What Exactly Is a Digital Missionary?

The Potential of a Digital Missionary



One of the largest unreached people groups in the world today can be found digitally. The stats surrounding digital usage globally are astounding: There are over 2 billion active users globally on WhatsApp, 2.5 billion active users on YouTube, and 1.6 billion active users on TikTok, as controversial as it is. It’s not just the US that is engaging on digital platforms. 

The world has access to smartphones and knows how to use them. This begs the question: What does the Great Commission look like digitally? To answer that question, let’s consider the idea of a digital missionary.

What is a Digital Missionary?

A digital missionary uses digital tools to represent the Gospel of Christ to those who are cold to the idea of Christ. Practically speaking, digital missionaries can take many different forms. 

• Let’s start with an evangelist, someone actively sharing Jesus on social media or in the metaverse…
• To a disciple-maker actively discipling people relationally using tools like WhatsApp or Google Meet…
• To a Church Planter operating an ecclesiological-grounded church on platforms like Twitch and Discord…
• To a Community Builder creating a relational space in a Facebook Group or other asynchronous space… 
• To a TikTok Influencer who wants to use her digital influence to connect thousands to Christ…
• To your Grandmother who wants to use digital media to influence her out-of-state grandchildren and show them the love of Christ…

Whether you’re a futurist/techno-genius or a newbie/Luddite, you can be a digital missionary. Everyone is a digital missionary in their own right… Some use their digital influence to push a political agenda, to show their affiliation with their sports team… or to brag about what’s happening with their kids. Have you ever considered using that influence for Christ?

The average American spends over 4.5 hours a day on their smartphone. Could you imagine if we spent even a fraction of that daily for the Kingdom?

Why are Digital Missionaries Necessary?

Here’s a reality: Our church buildings, and even our pastors, are losing influence. In the 1980s and 90s, church buildings had a lot of evangelical power. When people had spiritual questions, they would find the closest church building and make an appointment to talk to a pastor.

Well, times have changed. Over the past 25 years, the American church has lost 25% of active attendees. People do not view the church or the pastor as a spiritual stronghold. We can discuss why, but people do not trust the church culturally.

Barna reported on this back in 2021: When people cold to Christ have spiritual questions, they: go to Google/YouTube to find the answers to those spiritual questions or go to their friends (who they trust) to get spiritual advice. These stats are very telling… people cold to Christ trust digital technology (Google) more than a pastor, and they are typically comfortable talking with their friends.

Francis Chan says, “Evangelism in the future will happen in living rooms and homes, not in cathedrals or temples.” And he’s right. Our church buildings serve a purpose, but (in today’s culture) sharing Jesus from a pulpit is losing its effectiveness.

Who is a Digital Missionary?

But Francis’ quote isn’t just about the building; it’s about the people. Non-pastors have the Holy Spirit, too! The same spiritual power is present in the megachurch pastor as in that soccer mom. Soccer moms have digital influence, as do college students… Even your grandmother has digital influence!

Here with theChurch.digital, we’re seeing an exciting trend… People not in the “organized church” world want to do ministry. There was a time when I thought I had to get a paycheck from a church to do ministry. Honestly, I fought for years to get on a church staff.

It was borderline unhealthy if I’m honest. And, not to discredit my church staff experience, I did do ministry. I ministered to people. But, in the totality of my 15-20 years of church staff, in my story, I’m not sure how many disciples I made in that space.

Ordinary people can do ministry, too! The seminary degree can help, but it’s not necessary. Jesus’ disciples were mostly uneducated blue-collar workers. They were ordinary people. What is stopping you from doing ministry? Here at theChurch.digital, we call you NORMIES! How do we get normal people like you to recognize what God is calling you to do and do it?

Supporting Digital Missionary work.

That’s really the challenge? Recognizing and supporting calling. This happens all the time in churches. Albeit the calling often goes in line with ministry that’s happening in the church building space. A good friend of mine (a volunteer named Charlie) told me he had a calling to be a video director for the church.

He was a financial wizard and very good at his job, but he could work a video switcher like it was a musical instrument… it truly was beautiful. As a pastor at the church, I supported the calling to help Charlie fulfill that calling.

But, if I’m honest, Charlie’s calling aligned with my goals of getting volunteers to serve at the church service. When people in the church came to me with other callings, to be honest, I was usually not that excited unless it simplified my life. Maybe I would give a positive feedback or a quick verbal encouragement, but I would never invest my time in an idea unless it impacted me positively.

We see this mindset regularly with digital missionaries. Most digital missionaries today get little to no support from their church or pastors. Ironically, their spouses and friends often struggle to support them, mainly because, having never seen a digital missionary before, those close to the missionary don’t know how to support this unique call. This is the challenge of digital calling and the reason theChurch.digital exists.

theChurch.digital, A Digital Missions Sending Agency

theChurch.digital serves the digital missionary in three different capacities:

1. We validate the calling—having had over 600 conversations with digital missionaries and church planters, very few ideas are “new.” Remember Ecclesiastes, “There’s nothing new under the sun”? This even applies to digital missionary work! The truth is that words like “innovation” and “church” rarely go together, and we step into the gap by encouraging digital missionaries and church planters to think ecclesiologically with an eye toward multiplication.

2. We equip for the calling—through our content, community, and cohorts, we aggressively create resources to help empower digital missionaries in their unique context. We don’t provide step-by-step recipes for people to follow. Digital missionaries need to understand contextualization to be successful. Instead, we offer a simple framework that can be applied in any digital missionary context. As a result, we are equipping the next generation of digital missionaries for whatever unique context their calling takes them.

3. We mobilize for the calling—realizing that innovative ministry is more than consuming content, we created Outposts. We send digital missionaries into their unique context but group them up with others in similar spaces. These Outposts encourage and empower digital missionaries while giving them a safe space to explore and experiment with new ideas and techniques within their platform and calling. 

4. Mobilizing into multiplying—Mobilizing into these unique groups gives hands-on accountability for these missionaries to hold to their calling and even to invest this calling in others. A digital missionary needs to multiply with other missionaries. Someone who participates in an Outpost is just an Outpost leader waiting to mature. In I Corinthians, Paul speaks of “milk” and “solid food.” Accountability is required for these ideas to multiply into others, even applying to digital missionaries.

The Endgame of a Digital Missionary

Why are we doing this? What’s the goal? To reach people for Christ. Will a digital missionary connect with everyone? Should we abandon physical ministry or location-based missionaries and only do a digital model? Of course not! Digital is not for everyone. But, there is no doubt that culture is trending increasingly in the digital world. It’s not for everyone, but it’s worth connecting with those who will. Today, you’ll connect with enough people to make it worthwhile.