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From AIM to Gen Alpha: Why the Church Must Embrace Digital Community

July 28, 2025

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Checking Back In: Why Digital Ministry Still Matters in 2025

Well, I’m back! After six months, I thought it would be a good time to check in with those of you who have been following along with Exponential Digital Church Next this year. We’ve heard from some incredible leaders who are innovating in the digital space and we have even more great voices lined up for the remainder of 2025! As the director of Exponential Next Digital, I think it’s a good moment for me to rejoin the article cycle and share a few insights I’ve gleaned from leading a fully digital church over the past four years.

I often joke that I rarely leave my home these days. I spend most of my time in a small, seven-foot-by-eight-foot “cage” in my basement that I call my study. I fill up my gas tank every few months. I take daily walks just to make sure I see the sun. And yet, I interact with more people – from a wider variety of backgrounds and cultures – now than ever before. While I’m deeply engaged in my local community, with close friends who live nearby, extended family, and neighbors, I also have a massive community of people I minister to, live life with, and support – many of whom I’ve only ever met online.

The Rise of Online Belonging

This isn’t just my reality. It’s the reality of millions of others who have turned to digital spaces as physical third spaces have evaporated, become increasingly inaccessible, or even unsafe. According to an article published in The Week in 2024, for decades Americans spent an average of 6.5 hours a week with friends outside of work and home. But between 2014 and 2019, that number dropped by 37% – down to just four hours per week. 

This trend was, of course, exacerbated by 2020 and the echoing effects it had on our society. In many ways, social distancing was the final nail in the coffin for malls, small coffee shops, and other third spaces in my rural community north of Pittsburgh.

At the same time, there has been a striking increase in the number of people turning to digital spaces for connection and community. According to CTA Tech, 86% of Gen Z agree that technology is essential to their everyday lives. 

Marketing Tech News reports that 70% of Gen Z join online communities to feel a sense of belonging. In 2019, the National Academy of Sciences found that meeting someone online has now displaced friends as the primary way heterosexual couples in the United States meet. According to YouGov, 50% of Americans say they have a friendship that exists entirely online – meaning they met this person online, communicate with them there, and have never met in person.

The cultural shift from gathering in third spaces, like our churches, to gathering in online spaces has already happened – and it’s unlikely to reverse. Yet most church leaders continue to lead their churches in ways that reflect a culture that began shifting decades ago. 

According to Lifeway Research, the average pastor in America is currently 55 years old and was born in 1970. They are early Gen Xers. The World Wide Web was born in 1989, when the average American pastor was around 18 or 19 years old. For pastors from the Boomer generation, that would have made them about 36 at the time.

The Generational Gap: Tools vs. Places

Most sources agree that our brains stop developing and solidify in our early to mid-20s. That doesn’t mean we can’t learn new things – but the way we engage with new things is very different. And for most Gen Xers and Boomers, the internet is something they primarily experience as a tool. It may be one of the most efficient tools they’ve ever had – but to them, it’s little more than a hammer or a good pipe wrench.

I was born in the dead middle of the millennial generation, in 1988 – making me two years old when the World Wide Web was released, and just 13 when AOL Instant Messenger (AIM) reached over 100 million registered users. 

That same year, I created my AIM account and was taught how to use a Yahoo search query for middle school research papers instead of the card catalog in the school library, which I had learned just the year before. Every day after school, I would log into AIM and spend my allotted 30 minutes of computer time messaging – and ministering to – people who wouldn’t have spoken to me at school or on the bus.

AIM was, quite literally, my first ministry, even though I didn’t recognize it as such at the time. For me, the internet was both a new tool and a new place. It helped me complete schoolwork more efficiently and effectively, but it was also where I cared for people, built relationships, and spent time hanging out.

Gen Z and Gen Alpha weren’t even a thought in most minds in 1989. They were born into a world where the internet is a force of nature. My daughters only know a world where Alexa turns on their lights, and Mom and Dad’s phones hold the gateway to limitless entertainment, billions of people, and an answer to every question they will ever ask.

To quote Bane from The Dark Knight Rises:
“Oh, you think the darkness is your ally. But you merely adopted the dark; I was born in it, molded by it.”

My generation adopted the online world. But the coming generations were born in it. Molded by it. And their way of connecting, building community, and living is so interwoven with the digital world that it’s impossible to see where the physical ends and the digital begins.

This dichotomy – between seeing the internet as a tool or a place – is, I believe, the single most disruptive force between older and younger generations when it comes to how they process information, form relationships, and navigate the world. 

The more we preach that the internet is bad or dangerous from the pulpit, the more we alienate ourselves from emerging generations whose brains are being shaped by a world far different from the one we grew up in.

This isn’t just about being “tech savvy.” It’s about attributing value. For many teenagers today, their most valued relationships – the ones that know them best and whom they depend on daily – are often the peers they play Fortnite with, scattered around the world, rather than the peers they see in class, on a team, or in youth group.

Here’s the good news: the teachings of Jesus and the principles of the Bible are just as applicable in the digital world as they are in any other group or culture. The people you meet online have the same issues as the people who show up physically at your church. They have the same wants, needs, desires, hurts, fears, and dreams – and they all need the same gospel.

They may look different or come from different cultures or value systems, but the Bible is just as relevant to them as it is to you. Hopefully, that excites you. I know it’s what gets me out of bed every morning. There is a brand-new world – full of wonder and opportunity – for the gospel of Jesus Christ inside what you may have thought was just a really good hammer.

Practical Steps for a Digital Discipleship Mindset

But I don’t want to leave you without something at least a bit practical – so here’s something you can take with you and put into practice if you’ve made it this far into the article:

Elevate the younger generation in your church, and don’t dismiss their thoughts when it comes to gaming, online communities, and digital friendships. 

They know this world better than you do. They are native to a world you need to understand – and they need your wisdom to help them navigate it through a Biblical worldview.

You may be surprised to learn that a 14-year-old in your congregation has a YouTube channel with a reach 100 times the size of your church. You need to understand that world. And they need your help to navigate that platform and see it through the eyes of Jesus.

Secondly, begin to shift your mindset: Start seeing your church’s digital presence as a place, not just a tool. Yes, there are many helpful digital tools out there! But the most important, redemptive, and powerful part of the internet isn’t in how it makes your life more effective or efficient – it’s in how you occupy the third spaces it has created with the life-giving power of Jesus.

Good luck out there. I’ll see you online.

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