How to Be the Church in the Attention Economy

More eyeballs equal more profit.

That's the business model for today's social media landscape, where companies like Meta (f.k.a. Facebook) and Twitter capitalize on our attention and focus. That's not to say our relationship with social media companies is entirely one-sided. Users of social media sites do, in fact, derive benefits: connection, community, and even friendship. And there are obvious benefits to Christian communities, particularly during a pandemic. Through social media, we can continue to proclaim the Word and gather communities for service and fellowship, even when it is unsafe to gather in large, public assemblies.

Still, there is something unsavory about the attention economy. The more time we spent on social media, the more social media companies profit. This creates an obvious incentive for tech giants to continue to commodity our focus. Non-chronological news feeds, infinite scrolling, and suggested posts have turned social media apps into a form of slot machine, where each scroll of the feed and refresh of the page rewards our minds with a fresh hit of dopamine. It seems that each year, social media companies find a new gimmick to keep me on their sites for longer. This partially explains why Facebook's average revenue per user (ARPU) has increased by over 600% since 2011, with Mark Zuckerberg now making an average of $32 per each American Facebook user each year.

With new user adoption slowing, there are signs that we are leveling off in our daily usage of social media. These trends will lead the Zuckerbergs of the world to find more hacks for keeping us on the site, viewing content and videos but also clicking sponsored posts, reading comments and stories but also seeing highly targeted adverts.

This creates a dilemma for today's church leader. How do we convene online community when doing so fills the coffers of Facebook and Twitter? How do we gather online community around the Gospel when the risks of excess time online are thoroughly-documented?

We might answer this question by arguing that it is unethical for churches to congregate on social media sites. This perspective, known as the "Luddite" position, ignores the reality of relationships formed on these sites. As a consequence, Luddites miss a prime opportunity for ministry in a digital age.

Similarly, we might answer this question by stating that digital should just be a means of church communication. This perspective was the implicit standard in the prepandemic church. However, social media should not be viewed as just another bulletin board, pointing to an experience of church that happens offline. For better or worse, digital spaces are the meeting grounds for Millennials and Generation Z. This requires us to take seriously how to establish and strengthen relationships online and offline.

There is a better way for today's church leader. Rather than dismissing social media outright, or relegating it to the role of a high-tech bulletin board pointing to offline spaces, we ought to address the attention economy through practices of faith-based, digital Sabbath.

A faith-based digital Sabbath is an online experience that disrupts the noise of digital life through the integration of scripture, reflection, and prayer. This might take the form of a scrollable Instagram post, an email newsletter, or a standalone app. It might appear as a video reflection, a podcast, or a blog post. Regardless of format, faith-based digital Sabbath invites social media connections to pause, to recenter ourselves on God's Word, and to radiate God's grace and mercy outward.

Secular digital Sabbaths exist. The Calm app is one of my favorites. But it is only through a faith-based digital Sabbath that we can regain a sense of self-awareness that makes us more present to ourselves and the needs of our neighbor.

Through the combination of prayer and practice, we turn our attention away from the self-centeredness created by the news feed and hear how God is calling us into concrete acts of service for the good of this world. It is only through a faith-based digital Sabbath that we can break the cycle of mindless social media scrolling, reorienting ourselves to God's work in our lives so that we may live lives of faithful discipleship.

Faith-based digital Sabbath will not change the steady growth of the attention economy. But the combination of scripture, reflection, and prayer gives us a momentary reprieve from its advance. As we partake in this experience of God's rest, we cease to become a commodity, even if momentarily. We are formed, instead, for Christian community.

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For some of my favorite examples of a faith-based digital Sabbath, check out:

• Luther Seminary's God Pause

• Richard Rohr's Daily Meditations

• Kate Bowler's Instagram

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Digital Ministry vs. Hybrid Ministry: What's the Difference?

Let's talk terminology.

In church leadership circles, we hear the words "digital" and "hybrid" with increasing frequency.

Often, they are used interchangeably. Occasionally, they are used in conjunction: "our digital-hybrid ministry offers..." As with any ministry model, there will be some ambiguity and overlap in their definitions.

But digital is not synonymous with hybrid. These are qualitatively different models, with vastly different implications for a congregation's resources, staffing, and ministry philosophy.

Prior to the pandemic, as many as 50% of congregations were analog churches. Without a website or presence on social media, they lacked the capacity, let alone the motivation, to collaborate with online communities for the sake of mission.

But many churches with some digital presence were actually analog. Their websites and digital content existed for one purpose: to bring people somewhere else. In this way, the websites of the analog church functioned as high-end billboards, directing users to buildings for synchronous gatherings, such as worship and Christian education. A church does not become a digital ministry simply by having a website or social media. It becomes a digital ministry by gathering around the Word of God in digital spaces.

Digital ministry, then, is about access to the grace of God, as experienced through digital forms of community. When we think about digital ministry, we tend to think of worship. Digital worship was the model that 96% of pastors implemented during the pandemic, particularly during the lockdowns of spring and summer 2020, a time when there were few viable alternative models.

