Digital Ministry in the Church: Embracing the Digital Age
In an ever-evolving digital landscape, the importance of digital ministry within the church cannot be overstated. With 94% of Canadians engaging online, churches have a unique opportunity to reach individuals where they are, making digital ministry crucial in today’s context. Knox Alumni, The Rev. Matthew Ruttan (class of 2008) and The Rev. John Borthwick (class of 1998), both seasoned voices in the realm of digital ministry, emphasize the need for churches to adapt and innovate to connect with their communities effectively.
How would you describe digital ministry, and why is it crucial for churches in the modern age?
Matthew: Digital ministry is anything you do as a church on the internet. This includes social media, blogs, podcasts, videos, smart phone apps, websites, and even church-wide email lists. Churches don’t ‘need’ a digital ministry. They also don’t ‘need’ buildings. But in a world where most people are spending a lot of time in digital space it is a powerful tool. 94% of Canadians are online. They are scrolling, shopping, learning about life, seeking help, and looking for a church.
John: Digital ministry covers a lot of areas in the Church today. It could be limited to simply a congregation’s website or expand to their social media presence through a Facebook page or an Instagram account. Digital ministry might be reflected in a congregation or ministry leader’s use of a YouTube Channel to share content and engage with a wider audience. It could also encompass the creation of a podcast or a well curated and creative TikTok presence. It is crucial for ministry leaders living in the digital age to be in conversation about what tools they might use to reach their desired audience with their authentic expression of the Good News of Jesus. Why? Because this is where the majority of those in the Canadian context today are – to play on the words of the apostle Paul and an ancient Greek poet – living, moving, and having their being. To ignore it is to ignore them and the potential to reach them with the life sustaining message of the Gospel. But it is also a choice and a choice that can and must be made with intention based on one’s own personal capacity or that of the congregation as well as a decision on whom the ministry context seeks to reach.
Can you share your experiences with digital ministry and the various digital tools you employ in this area?
Matthew: I write The Up Devotional which is published five days a week via email, social media and as a podcast. I host ‘The Pulse Podcast with Matthew Ruttan’ which features interviews, feature talks and Bible studies. I create faith-based teaching with words, graphics, videos and audio recordings.
Among those tools, The Up Daily Devotional is at the heart of what I do. Someone called it their 1-minute shot of soul espresso. Over the past nine years it has grown to about 2,500 daily subscribers. In addition, the radio version has a reach of about 8,000. The podcast version through Apple Podcast, Spotify, and other platforms is hard to track. Some episodes are listened to by a few hundred, others by a few thousand. It depends on the day and topic.
My goal is to provide help and hope for daily discipleship. At times, faith can get too theoretical. These tools are meant to give ‘on the ground’ assistance in the footsteps of a Saviour who went out of his way to interact with people where they were at—whether it be the shoreline, a well, or the temple steps. Today, where are many people ‘at’? The digital world.
John: As a congregational minister, I used a variety of digital ministry tools. The most effective for a season in my local context was Twitter. I would often meet people in the community who would pause and wonder how we knew each other, and I would invariably say: “Twitter?” And sure enough, that was the connection. It was through this tool that I made many lasting connections locally. In fact, one of the now elders of the church I served who returned to the Presbyterian Church during COVID cites our Twitter relationship as being one of the keys to his return to the Church.
As the Curator of www.ministryforum.ca (the Centre for Lifelong Learning), you can see that we seek to use as many tools as possible to connect with our audience and assure them that they are not alone as they serve in ministry. It is important that one discerns where one’s target audience is – that’s why we’ve intentionally chosen to be present on Facebook and Instagram. We also recognize that not everyone wants to watch videos to access content so that’s why we’ve launched our Ministry Forum Podcast. In fact, we have a couple of episodes planned for the podcast where I talk more about my experience with digital ministry.
What common obstacles do churches face when integrating digital technology, and what strategies can assist them in overcoming these issues?
Matthew: When I talk to people about this, most begin by asking “how” questions. But we first need to ask “why” questions. Why are we doing this? T.S. Eliot said, “The end is where you start from.” In other words, you start with your end goal and work backwards. To me, the goal needs to be consistent with the overall mission of the church. Increasingly, digital ministry isn’t a separate arm of ministry, but a part of the whole body’s DNA.
