Twenty-five million people have downloaded the Glorify app. Tim Timberlake, a multisite megachurch pastor based in Florida, hopes more will soon. He is the latest online influencer to announce on social media that he is partnering with Glorify.
“If you’re looking for a way to deepen your time with God, this is it,” Timberlake posted on Instagram. “Let’s grow together!”
The prayer-and-devotion app, which has 81,000 ratings on the Apple store, is part of a growing global industry of wellness tech, with annual revenues of around $1 billion. People track their sleep, steps, and stress. They work on mindfulness, meditation, self-affirmation, and feelings of peace and well-being. They open their phones to pray.
Timberlake spoke with Christianity Today about the challenge of finding intimacy with God in the midst of a busy schedule and whether there’s danger in depending on an app for spiritual growth.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Why did you want to partner with Glorify?
Me and Henry Costa, the founder of Glorify, had an opportunity to meet at a mental health retreat, and we sat down and ended up talking for three or four hours. I just loved his heart for the kingdom of God and his vision to help people incorporate Scripture into their daily lives.
You’ve been a pastor for a while. Is this a major challenge—preaching a sermon and seeing people not really hearing it or counseling people and seeing them not take really take it in?
I believe the majority of people who would consider themselves Christians or followers of Jesus would say that, somewhere along the week, they read Scripture. But that same demographic of people would also say that they have a very hard time retaining the Scripture that they read. I believe that the reason they have a hard time retaining the information is because of how they approach it. The thing I love about Glorify is how it doesn’t just give you Scripture; Glorify gives you opportunities to navigate Scripture in different ways.
You can worship in it. You can have guided prayers in it, meditation in it, write notes in it. You can follow a devotional in it. You have content that is curated specifically for the topics and the areas where you need guidance.
Glorify is the most user-friendly devotional app I have used. Not only is it content that you consume; it’s helping you build a tangible relationship with God’s Word.
When you started using it, did you did you notice it sort of shaping your spiritual life?
It has offered me meaningful ways to connect with God.
There are moments where my life is super busy, my schedule is so packed, but I can open the Glorify app, and it gives me a daily devotional that can connect me with God in the time parameters that I have. It also allows me to quiet the noise around me with meditation. The app provides powerful and immersive experiences in a busy world on a busy day.
It’s not just about convenience. It’s about deepening that intimacy with God. It has been very transformative.
With this partnership, are you primarily a spokesman, or are you writing devotionals or giving Glorify content? How does the partnership work?
I’ve encouraged them to leverage whatever little influence God has given me to further this vision for the kingdom of God. Whatever I can do!
We’re talking through some devotionals. We’re talking through more content. We’re talking through a variation of different things that I’m excited about.
I am super honored and humbled that they have entrusted me with influence on this platform to speak to some of the highlights of people’s lives and some of the low moments of people’s lives—because people who are on this journey with the Glorify app are experiencing both. You have people who are leaning into this content because they’re experiencing a great season and they are grateful and want to return honor and worship to God. And then you have some people who are on the app, and they’re suffering and looking for an answer.
Does a devotional app like this disconnect you from Christian community, though? Like, I should be in a Bible study. I should be in church and learning from other people’s faith. But this puts me in a kind of isolated spiritual position. It’s just me and my phone. Don’t I need other people for spiritual growth?
If you desire to utilize it in the context of community, it creates great conversation. You actually have conversations starters to kickstart a small group.
I believe that anything can be utilized to isolate yourself. A hardcover Bible could be used to isolate a person if they want to just read it by themselves on the page.
When YouTube first came out, there was a lot of fear that people would just sit at home and utilize YouTube. But now churches are using YouTube to stream services. It’s connecting people with the Word of God.
You can utilize it however you see fit, but Glorify can be used as a powerful tool and resource in the context of community.
What about the concern that apps including Glorify are taking our data? Do you worry about that at all?
No, I don’t worry about that. The information that you share with Glorify is kept safe, is kept private, and I feel very good about that.
If someone downloads the app, maybe for Lent, where should they start?
When you first download the app, the app asks you a few questions—kind of leads you with the curated path to the content that you need to get to.
I would say the best thing to do would be to unplug with one of the meditations and listen to the soothing voice that guides you and leads you and gives you direction about what you should do in that moment. For me, it allowed me to unplug and really disconnect. That puts me in a state where I can now read the Word and go even deeper in the subject matter that I’m being led into. The devotion or the meditation might bring up a topic, and then you can go read something about that topic or pray through that topic or something like that.
One of the most powerful things, I think, is the journaling—writing what you hear from God. My generation has really lost the art of journaling, and it offers that right in the app.
I think that one of the beauties of the app is it can walk you through Scripture. You can go through an eight-part series about obstacles you face in your journey and the steps that you can take to navigate these obstacles, or you can use it to reset your mind and soul in the middle of your day. You open the Glorify app in the five minutes or ten minutes that you have, and you’re refreshed.
I love the research they put into it. They’re constantly tweaking, constantly making it better.
My heart has always been to help people grow in their faith. Glorify aligns with that mission and is equipping users with practical tools to experience the presence of God on a daily basis.
