Sunday morning.
The church building sits with doors waiting to be opened, screens waiting to flare to life, chairs waiting for occupants.
It’s quiet—for now.
The first cars pull up in front of the doors. Couples, families, friends—old and young—step out and, with the push of a button, send their vehicles away to the offsite parking lots. Cars follow each other away from the building in a shining procession of windows and wheels.
Dream
What might church—what might that Sunday morning—look like someday?
There are some ideas, some guesses.
“We are going to have a whole new layer of outreach tools beyond what we have now with people sharing information and messages peer to peer,” said Dave Travis, CEO of Leadership Network, noting the kinds of tools being used by political campaigns for tracking and isolating individuals.
For Bobby Gruenewald, pastor and innovation leader at Life.Church, technological advances create huge potential for the church to establish and build relationships: “History tells us that the needs we have for relationship and community will ultimately shape these tools into something that can integrate into our lives as a way to relate and connect.”
“The question for the church is going to be what level of modern technology makes people feel like this is something different from what [they] get everywhere else,” said John Dyer, executive director of communications and educational technology for Dallas Theological Seminary. “Do you make your 90 minutes be about that, or do you make your 90 minutes be about facing the new reality that we’re in and working through that world? Each church is going to have to ask that question separately, and answer it differently.”
Adam Graber, who explores the intersection of faith and technology on his blog The Second Eclectic, is optimistic about technologies influencing the future church.
Take driverless cars, for instance: “I think it’s going to happen,” Graber said, referencing the push for such cars from companies like Google and Tesla. Parking issues? Solved. “It’ll drive home,” he predicted. “It’ll drive to an off-site parking lot. It doesn’t need to be anywhere close. But it can come pick you up at the end of the service and take you home or to lunch or whatever. These massive parking lots that churches have today that sit empty most of the week could be used for other things. The land they have suddenly becomes more valuable.”
Technology that aids mobility could also play a significant role in the demographics of the future church.
Driverless cars and other such advancements “may give the elderly a little bit more clout within the church than maybe they have right now,” said Graber. “The church is for those who are mobile, those who are able to get to church very easily. So it’s going to skew younger; it’s going to skew to the active. But if people are able to get to church without having to drive, then there could be more elderly attending church and having more influence.”
For Daniel Fusco, lead pastor of Crossroads Community Church in Vancouver, Washington, a significant growth in traffic for online services has presented the need for some brainstorming.
“This has challenged us to figure out how to fully engage our online congregation,” he said. “We are in the process of rolling out prototype online community groups and brainstorming other ways to make their ‘church’ experience even more engaging. I believe that we will see more and more of this going forward.”
John Wurzbacher, pastor at Blessed Hope Community Church in Webster, New York, also sees challenges for church growth and development as these kinds of online advancements are increasingly emphasized.
“What’s still driving the growth of the church is people being able to connect on a personal level,” he said, “and that is one of the challenges with technology is the focus off of personal connections between individuals.”
He predicts churches will look for ways to create those personal connections, no matter how technology unfolds: “There’s going to always be a push for churches to figure out how to bring that back into the church, where people are still face-to-face. That’s still, I think, where the best discipleship is going to happen, and that’s where people are going to grow the most.”
But an increase in streaming church services could potentially present problems for those who hold to these traditional ideas of church fellowship: “The church—the values that Scripture emphasizes—are going to continue to be challenged,” said Graber, “even notions of gathering together.”
***
Quentin stands in the church lobby, his caffé Americano in hand. Looking around, he recognizes the elderly man standing just a few feet away from him—he’d spoken in last week’s service from his home campus, about 70 or so miles away.
Quentin thinks about going up and talking to him—telling him how much he enjoyed his message—but he can’t muster up the nerve to introduce himself. He takes a sip of coffee. Maybe if Jocelyn were here, we could have talked to him together.
But Jocelyn wanted to stay home. Again. “I’ll just check out the videocast later,” she said.
Influence
Technology and the church have enjoyed a close relationship from the beginning.
“God’s people have always used the latest technology,” said Warren Bird, research director for Leadership Network. “From Jesus preaching from a boat to let the water carry his voice farther, to horseback-riding preachers extending the gospel’s impact by forming the multi-site churches of their day.”
