Is Social Media Making the Same Mistake as The Church?

Over the last few years, the American Church has been hemorrhaging people. With the advent of the internet and other cultural shifts, churches began seeing their main competition as the entertainment industry. Because their primary contact with the public was during the weekend service, many leaders lamented the rise in families' choices when deciding what to do during their precious days off. It's understandable at a glance. A priority of the generations before was being eroded before leaders' eyes. But if we look deeper, we can see the fatal flaw that created the modern exodus was instilled by the Protestant Reformation and exacerbated by the Church Growth Movement. Believe it or not, the Church's story looks eerily similar to the trajectory of social media platforms. Is Social Media making the same mistake as the Church? What was the Church's error?

A Focus on Content.

Don't get me wrong, content is an essential component in any church and, for that matter, social platform. Still, the over-reliance and hyper-focus on content caused a subversive flaw that caused many churches to struggle. The Reformation created a needed counterbalance to the unchecked doctrine of the Church 500 years ago. Luther spoke about the oppressive practices that church leadership inflicted on the commoner. He created needed reform and, in the process, called people back to Jesus as the only mediator between God and Man. Additionally, He led a movement to make preaching and hearing of the Word of God the central act of gathering the Church. Leaders moved the Pulpit to the center of the platform as a sign of their commitment to Scripture Alone.

The move was a heartfelt gesture, but it had some unintended consequences. The Church began to rely on the orator's gift of communication as the primary function of the Church. Whereas Church architecture was first designed to create a transcendent emotion, influencing the commoner to revere the Holiness of God, the architecture began to shift toward a more acoustically-friendly structure to magnify the preacher's voice. The church was first built in town to remind people to put Jesus at the center of their life. Gatherings at the building silently slowly began transitioning towards the centrality of the teacher's voice in their life.

As culture shifted and eras passed, the Oratory gifts became more pronounced as the primary driver for Churches to grow. With the American decoupling of the fiduciary responsibility of the State to fund the Church, local congregations were now dealt with the unenviable task of supporting their religious institutions. The separation of Church and State created a poverty-stricken environment for most church leaders and faith communities. Fortunately, most townspeople felt the value a church provided to their societies. The technological advances of the 19th and 20th centuries allowed many people to begin hearing and following the Best Preachers in the World. And Entrepreneurial spirit arose in some of the best preachers of the age as they showed prowess for growing organizations and funding around their preaching gifts.

Then came the radio, TV, and Tent Revivals of the 1950s and the stadium tours of the best Preachers in America. Then One pastor saw the broadcasting power of the TV as a means to reach the World with the Message of Jesus. Robert Schuller would soon discover that it had the unintended consequence of growing his Church, which made his organization and him rich. A decade later Hippies began creating a culturally relevant vibe of music that slowly and brutally took over the hymnody of yesteryear. Churches that quickly transitioned to or started with this approach of a dynamic speaker, contemporary music, and a savvy communications staff exploded in growth and bank account.

This era created the lineage of churches recreating the competitive advantage of these early adopters. Until almost every Church looked the same, most people were suffering as much as they were before they came to these hip churches, and the bank accounts of the churches were running dry as they tried to keep up with the Hybels of the church world.

What was missing was the community.

The Western Church was built around entertainment talents, and the sacrifice was human connection. For goodness sake, we sit in rows spectating and are expected to listen to oration every week, squeaking in relationships after the preaching. We created an animal that primarily competed with other entertainment choices-- except you cannot experience genuine community in a church service. At least on the lake, backyard BBQ, or at a baseball game, you can create lifelong friendships. And the dirty secret is, as a preacher, they never remember what you say. They only remember what they felt about what you said.

Is listening to the preacher every week the best use of our God-given resources?That brings me to Social Media; I see the transition to attention marketing. Everyone is copying Tiktok like everyone copied Schuller. I observe the shift of platforms to compete through entertainment and move away from the very thing that made them valuable in the first place: Human Connection. I don't know if Social Media will change their profit-seeking desires to move towards a community-empowering approach. Still, as long as they don't, this will allow the Church to regain our first mission, being a new community with Jesus, not the building nor the preacher at the center. We were a new Humanity, and we traded our "special sauce" for more faces, more likes, more follows, more Benjamins, more... you name it.

My advice to Social Media, learn from the Church–don't chase attention, chase connection.