Are Churches Losing the Battle to Form Christians? by BRETT MCCRACKEN for The Gospel Coalition
Among the many ways 2020 has been punishing for pastors, one of the most disheartening is the way COVID-19 has further accelerated the already troubling tendency of Christians being shaped more by online life and its partisan ideological ecosystem than by church life and its formational practices.
It was already an uphill battle for pastors before COVID. The digital age, and more broadly our secular age, has greatly expanded the horizon of ideas shaping Christians. The church is increasingly just one voice among many speaking into a Christian’s life. A church’s worship habits may occupy two hours of a Christian’s week. But podcasts, radio shows, cable news, social media, streaming entertainment, and other forms of media account for upwards of 90 hours of their week.
How can a few hours of Christian formation (and during COVID, maybe zero hours) compete with the tidal wave of media rushing over people? Even the most pastorally effective shepherds will struggle to guard flocks against the many voices influencing them. Pastors feel the weight of this ongoing challenge, which the divisive COVID climate has only further exposed. It’s enough to cause some to predict a mass exodus from the pastorate in coming years.
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Be Alarmed, Not Alarmist
We should be alarmed at the pressures facing pastors, but not alarmist. Pastors fighting for the hearts and minds of their sheep is nothing new. Jesus warned that wolves would snatch and scatter the sheep (John 10:12). Paul cautioned the Ephesian elders to “be alert” to the “fierce wolves” who would not spare the flock (Acts 20:29–31). For pastors, the “wolf” threat is not new.
What’s new is that, in the internet age, any given sheep is vulnerable to literally millions of wolves, whose overt or subtle dangers are only ever a few clicks away. It’s impossible for any pastor to be aware of all the wolves. It’s impossible for pastors to track the online activities of any one of their sheep, let alone hundreds of them. The search bar is the spiritual battleground of our day, and yet it’s a largely hidden battleground where the fight for hearts and minds is waged in one-on-one combat. Even if a pastor wanted to take up arms in this war, the reality is a congregation of 100 would mean 100 fronts, with each person’s online experience different from the next. No wonder pastors are exhausted.
