Sharing God’s Eternal Story in New Ways: Why Technology Isn’t Bad News for the Church
New technologies are transforming our daily lives in almost every sphere you can think of, from grocery shopping to dating to solving crimes.
But this experience of having our lives flipped inside out by new technologies—that’s not new. And every time we see it happen in history, we see new opportunities for the story of God’s love to go forward.
Obstacles or Opportunities?
When roads were constructed across the Roman empire, they were initially developed to allow Roman soldiers to crisscross the empire, defending its borders and enforcing its laws. But God used those roads to enable early Christians to travel long distances and bring the gospel to distant lands.
When the printing press was invented, God used it to print hundreds of thousands Bibles for everyday Christians to read in their own languages during the Reformation.
When radio was first invented, some Christians rejected it, claiming that its use of airwaves meant that it belonged to the “prince of the power of the air.” However, God used radio to enable missionaries to broadcast the gospel in some of the most restricted countries in the world.
How might God use our smartphones to let the gospel go forward? What would it look like for us to take advantage of the God-glorifying potential inside the technology sitting in our pockets right now?
The Evangelism Tool You Carry Everyday
When we talk about smartphones and other technologies, we can often focus on their pitfalls: how they can distract us from the people in front of us, interrupt our thinking with incessant alerts, or shorten our attention spans. But when we are so focused on the problems, it’s easy to miss how these same technologies open up huge opportunities to let people know about God’s love.
Your phone is probably the one thing you never leave home without. And that means that, whoever you meet or whatever you do, you can turn to a copy of the Bible on your phone in the midst of your conversations.
If we thought of our cell phones as a tool for evangelism, would we be more ready to use it that way? Would we be more likely to tell people God’s story if we were aware that we were carrying it in our pocket?
Reaching People Where They Are
The opportunities to share God’s love through technology doesn’t stop with our cell phones. A report this month from eMarketer says that American adults spend over 12 hours every day consuming media. And according to the BBC, kids are spending upwards of 6 hours a day on screens.
This vibrant online world of movies, shows, songs, blogs, websites, apps, and social media doesn’t seem to be going away any more quickly than the printing press or radio did. And that can be good news, because it’s an opportunity to share the best news—God’s story.
At Spread Truth, our goal is to get the gospel everywhere in the most creative and innovative ways. We think new technologies and media habits are opening up opportunities to share God’s love with the people all around us and with those on the other side of the world. And over the next weeks, we want to explore what it can look like practically to leverage these new tools in this new digital world we live in. Stick around to learn more.