Dyer also noted some of the ways technology has influenced the practices of the church:
“There’s some great old things in the old Book of Common Prayer from the 1700s and 1800s where the prayers are about getting through the night,” he said. “Once you have electric lighting, all those prayers are taken out because obviously electric lighting does wonderful things for when you can worship and what kind of building you can have. But it also changes what we care about and what we think we need from God.”
One of the tools that churches may use to maximize outreach? Big data.
Tracking church attendance is “just one point of big data,” said Graber. “But I think it could become more personalized in the sense of who’s actually attending every week—not just what the number is, but [rather], ‘Is this person attending twice a month? Are they attending three times a month? Are they attending once every two months? What’s that frequency?’”
Graber sees the effective use of this data as a way to ease the tension between a church’s desire to be “big” and its efforts to be “personal.”
“If we know that so-and-so attends once every two months, that their attendance has gone up or gone down, we can reach out to them through an email or through an automated text,” he said.
Todd Rhoades, Leadership Network’s director of digital initiatives, calls this potential use of data a sort of “inside intelligence into what [congregants] are thinking, feeling, and what ministry needs they might need.”
But will people welcome the idea of data and intelligence guessing at their emotions and thoughts?
“Something about it feels kind of sinister,” Rhoades said, “but it could do some good as well!”
***
Norah and Evan walk through a set of double doors into a room of high ceilings and white walls, with chairs scattered across the concrete floor. Voices and footfalls echo through the space as the couple quietly makes their way to two open seats.
They visited this church two months ago with a friend, but they didn’t come back—life just got in the way. Then the text came this week, greeting them by name, asking how they were and whether there was anything the staff members could provide, reminding them about the class for new members this Sunday and about childcare options for their three-year-old daughter.
These ultra-personalized communications still unsettle Norah sometimes—she remembers the days when you had to sign up for an email list to receive updates, not just wait for the facial recognition technology to send you something.
But at least they want us to come back, she thought.
And now, this morning, they take their seats.
Wander
Technology may make church more accessible, but it could also prove distracting.
“In previous decades, preachers have praised the page-turning sounds of God’s people looking up passages and the opening of journals to take notes,” said Bird. “Today the sound is one of people accessing the Internet and using Evernote. In both cases, people could actually be doing something else!”
When it comes to our tendency to be distracted today—as compared to times gone by—“our hearts are the same,” said Lauren Hunter, founder and editor of ChurchTechToday.com.
But there are a few more opportunities for minds to wander now.
“We have the entire world in the palm of our hand with a browsing Internet device, and there’s so much distraction,” she said.
Bird agrees: “Our world is one of increasing noise, and people’s tendency to be distracted is ever increasing while attention spans are decreasing. For better or worse, today’s culture likes that pace and approach.”
Even so, Hunter’s vision of the church to come—even the church 10 years from now—is a far-reaching one.
“The church service of 2026 could include believers and non-believers from all over the world,” she said. “‘Community of faith’ will have a whole new meaning and way of operating. Imagine global campus locations with global worship teams and campus pastors. As the technology improves, real-time teaching, worshiping musically, and global interaction will become possible.”
***
As the sanctuary lights dim, Isobel watches the man in front of her adjust his glasses. She wonders what he’s looking at—what messages, screens, texts, pictures and to-dos are appearing in his own vision, invisible to her and to everyone else. She looks around. Several others are wearing their own pairs of glasses and stare straight ahead.
Lost in their own world. She sighs.
Adam, her husband, looks at her.
“The glasses,” she says.
“You don’t know what they’re looking at.”
“Something tells me it’s probably not the Bible.”
In an instant, the band appears onstage, their holographic figures flickering. Words flash onto the wall above them, announcing them as guest artists coming in live from a service in London. The musicians wave and smile. “Good morning!” the worship leader calls out.
Examine
Bird’s vision of a future worship service includes plenty of screens.
“We will continue to shift to a more visual and participative era,” he said. “Most worshipers will prefer screens that offer image magnification or the words to songs. They’ll find help in thoughtful lighting and quality sound. They’ll use the Internet (or its successors) to interact with the teaching of God’s Word.”
But he also provides a word of caution.
“Church leaders have to be very intentional about which elements of today’s technology to embrace and which to create a sanctuary or ‘technology Sabbath’ from,” he said.
Dyer sees both good and bad in the church’s embrace of rising trends like online and mobile giving. He recognizes an opportunity for a consistent source of income for the church, but also a spiritual rhythm that might fade away.
