What Disciples Do: from Analog Faith to Phygital Futures

Ryan Dunn

I worked in student ministry for nearly 20 years—that’s like 142 years in normal human years (youth ministers tend to have short tenures). I worked with amazing students from varying backgrounds and geographic areas. Today, some are spouses, parents, sportscasters, educators, therapists, Viking-folk-metal musicians, and advocates. While many may say faith still plays a vital role in their lives, relatively few are regular participants in a community of faith.

The trend was evident before I left student ministry. Former students shared how meaningful their days in the youth group were. They also shared how they are finding relationships and engaging in meaning-making in other ways. That’s not to say that all former students disengaged from the church.

What I noticed was that weekly youth group participation had little correlation to a young person’s continued involvement in the church.

Instead, it seemed that involvement in the life of the church outside of the youth group had *everything* to do with future involvement. A student who played guitar at our weekly youth group gatherings may not have stepped into a sanctuary since graduation day, but a student who seldom attended youth group and instead ushered at our traditional, inter-generational services twice a month is still worshipping with her new church family on most Sundays.

A new paradigm for ministry

I began to work with a new paradigm for youth ministry: find ways to put young people in connection with disciples of Jesus, and then invite them to do what disciples do.

I also found that a youth minister who wasn’t convinced youth group was an effective model of ministry was stuck in a bit of a paradox. Additionally, former students made it clear that young people were increasingly building interpersonal connections through digital spaces—spaces that our churches rarely inhabited.

In 2017, I left full-time parish ministry to become the Minister of Online Engagement for United Methodist Communications. The idea of using digital spaces to build bridges from communities of discipleship to those who were looking for connection and meaning enticed me.

Despite being really excited, I had relatively little practical knowledge and, at the time, found few comparable ministry plans—few others were investing in digital ministry spaces… until 2020.

When the pandemic hit, three years of trial and error in digital ministry fields like Instagram, podcasting, and Snapchat made me a virtual authority on the topic for the hundreds of ministers now thrust into the digital ministry field, as well. There was a huge need for the church to step into digital spaces—because, for a time, those spaces were all we had in which to connect and relate. We seldom seem to understand, however, that how we engage with one another in digital spaces is different than how we do these things in-person. For the past several years, I have utilized the platform provided to me by United Methodist Communications to share stories and practices to help the church understand the viability and uniqueness of digital ministry.

Every church is digital, sort of

Today, most churches engage in some form of digital ministry—some through Facebook pages, some through YouTube channels or sermon podcasts, some are innovating and connecting with people through gaming spaces. Yet few ministers have training in any expression of digital ministry (I missed that class in seminary). Those who are dedicated to fostering expressions of ministry in digital spaces report feeling set apart or distanced from ministry peers. Few feel properly resourced for sustained ministry in a digital space.

I believe there are some important stories in the church to share—stories highlighting how the church has moved into the world and modeled the joy of living under the proclamation that “Jesus is Lord.” This requires a sense of incarnation—we not only proclaim it, we display it in lived practices and community. There are ministries that are incarnating this good news in the digital spaces where people gather, share ideas, and find connection. As we share the stories of those ministries, we inspire the church to move into the world in a way that feels familiar and relatable in the digital age.

Recently, my role shifted to managing the social platforms for The United Methodist Church. While this role involves telling the entire story of the denomination, it also allows me to continue highlighting the stories of exciting ways the church moves into the world, and many of these stories are made possible by the collaborative atmosphere of the Phygital Fellows program. I see the Phygital Fellows program offering validation, excitement, and a sense of collaboration contributing to a new period of growth and relevancy in the church.

Our digital spaces allow us to open pathways to connect with disciples of Jesus - to invite new people into doing what disciples of Jesus do.