Media Outreach

I recently came across a very interesting quote from Billy Graham. He poised the question “why are we as modern Christian Americans still celebrating the invention of the printing press when we have today’s mass media?” He’s absolutely right. Throughout church history, technological advancements have had significant influence on the life and work of the church. Witnessing the church’s use of leading developments in infrastructure (Roman road system), engineering (cathedrals), communication (printing press), and mass media (television, radio), you can see how the church historically embraced emerging technologies for spreading evangelism, building community, and facilitating worship.

Back in late 2001, Apple introduced the iPod; a product that would play a leading role in shaping America’s pop culture. As of April, 2007, Apple has sold over 100 million units worldwide. Since its creation, the iPod technology has been duplicated by countless competitors around the globe. While the impact this technology has made in the non-secular world has been slower, it has nonetheless seen a crucial change in how the church can covey its message to the world.

As the adoption of leading edge technology in society constantly increases, churches must also adopt new methods of outreach and discipleship lest they become irrelevant to today’s culture. In the late 90′s, the use of recordable CD’s revolutionized the way pastors distributed their sermons, thus rendering the dubbing of cassette tapes as obsolete. Within minutes of the completion of a sermon, a church can now have dozens of discs ready for distribution. However, even CD’s are approaching their swansong now, as a new pattern known as the “digital church”is emerging.

Within the digital church, an individual can access a sermon recorded mere seconds before through the Internet. In addition, “virtual churches” are now popping up with more frequency, with the members of their congregation spread throughout the world. At the simple click of a button, anyone with an internet connection can hear sermons, watch videos, and buy books and study guides. While many people think that only the mega churches are able to provide this service to their members, in fact smaller churches have found that they must adapt to our changing world in order to stay relevant.

Almost 200 million Americans are daily spending hours online banking, downloading, shopping, social networking, and web surfing for fun. According to Harris Interactive, 35% are online seeking spiritual answers… the second highest search activity ahead of finances, gambling and dating, second only to pornography.

Potential visitors no longer want to sample the church before they visit; they expect to be able to sample it. And most churches are catching on. According to Barna, nearly 6 out of 10 protestant churches have a website, and the same 6 out of 10 are also integrating video media into their sermons on a weekly basis. These numbers have more than doubled in the last 5 years. Media integration is a pivotal factor in today’s technology age in the life of a church.

Studies report the typical American spends more time using media devices than doing anything else while awake, with 46% of online adults listening, watching or downloading online media during that time. George Barna states that “the typical American spends roughly twenty times more hours each week engaged with media than involved with all forms of traditional religious activity.” In addition, the Barna Group estimates that within a decade over 50 million Americans will rely solely upon the Internet to get them in touch with God and other believers as well as providing for all of their faith based experiences. With the emerging social networking sites gaining popularity on a daily basis like Flickr, Digg and MySpace, we can only assume the time spent online using media is going to increase as well.

Barna’s research also concludes that “during the next half of this decade we expect increased broadband access, podcasting, and ubiquitous adoption of handheld mobile computing devices by consumers to further alter the way churches conduct ministry.” With the frenzy over the iPhone, the world’s first totally integrated multimedia, broadband cell phone, we’re seeing the first major steps toward a paradigm shift.