I am told Airport lobbies are something else these days, I am told young people converge around sockets like bees converge in hives.

Well,

The difference with hives is that you find nourishment, unlike timelines where disillusionment often quietly reigns behind our curated and edited selves. 

Admit it or not technology is changing your congregation, the shiny visuals we impulsively behold by sight in our newsfeeds affect whether we eventually walk by faith or by sight. 

Although we were “dead in our trespasses” we still look tick on our Twitter timelines. Even if we are constantly giving in to the flesh, you can barely tell that online. Technology, like author Tim Keller, argues, will always tell us “how” to do things not “whether” we need to do certain things.  

So as Parents rumble about creating order in the house, our thumb unlocks the phone and we swipe left, to behold what we consider most important, namely —our cousin’s recent trip. 

As a result, homes—the foundation of most discipleship, descend into the abyss, as teenagers recline away to divided attention spans rather than attend to parental priorities – wherein wisdom dwells. 

As our habits of distraction grow, the background instrumental in our head becomes what our 22-year old peers are discussing, online. 

Rather than emulate the psalmist whose word-rooted meditative human-thriving is likened to a tree planted by the riverside, our delight shifts to the latest viral video. 

In Acts 17:16, Apostle Paul discerned the idols in Athens before he introduced the gospel, and eventually the longing behind all that Athenian sculpture. None of today’s technology is evil in itself. Yet for tomorrow’s gospel ministers, to refuse to engage its influence on next-generation discipleship is to bury our heads in the sand.  

What Ugandan millennials need is not another piece of trendy hip entertainment, (they’ve got that online already) what they need are biblically faithful  and culturally conversant conversations that constantly anchor, point and help them answer the right questions about who God is, who they are, and what God has done in Christ—instead of where their charger is. 

This is the urgent discernment of ministry in our tech age, helping your young people appreciate tools, discern the possible idolatry that lurks, and finally reveal the glorious and transcendent reality behind all human ingenuity.

Paul and the Psalmist already modeled this. Shall we?