“The greatest threat facing the church today is not atheism or secularism, scientism or legalism, racism or nationalism. The greatest threat facing the church today is digital technology,” writes Brad East, provocatively arguing for screen-free churches. This spring marks the fifth anniversary of COVID-19, which caused churches around the world to close their doors and resort to prerecorded or live-streamed services. But those temporary concessions rapidly became staples of many local churches, perhaps permanently altering the ecclesial landscape. Nothing has shaped our view of church (or ecclesiology) the way technology has, especially over the past five years, and we need to pay attention to what’s happening. Before we jump to creative ways digital technology can help the church do things, we need to wisely consider what the church is and how we can carefully deploy technologies in ways that enhance—rather than undermine—the church’s nature and mission. Church for Digital Addicts Churches must start with the sobering acknowledgment that many digital technologies were specifically crafted to take over our lives. Algorithmic technologies, dopamine media, and the “attention economy” of digital capitalism are all crafted to be as irresistible and addictive as possible. Digital life is built on the architecture of addiction. That fact alone means churches should proceed carefully. Think about why so many churches have adopted the practice of offering grape juice instead of wine for communion. As a matter of observation (theological debates aside), most churches do this for the sake of recovering alcoholics and children. But those same church’s pews are full of digital addicts, most not even attempting to recover. We make no accommodations, offer no special ministries or programs, and rarely mention it from the pulpit. Instead, we incorporate their addictions into our worship services. Digital life is built on the architecture of addiction. That fact alone means churches should proceed carefully. Thanks to bearers of bad news like Jonathan Haidt and his book The Anxious Generation, parents and schools are finally starting to take notice of how negatively screens affect children’s capacities to learn and grow. But when will the church follow suit? Christian techno-optimists often mention that believers have always been on the cutting edge of technological advancement, from codices to the printing press to the internet. But one of these isn’t like the others. Should we be more worried about lagging behind the tech movement in Silicon Valley or the movement to protect the mental health of our congregation? Toward a Tech-Wise Church As I’ve explained elsewhere, the future evangelical church should focus on fully embedding itself within the culture while creating clearer boundaries around the church community. Since our culture is a digital culture, full retreat isn’t a viable option, but the need for moral reasoning about digital technology in the church is urgent. To take a term from Andy Crouch’s excellent book, local churches must become tech-wise (spiritual) families, where we focus on developing wisdom and courage together. For all its wonderful benefits (and there are many), digital technology cannot form us into the type of people God created us to become. For that, we need the frustratingly inefficient, deeply powerful formation that comes from participating in life together: talking, listening, feasting, singing, working, and resting. We need to reaffirm that embodied communities matter, not only in word but also in deed. While Crouch’s 10 tech-wise commitments focus on the household, they’re broadly applicable to wider communities, and the “three choices” undergirding these commitments can help us think carefully about digital technology in the church. 1. Choose Character “Make the mission of your [church], for children and adults alike, the cultivation of wisdom and courage.” This is a call for Christian maturity and deep discipleship. The church is commissioned with the task of evangelism and missions, but it’s unable to accomplish this apart from the preliminary work of the Holy Spirit in our churches. Many people have been evangelized through the medium of social media. There are pastors, theologians, and apologists doing excellent work on those platforms to defend and promote sound doctrine online. But if we’re going to talk about the “digital mission field,” we need to treat it like one. We don’t send our children alone out onto the mission field or ill-equipped for the hazards they’ll face. We pray, train, strategize, and are “sent” by one or several local churches with a purpose. Ideally, they give support and oversight. The promise of “platform” is more enticing—and seemingly more attainable—than ever. But evangelicals need to double down on choosing character: becoming like Christ before rushing to preach Christ from the largest possible platform. 