An interview with Ryan K. Bolger, associate professor of church in contemporary culture, by FULLER magazine Editor in Chief Jerome Blanco.
Jerome Blanco: As technology continues to develop at increasingly rapid rates, can you summarize a key way technological advancement has transformed—and is continuing to transform—the church? And in particular, the church’s theology of mission?
Ryan K. Bolger: I would say that the biggest impact has been the relocation of church practice to mediated spaces. I am not talking about church services on Zoom in the post-pandemic era, which of course happened as well. What I am suggesting is that over the last 20 years or so, the local church has been decentered as the locus for day-to-day Christian practice. For example, it is commonplace for Christians to seek out Christian teaching, worship, prayer, fellowship, formation, and service opportunities online, most frequently through social media, podcasts, and the like. These are instances of “church” in a sense—two or three gathered (through media) in Jesus’ name. Although most of us still attend a local church, much—or most—of our sustenance comes from outside the church service and local church community. Of course, this has happened before, through Christian books, radio, and TV, but more recently this trend has exponentially grown.
JB: What are the biggest challenges the church faces in living missionally in this technological age?
RB: Probably the biggest challenge the church faces today is how to address the deleterious effects of social media use on the day-to-day lives of our congregants. A big challenge is that none of these platforms are neutral, and wisdom is required to navigate their many opportunities and also their very real harms. Each platform also has its own agenda that is not necessarily consistent with Christian practice. We now know that Instagram deeply impacts the psychological well-being of its most heavy users, causing addiction in many—especially young teens. We now know how the algorithms were designed on Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube (and others) to move us to anger or fear in order to increase our time spent on the app, profile us, sell our data, and then manipulate our responses. Even more maddeningly, much of the information generated is completely untrue. These destructive social media practices—alongside news media outlets as well—have ignited huge divisions in the American church overall as well as inside many of our congregations.
JB: What opportunities excite you as the church navigates this new landscape? How is mission taking new shape in positive ways?
RB: Pulling from both Christian and non-Christian online resources, millennials and Gen Z create a myriad of spiritual expressions to make sense of their world. The church today has the opportunity to meet this challenge by making their community and their resources ever-available in their lives, when they need it and in ad hoc ways. Churches need not be situated only in time and place but can be situated perpetually in (cyber)space and in their congregants everyday, mediated spaces. The church must do the difficult work of contextualizing these varied, mediated, and accessible resources in very simple ways with thought-through design. And if they do, then their people will no longer feel alone or unsupported in their everyday lives. Again, as mentioned before, this social engagement may be fraught, but if done carefully, with wisdom, many connections can be made. I’ve witnessed this most recently through TikTok!
JB: How might you encourage church leaders as they navigate the living out and proclamation of the good news amidst the changing technological landscape?
RB: Core to the Christian task has always been the contextualizing of our faith in new contexts. But, perhaps even at the most exciting moments, contextualization is most often incredibly challenging, as we are moved by the Holy Spirit to give up our sacred cows, our prior ways of doing church. Indeed, it is a sobering thought to consider that the local church now makes up only one node in the constellation of a Christian’s spiritual life, and it is perhaps no longer the primary node. To contextualize, church leadership must reconsider how it is we lead and serve in a mediated and virtual world. Though our local congregations may be small, we might, at the same time, have many around the world who seek to share virtual church services and day-to-day resources and activities with us on many different platforms. Through a well-thought-out design of our ministry, while fully aware of the many challenges social media platforms present, we may be able to create face-to-face and online global resources and activities that sustain, strengthen, and inspire not only those who have previously been a part of our local congregation but also like-minded Christians throughout the world. We may be surprised how the Holy Spirit leads us to serve people we would have never met prior to the dawn of the Internet and social media.
Ryan K. Bolger is associate professor of church in contemporary culture. In addition to conducting research focusing on church and contemporary culture, he teaches classes on missiology, technological culture, church and mission, church planting, and church renewal. Bolger is the coathor of Techno-Sapiens in a Networked Era: Becoming Digital Neighbors
and Emerging Churches: Creating Christian Communities in Postmodern Cultures and is the editor of Gospel after Christendom: New Voices, New Cultures, New Expressions. He has published numerous articles and is a frequent conference speaker on church and culture.