Another obstacle is mental—it can seem overwhelming, especially if you’re unsure about your purpose or if you think you have to do everything. So be realistic. Tackle one or two things to begin—perhaps a focused social media presence and a weekly emailing list.
Churches also struggle to find people with the right skills to help out. Realistically, a church’s strategy may depend on who they have. With that in mind, we work with what we have, not what we wish we had. If a church is in a position to do so, it might be wise hire someone part-time to help out.
John: In my experience, the common obstacles are capacity and investment. They essentially go hand in hand. One needs to invest financially in creating a quality digital presence AND have the people involved directly in the ministry regularly contribute, engage, and update it. There’s the challenge. Overcoming it will require being clear on what capacity you have as a church – who are the people who are already using social media? Does your minister use social media – if yes, what platforms? If your website is the virtual front door of the Church, how does it look? Does it need a fresh paint job? This is the first impression of your community. This is something worth investing in. Ministry Forum is looking at ways to support congregations in overcoming these issues in a tangible way.
How can churches evaluate their current digital presence and identify areas for improvement?
Matthew: This is a challenge because you don’t always know how someone is reacting on the other side of a screen somewhere. Take social media, for example. It’s easy to overvalue ‘likes,’ ‘shares’ or favourable comments because that is all you see. But those don’t always tell you what you want to know. That’s why it’s essential to know what your goals are. Let’s use ‘making disciples’ or ‘building loving community’ as examples. If someone ‘likes’ a post, that doesn’t necessarily mean you’re accomplishing those things.
‘Success’ isn’t always easily measured. Yes, there are paid tools to help you track online engagement. But discipleship or faithfulness mature over time. Therefore, one of the best things you can do is consistently share content which is intended to help people toward your goals. Are you being random or purposeful? When a new Christian is baptized or when someone starts to intentionally befriend the lonely, your digital ministry may have helped get them there. You can’t always see the connections, but they’re often there.
That said, there are some practical things you can do as well. You can create a questionnaire to ask people what they do/don’t use, or what they find helpful/not helpful. You can ask for suggestions (don’t forget newcomers). You can also look at other organizations in the community (libraries, schools) to glean some best practices.
John: Invite the congregation to ask their friends and family who may not attend church to visit the varieties of digital ministry tools that the church is using and offer their honest feedback. You could do the same among trusted ministry leaders – maybe ask ministry colleagues to provide a digital ministry review for you (and you for them). If one has financial resources, one could hire a consultant to review these ministries and assess where improvements could be made.
What types of content are most effective in engaging a digital audience?
Matthew: There are different kinds of engagement, just as there are different kinds of audiences. Social media is often a quicker/shorter kind of engagement. Think of a brief announcement or a picture of a volunteer at a food drive. People tend to ‘skim’ through social media feeds. They’re not there to read a book. However, there is an opportunity with blogs, podcasts or videos to go deeper with a topic. A post on Facebook might be good to remind people about Friday’s youth event, but a blog on your website might be a good way to provide some more in-depth background on something like tackling homelessness or why we practice fasting. These are generalizations, but they are intended to show that people tend to use different tools to access different kinds of content.
In both categories, my experience is that people respond to practical help and hope. They love encouragement too! Generally speaking, the digital ‘space’ is jam-packed with information, misinformation, distraction, jokes and junk—in other words, both good and bad. Think of it like a diet. Every day people our brains are munching on digital content. Churches have an opportunity to inject practical help and hope into that online “diet.”
John: Invite the congregation to ask their friends and family who may not attend church to visit the varieties of digital ministry tools that the church is using and offer their honest feedback. You could do the same among trusted ministry leaders – maybe ask ministry colleagues to provide a digital ministry review for you (and you for them). If one has financial resources, one could hire a consultant to review these ministries and assess where improvements could be made.
How can churches utilize social media to enhance their digital outreach and foster a vibrant online community?
Matthew: I always say that the church’s website is the new front door. That is true for seniors, not just young people. But increasingly, that ‘front door’ is social media. Walking into a church building for the first time can be very intimidating. A digital presence is a way for people in the wider world to learn more about you before they show up in person. It’s a first step.
