We’re being discipled online. Like it or not.
The average American spends more than 4 hours per day on their phone. That’s more than 28 hours per week. That doesn’t even include time spent streaming services on the TV or time spent on the laptop, which by most estimates accounts for another 4+ hours per day.
How can one hour a week in church compete with that? Even if someone goes to small group, youth group, prayer meeting, men’s breakfast, and grocery giveaway—best case scenario, how many hours per week does someone get in a “discipleship” environment? I can assure you that for most Americans, even Christians, it doesn’t come anywhere close to the amount of time they spend online consuming media. Even an hour spent in the Bible every morning isn’t enough to overcome the attention deficit.
So what are we going to do about it? We can fight it. We can censor it. We can complain about it.
Or we can take advantage of it.
I see four hours per day of opportunity. I think that’s how Jesus sees it.
Thank about it. God created the Internet. It couldn’t exist if He hadn’t fathomed it before time began. What if He’s just waiting for us to grab hold of it and claim our Kingdom authority over it?
I see four hours of available attention, waiting to be captured, waiting to be taught and inspired. I see a soft pitch lobbed right over the plate. Will we swing?
Paul went to the forum, the temple, the marketplace. He didn’t turn his nose up at any invitation. He went where the people were.
Simply streaming our church services to social media isn’t enough. We send missionaries to the third world, we send prayer teams to abortion clinics, Young Life sends missionaries into our high schools. It’s time for digital missionaries.
Just like all of those other missionaries, we need ministers who are trained in the language, the customs, and the best practices of online media. We need ministers who can talk to their peers about the issues that are important to them. We need ministers who can bring a Biblical worldview to a broken world.
That’s exactly what we’re doing. That’s why this is important. That’s why your prayers matter. Your prayers have already sent more than 200 digital missionaries from around the world through our training programs. They’re out there now, working in the background, building networks, bringing the truth to light.
It’s time for a new generation of ministers to raise up. Let’s pray. Let’s continue to raise our voices to our Heavenly Father.
For the first time in the history of the world, we have instantaneous access to unbelievers all over the globe. Can you believe it?
It’s an amazing time to be a Christian. Thank you, Jesus.
Don’t give up, don’t lose heart, don’t stop praying. God has big things in store.
“Let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith.” Hebrews 12:2(ish)