An interview with Ryan K. Bolger, associate professor of church in contemporary culture, by FULLER magazine Editor in Chief Jerome Blanco.
Jerome Blanco: As technology continues to develop at increasingly rapid rates, can you summarize a key way technological advancement has transformed—and is continuing to transform—the church? And in particular, the church’s theology of mission?
Ryan K. Bolger: I would say that the biggest impact has been the relocation of church practice to mediated spaces. I am not talking about church services on Zoom in the post-pandemic era, which of course happened as well. What I am suggesting is that over the last 20 years or so, the local church has been decentered as the locus for day-to-day Christian practice. For example, it is commonplace for Christians to seek out Christian teaching, worship, prayer, fellowship, formation, and service opportunities online, most frequently through social media, podcasts, and the like. These are instances of “church” in a sense—two or three gathered (through media) in Jesus’ name. Although most of us still attend a local church, much—or most—of our sustenance comes from outside the church service and local church community. Of course, this has happened before, through Christian books, radio, and TV, but more recently this trend has exponentially grown.
JB: What are the biggest challenges the church faces in living missionally in this technological age?
RB: Probably the biggest challenge the church faces today is how to address the deleterious effects of social media use on the day-to-day lives of our congregants. A big challenge is that none of these platforms are neutral, and wisdom is required to navigate their many opportunities and also their very real harms. Each platform also has its own agenda that is not necessarily consistent with Christian practice. We now know that Instagram deeply impacts the psychological well-being of its most heavy users, causing addiction in many—especially young teens. We now know how the algorithms were designed on Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube (and others) to move us to anger or fear in order to increase our time spent on the app, profile us, sell our data, and then manipulate our responses. Even more maddeningly, much of the information generated is completely untrue. These destructive social media practices—alongside news media outlets as well—have ignited huge divisions in the American church overall as well as inside many of our congregations.
JB: What opportunities excite you as the church navigates this new landscape? How is mission taking new shape in positive ways?
RB: Pulling from both Christian and non-Christian online resources, millennials and Gen Z create a myriad of spiritual expressions to make sense of their world. The church today has the opportunity to meet this challenge by making their community and their resources ever-available in their lives, when they need it and in ad hoc ways. Churches need not be situated only in time and place but can be situated perpetually in (cyber)space and in their congregants everyday, mediated spaces. The church must do the difficult work of contextualizing these varied, mediated, and accessible resources in very simple ways with thought-through design. And if they do, then their people will no longer feel alone or unsupported in their everyday lives. Again, as mentioned before, this social engagement may be fraught, but if done carefully, with wisdom, many connections can be made. I’ve witnessed this most recently through TikTok!
JB: How might you encourage church leaders as they navigate the living out and proclamation of the good news amidst the changing technological landscape?
RB: Core to the Christian task has always been the contextualizing of our faith in new contexts. But, perhaps even at the most exciting moments, contextualization is most often incredibly challenging, as we are moved by the Holy Spirit to give up our sacred cows, our prior ways of doing church. Indeed, it is a sobering thought to consider that the local church now makes up only one node in the constellation of a Christian’s spiritual life, and it is perhaps no longer the primary node. To contextualize, church leadership must reconsider how it is we lead and serve in a mediated and virtual world. Though our local congregations may be small, we might, at the same time, have many around the world who seek to share virtual church services and day-to-day resources and activities with us on many different platforms. Through a well-thought-out design of our ministry, while fully aware of the many challenges social media platforms present, we may be able to create face-to-face and online global resources and activities that sustain, strengthen, and inspire not only those who have previously been a part of our local congregation but also like-minded Christians throughout the world. We may be surprised how the Holy Spirit leads us to serve people we would have never met prior to the dawn of the Internet and social media.
Ryan K. Bolger is associate professor of church in contemporary culture. In addition to conducting research focusing on church and contemporary culture, he teaches classes on missiology, technological culture, church and mission, church planting, and church renewal. Bolger is the coathor of Techno-Sapiens in a Networked Era: Becoming Digital Neighbors
and Emerging Churches: Creating Christian Communities in Postmodern Cultures and is the editor of Gospel after Christendom: New Voices, New Cultures, New Expressions. He has published numerous articles and is a frequent conference speaker on church and culture.
Len Tang, director of Fuller’s Church Planting Initiative, writes about the unique role church plants play in the church’s work of evangelism.