The idea of fostering online ‘community’ is tricky. It’s an ongoing discussion and I’m not sure what the answer is. When we say ‘community’ we tend to think about seeing people face-to-face and hugging. When people talk about online community, it’s related but different. As our online patterns of behaviour continue to evolve, what we’re seeing is that people of different ages tend to spend time in different digital spaces. For example, Facebook is an older demographic than TikTok or Snapchat. Someone over 50 may be more likely to read a blog whereas someone under 40 may be more likely to listen to a podcast. (Gen Zers and Millenials are the biggest podcast users in Canada.) There are online ‘communities’ in the sense that people are interacting with one another (through comments or videos), but they aren’t as present or as accountable as they might be in person.
We should also avoid being naïve. Unchecked time online can be a Pandora ’s Box leading to anxiety and depression. In a recent poll, almost half of Gen Z respondents (people between 12 and 27) said they wished TikTok and Twitter/X had never been invented. So even as we try to build positive online connections, we need to be wise about the dangers of over-reliance, and of the tool itself. The internet was made for humankind, not humankind for the internet.
John: It is all about being real, authentic, and active. Your content must include real people – pictures, videos, voices. It needs to be authentic to who you are as a ministering person or congregation. It doesn’t have to polished and produced – digital audiences are much more interested in real people engaging with authenticity. If we met IRL (in real life), we shouldn’t feel like your digital presence and in-person presence are different. And finally, active – a digital presence can’t be simply set it and forget it. Regularly update things and show the digital audience that there is still something happening in this digital space.
What advice would you give to a church that feels overwhelmed by the prospect of embracing digital ministry?
Matthew: First, don’t try to be someone you’re not. There are always big churches down the road who do a lot of ‘impressive’ things online (and probably have full-time staff to make it happen). You’re not them and they’re not you.
Second, remember who it’s all about—Jesus! You are sharing help, hope and encouragement to people who desperately need it.
Third, stay focused. Know your goals, develop some elder-approved guidelines, identify people with some skills to help, and zero-in on doing a few things well.
A basic website is helpful, and so is a Facebook group (not page) and Instagram account. A weekly email to the congregation serves like a digital bulletin; if you want people to know about your mission trip to Guatemala or that you need more volunteers for the nursery, a congregation-wide email is gold, especially at a time when people aren’t physically in church as often as they used to be. What is more effective?—10 point font in a bulletin that people will see once every three weeks, or an email that they will check every day?
Fourth, encourage denominational decision-makers to offer seminary courses or workshops in digital ministry. This is here to stay. Pastors, elders, and other leaders can easily feel overwhelmed or swamped. When a church is looking for a new pastor, do the profile forms have a category for a candidate’s proficiency in digital ministry, or do we just expect them to be experts on top of everything else? Could more ‘study leave’ time be dedicated to learning about new technologies? Yes. I once took a week to buy video-editing software and spent hours watching online tutorials about how to use it. Too often, pastors and church leaders are left on their own to navigate a new frontier. Connected to this, leaders need to learn how to set a healthy example of internet use and create boundaries for their own well-being. If they don’t, they may be walking toward a hospital bed.
We are in the midst of a cultural, digital revolution which is changing how we think and relate. Are we still expecting the church to use a phone booth?
In a local context, there are some easy things you can do depending on your focus. Do you want to strengthen your prayer ministry? Invite people to sign up for an online prayer chain. Do you want to re-connect with the community by promoting your Christmas Eve candlelit service? Create some digital ads on Instagram which will reach thousands of people in a specific area for next to no money. Do you want to help young people keep Jesus top-of-mind? Share simple graphics made on Canva.com for a youth-focused Instagram account with quotes from the Gospels.
Personally, digital ministry has been an extension of my teaching ministry—mostly through The Up Daily Devotional, The Pulse Podcast, and blogs. I enjoy doing it. It’s a big project, but a satisfying one. My process has been refined over the years, I’ve learned from both successes and mistakes, and the congregation supports it. People have been given help and hope. Because of that, it’s easy to keep going. I heard a statistic that around the world there are more people using smart phones than there are using toothbrushes. Yikes. Like it or not, digital ministry is here to stay. Let’s help be a part of a God-honouring digital diet.
John: Get to know the digital landscape personally first. Talk about how you want to engage with digital ministry with intention and be able to effectively answer your “Why?” Why are you creating a website? Why are you creating a Facebook page? And finally, try one thing and evaluate your ongoing capacity, engagement, and experience.