The Gospel According to Facebook (Part 2)
Is the internet the next Roman Road?
This is Part 2 of a 3 part series. View Part 1.
Your eyes are blurry. Your head feels heavy. You’re over-caffeinated and irritable. Zoom fatigue is setting in.
If you’re anything like me, you may be getting tired of all the time spent staring at a screen and participating in video calls. If you’re a small group leader or church member, you’re beginning to wonder if using technology for discipleship, preaching, and worship is really worth it. Are people growing? Am I growing? Does anyone respond to the Gospel this way?
After discussing in my last post a few dangers that technology presents us, I now want to turn to the reasons that many people fully embrace it in their spiritual life.
Relationships
The first reason why believers fully embrace technology is that it helps us build relationships. At its best, technology, particularly social media, connects us. Despite what you think about Facebook’s cultural influence or overreach, the company’s current mission statement is a good sentiment—
“We’re committed to building technology that helps people find ways to be together”
God created us as relational beings. “It’s not good for man to be alone.” Our relationships with one another are part of what it means to be created in the image of a triune God (Father, Son, Holy Spirit).
Tools that help us live as relational beings are part of God’s common grace.
Isn’t it amazing that we can talk to someone else on the other side of the world? Now, we can actually see one another from anywhere. There is even software to help translate our conversation so we can communicate with one another despite language differences. That’s amazing!
This season of COVID and quarantine has been difficult and very isolating. However, can you imagine going through this without cell phones, social media, and zoom? Let’s not lose sight of that. These tools are a gift.
Resources
The internet has also given us unprecedented access to Biblical resources. It’s hard to imagine a time when the Bible was only physically available in a church building under the care of a priest. Today, I can pull out my phone and access hundreds of translations of scripture in hundreds of languages. We have blogs, Christian podcasts, videos, sermons, books online, you name it, at our fingertips.
Although I’m a Pastor, I didn’t attend seminary. The Biblical knowledge that I’ve received was primarily discipled into me by mentors but also gleaned from numerous free resources that have been made available online. I continue learning by listening to seminary courses on podcast, watching lectures on RightNowMedia.org, or reading thegospelcoalition.org. Even sermon preparation is greatly enhanced with tools like Logos, biblegateway.com, and net.bible.org. My make-shift Biblical education has now given me a surprising ministry — helping other young Christian leaders find free or cheap resources available online. We should rejoice that God has given us these tools to help us grow in knowledge of Him!
Reach
Finally, technology is embraced because it helps us take the Gospel message to unreached people groups. Our cause as believers in Christ is to “Go and make disciples of all nations”. We know that the story ends with people of every nation, tribe, and tongue bowing in reverence to Jesus.
Is it possible that God gave us technological tools to help us achieve the Great Commission?
When I was on staff at RightNow Media (which is like Netflix of Christian videos), we began hearing stories of Bible teaching videos making their way into “closed” countries with little to no access to the Gospel. Apparently, some governments had shut down websites like Netflix and YouTube but RightNow Media was getting through. Some countries, like India, are currently going through a technological revolution. There are millions (maybe billions) of people who are beginning to gain access to cell phones and the internet who have never heard the Gospel and will hear the name of Jesus through online content. In fact, I have several friends who are Online Pastors at churches in the US and they’re seeing churches being planted because groups of people are beginning to gather around worship services being streamed online. Could God be using COVID, and churches moving online, to further His mission among unreached peoples? I believe he is.
Paul used the Roman Road system to transport the Gospel and plant churches around the world. Why would we not do the same with the technological roads made available to us today?
In the next post, I’ll suggest a final option: approaching technology counter-culturally.