“Online donations give you that regular giving possibility, and make sure that flow stays,” he said. “And yet on the other hand, the actual practice of writing a check or giving cash or whatever it is … that part of it is taken away.”
***
Quentin stands up as the lyrics to the first song appear on the screens. His pocket buzzes, and he quickly checks his phone—it’s a message from the church. “Thanks for your gift, Quentin!” the words glow cheerily. He puts his phone back in his pocket.
As lyrics flit across the sanctuary’s screens, he sings along with the band, but his thoughts roam back to church when he was a kid, back to when offering plates were passed around and his mom would make him leave his phone in the car. “We’re going to church, not an Apple store,” she would say.
He smiles.
Reach
According to some, welcoming technology into churches is one way of ministering to the culture where it’s at.
“If we want to reach the world, we have to know the world,” said Gruenewald. “We should be students of our culture. What’s connecting with people? How do they spend their time? How do they connect with each other? What trends do we observe?”
“Anytime you’re using a technology that is native to what people use in their everyday life, I think that’s helpful,” said Hunter. “Utilizing technology that people natively use in the ministry context will meet them where they are.”
That kind of contextualization is not new to the church.
“Just as the New Testament was written in everyday Greek in order to reach the common person,” said Bird, “so today’s Bible apps are intended to be accessible to a world that increasingly looks online as its primary communications pathway.”
***
Ellen sits with her hands in her lap, her eyes following the shooting stars and twinkling lights that dance across the walls, her foot tapping to the beat. In some ways, it all looks like the concerts and shows she’s been going to for years—but the words that appear and fade on the giant screens are unlike any of the lyrics she’s sung along to before: they’re about joy, love, and a hope for something greater.
Maybe she’ll come back next Sunday.
Preserve
Even with the incredible pace at which technology is evolving, the world of printed books—and printed Bibles—doesn’t seem likely to disappear.
“I don’t think the print Bible will ever go out of style,” said Graber. “I think there may potentially be a decline in how many Bibles are printed and purchased because people do use … their apps [more frequently], but I think there will be some sort of balance between them.”
In his research, Dyer has found a lack of absolutes concerning technology use.
“It seemed like the vast majority of [those surveyed] were using a combination of both things,” he said, referring to both print and online resources. He’s found that it’s not usually an “either/or” decision, but a combination based on personal preference.
He’s also predicted that many will continue to make the choice to abstain from technology in certain places and during certain practices.
“I think that people are finding that they need some other area to cordon off where they may be doing a lot of other things on their phone or device,” he said.
Hunter, meanwhile, sees the physical size and weight of a print Bible as something that shouldn’t be overlooked.
“There’s something that can’t be replaced [about] the weight of the Bible,” said Hunter. “The weight of the book, but also the weight of the gospel.”
***
The congregation sits, and Ellen glances at the older woman beside her, who wears a yellow dress and holds a large, leather-bound Bible on her lap—much bigger than the other print Bibles Ellen has noticed others carrying in.
The young woman sitting on the other side of Ellen has a printed Bible, as well, and a spiral-bound journal she is flipping through. Keeping it old-school, I see.
Try
Some churches may be tempted to avoid some technological advances simply because they’re afraid they may not work.
“In the tech world,” said Dyer, “there’s this idea that you should fail fast, you should try something, iterate it, lose, and then go over. And I think that’s a little harder for us to do in church—our failure is attached to sin, and bad things, and not getting enough crowns in heaven, and stuff like that.”
But Dyer thinks it’s worth the risk.
“Sometimes you have to try it and go back on that. I think having a culture of grace is just very important to realize we’re not going to get it right the first time.”
“As technology continues to advance,” said Fusco, “the local church—the called-out assembly gathered together in Jesus’ name—will be the last bastion of real, organic, face-to-face relationships. We should have both prongs: technological savvy and good old-fashioned Christian fellowship.”
***
The projected images of the band members flicker and fade. The pastor walks onstage, smiling and asking how everyone is feeling this morning.
Norah can’t help but wonder how he is feeling—speaking to hundreds here in the building, thousands outside of it.
The pastor asks if they could all please bow their heads for prayer.
Norah and Evan close their eyes and do so. Ellen and Adam and Isobel and Quentin do the same.
The pastor prays, his voice resounding against the ceilings and walls.
He pauses—and for a moment, all is quiet.
“Amen.”