Live-streamed worship services are frequently associated with the digital church, however, utilizing live streaming is not a mandatory component of a digital ministry. Engaging in book discussions through Zoom, conducting board meetings via teleconferencing, and fostering social media conversations around content are also ways to practice digital ministry. As churches reassess their reliance on live-streaming, they might discover that concentrating on content - or digital resources that educate, empower, and motivate their faith communities - is a more sustainable approach.

Digital ministry, then, exists whenever web-based tools are used to gather the faithful around the Gospel message.

Some assume that ongoing live streaming also represents hybrid ministry. If a congregation gathers in the pews and on Zoom, for example, then it must be hybrid.

It's not quite that simple.

Hybrid ministry exists wherever bridges are built between online and in-person participants. To be a hybrid ministry is to create opportunities for collaboration, online and offline. A ministry can only be hybrid when online participants are actively involved in the work of the people.

Sitting passively in one's living room while watching a YouTube stream is not hybrid worship. Listening in on a Zoom conversation is not hybrid church leadership. Recording a Confirmation podcast is not hybrid Christian education.

To practice hybrid ministry is to create opportunities for those online to collaborate with, and even to lead, those gathered face-to-face. Hybrid ministry demands a high level of creativity and strategic allocation of resources. For instance, a hybrid worship ministry may rely on platforms like Zoom for services, as it allows for active participation and collaboration. Moreover, a successful hybrid ministry requires designated individuals (preferably not the pastor) to foster online discussions, manage prayer requests, and moderate interactions in the chat.

Not all ministries have to be digital, and not every digital ministry has to be hybrid. Likewise, a congregation does not necessarily need to integrate digital or hybrid approaches into every aspect of its community activities. It is common for churches to utilize digital methods for worship, hybrid approaches for adult faith formation, and stick to traditional analog methods for music ministry. There will always be a place for both digital and analog ministries within the church.

But the congregations that succeed in implementing hybrid ministry, whether through worship or some other expression of communal life, will discover what digital and analog churches may not recognize: that the grace of God abounds, that the Spirit is truly present wherever we are located, each and every moment of the day.

How to convince your council to invest in digital ministry

"How exactly will this grow our church?"

When church councils evaluate spending and investments, this is among the most frequently asked questions. Trained in a culture where growth is synonymous with effectiveness, today's council members often want to see the straight line from budget items to more members. This mindset aligns with the widespread equation for church growth that Andy Root critiques in The Congregation in a Secular Age:

Members + Programs = More Members.

According to this pervasive logic, the programs within a church exist to prime, or to increase the number of members. Digital ministry is, by extension, one such program, the objective of which is to continuously accelerate church growth.

As our buildings continue to reopen, council members will evaluate digital or hybrid ministry with this same framework. How will spending on apps like Zoom, Slack, and Vimeo bring more people to our congregation? How will investment in technologies like video conference rooms, PTZ cameras, and shotgun microphones increase our membership rolls?

Today's church leader could follow this line of questioning to build a case for digital ministry investment. There is data, after all, indicating that 50% of churches saw an increase in attendance during Spring 2020, a season when most congregations were testing online worship for the first time. And while online worship attendance has dipped since its pandemic peak, many congregations continue to see video views that outnumber pre-pandemic worship attendance.

But maybe focusing on church growth isn't the best way to convince your council to invest in digital ministry.

What if digital ministry is not about growth, but is instead about faithfulness?

What if hybrid ministry, which integrates the online with the offline, is less about increasing our numbers and more about sharing our faith stories?

Digital ministry connects with those who are physically, mentally, or spiritually unable to attend in-person worship or face-to-face faith formation, and countless congregations have stories of how they have reignited relationships with former members who moved away. Church leaders have stories of how they have provided pastoral care and spiritual counseling to congregants who continue to feel anxious and isolated. They have experiences of how a conversation, or a blog post, or a podcast has resonated with an unchurched Milllennial, one who still doesn't plan to attend worship, but appreciated the grace inherent in the message. They can tell you about how they became reacquainted with someone who was an active youth group member before leaving the church for several decades, or how they started conversations with nursing home residents who for years had felt isolated from their church community.

These are the stories that reveal the importance of digital ministry, and these are the stories that today's church leader needs to bring to the council. These are the perspectives that the treasurer needs to hear before finalizing the budget and signing the checks.

According to Pew Research, 28% of Americans (and 21% of mainline Protestants) have felt their faith strengthened as a result of the coronavirus outbreak. While it's difficult to isolate a causal factor in this data, the combination of global crisis plus the ease of accessing church content and community undoubtedly contribute to these trends.

Nobody knows how the pandemic will end. Nobody knows when the pews will fill up to their pre-pandemic levels, or whether online worship participation will remain a fixture in the congregation's life.

All we have for certain are the stories: the lived experiences of those who encountered the grace of God while navigating a time of global crisis.

How do you convince your church council to pay $30,000 to boost your WiFi speeds or $5,000 to set up a video-equipped classroom? You share how these investments have connected the community to a God who tends to show up, not just in our building, but wherever we are gathered. You tell a story of a God who is faithful in both sacred space and cyberspace.

When we stop seeking the connection between programs and members, between technology and growth, the digital church becomes more than an investment. It becomes a community.