2. Shape Space “Make choices about the place where you live that put the development of character and creativity at the heart of your [church].” This requires an appreciation for place and time. Before social media, it was automobiles that annihilated basic Christian sensibilities about the nature of the church. Cars made it difficult for pastors to keep track of members or practice church discipline. You can go wherever the music, programs, preaching, or aesthetics are most to your liking. Then, if the pastor takes a political stance you don’t like, or they change the music too much, or you’re under church discipline for committing adultery—you can just leave and go to any number of churches in any number of areas. We still talk about attending a “local church,” but we’ve lost most sense of locality. As C. S. Lewis observed 70 years ago, cars simply “annihilate space.” But we still exist as spatially located bodies, and because bodies matter, buildings matter too. Winston Churchill once keenly noted, “We shape our buildings, and afterwards our buildings shape us.” For example, church buildings where the centerpiece is a large screen—an all-purpose focal point for lyrics, slideshows, and promotional videos—shape us in the mold of cinematic consumers. Rather than shaping auditoriums for screens, shape them for embodied presence and participation. For example, my local church intentionally keeps the lights on during congregational singing so it’s easier to look at one another than at anything else. We’ve also incorporated active engagement into the physical sanctuary by having craftsmen and artists in our congregation construct our pulpit for preaching, our Communion table, and the wooden cross behind the stage. Other churches place phone baskets outside the sanctuary to “nudge” people to check their screens, instead of their brains, at the door. All these strategies have pros and cons, but they’re steps in the right direction. 3. Structure Time “Build rhythms into your life on a daily, weekly, and annual basis. These rhythms make it possible for you to get to know your [church], God, and your world in deeper ways.” Just as cars annihilated space, digital technology annihilated time. Nearly half of teens say they’re online “almost constantly,” while most of the rest still consistently check in throughout the day. Rather than shaping auditoriums for screens, shape them for embodied presence and participation. It’s no coincidence that the “new wave of evangelicalism”—spiritual formation—is happening now. The growing popularity of a rule of life is the result of an evangelical church that desperately wants to know how to inhabit time, not only despite the digital age but because of it. I’ve been slightly critical of John Mark Comer’s vision of spiritual formation, not because it can’t fit within an ecclesial framework but because it can and should, and that’s what young Christians are looking for, whether they realize it or not. One practical application is annually following some version of the church calendar. Instead of organizing the preaching calendar around cultural, political, or therapeutic trends, you can organize it around Christ’s life. A church can weekly practice Sabbath and feasting at the Lord’s Table, alongside regular rhythms of common life throughout the week. Even at the level of daily rhythms, we can interlock our lives with the local church—for example, by adopting a communal Bible reading plan or even just agreeing as a church to seek the Lord through Scripture and prayer before reaching for our phones in the morning. Digital Resistance We need all hands on deck to think creatively about digital resistance in the 21st century. None of us has all the answers. The best arguments for screen-free churches affirm creation’s goodness and the ability of Christians to redeem technology. Yet they strategically decenter digital media from the worship services, not with a curmudgeonly or fearful spirit but with a desire for the church to experience the fullness of community, embodied presence, and God’s transcendence. The best arguments for digital ministry use technology to enhance, not replace. These are churches that use a regularly updated, aesthetically pleasing, engaging and informative website to draw people to the local church. They use podcasts, short-form and long-form videos, and articles to equip the saints and reach the sinners, as an extension of embodied church ministry. Perhaps they use digital screens for congregational worship, QR codes for event planning, and check-in kiosks to keep track of the children, assisting the church’s in-person connections rather than intentionally disconnecting them from the embodied community. The best arguments for digital ministry use technology to enhance, not replace. As we think about how we use digital technology in our churches, we need to be clear that some uses are antichurch, actively working against the nature and purpose of the body of Christ. Others are parachurch, coming alongside us to support the church’s mission. But no digital medium can be a church itself. Technology is only permissible so long as it helps local churches to flourish as churches—not as Christian nonprofits, businesses, or internet cafes but as the Bride of Christ, the place where heaven meets earth, the pillar and buttress of the truth. As the church is the pillar and buttress of truth, so technology must be a supporting framework and scaffolding, not a wrecking ball or a remodeling crew.