as I believe the Roman roads existed two thousand years ago to allow Christianity to quickly take root, I believe that God planned for this digital infrastructure at the beginning of the twenty-first century for his purposes as well. By combining the invention of the Internet with a free-market economic system that allowed for speculation in the late 1990s, I believe that God made the deployment of a worldwide communications infrastructure possible. Can we truly believe that God did not have a hand in that?

You’ve got the whole world in your hands. With the world wired for the Internet, what device will be most effective for communication? Not the computer. Acc...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Praxis
• Title page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Introduction
• 1 What Hath God Wrought?
• 2 Getting in the Stream
• 3 Creating Change
• 4 The Digital Ministry Framework
• 5 Planning Your Digital Strategy
• 6 Implementing and Running Your Digital Ministry
• 7 Privacy and Security Considerations for Digital Ministry
• Conclusion
• Appendix A: Digital Tool Categories
• Appendix B: Research Report: Best Practices in Internet Ministry
• Appendix C: Church Web Usage Survey
• Notes
• About the Author