If you jump into the cab of most tractors and combines today you will find a piece of equipment that would have astonished your grandfather. The tractor steers itself by satellite. The combine maps yield down to the square foot. The planter and sprayer adjusts application rates on the fly based on soil and yield data collected the season before.
And yet everyone knows you still have to know your land. The GPS can hold a straight row, but it cannot tell you which corner of the back forty floods every spring, which field needs to rest, or when the sky over the tree line means you’d better get the hay in today. The technology serves the farmer. It does not replace him. And the moment a farmer starts trusting the screen more than his own knowledge of the ground, he might be headed for trouble.
The church is facing a similar moment.
Over the last several years — accelerated dramatically by the pandemic — rural congregations that once ran on a hymnal, a bulletin, and a phone tree have found themselves live-streaming services, projecting lyrics, running group texts, managing Facebook pages, and taking online offerings. For many small churches, these changes came fast, often out of necessity, and usually without much conversation about what they might mean for the life of the congregation.
Some of these tools have been a genuine blessing. Others have quietly reshaped the church in ways no one intended. And many ministers and members are left with an uneasy question they don’t quite know how to articulate: Are we better for all of it?
This article is written for both the leaders making decisions about technology and the congregation members living with those decisions. The reality is that technology is a tool, not an identity. Used wisely, it can extend the reach and deepen the life of a rural church. Used without discernment, it can slowly hollow out the very things that make a church a church. The difference lies not in the tools themselves, but how the tools are used.
The Gospel Has Always Used Technology
Before we talk about the dangers, it’s worth establishing something; The early church wasn’t anti-technology!
The spread of the gospel in the first century rode on the technology of the Roman Empire. Paved roads carried missionaries from city to city. A common trade language carried the message across cultures. And the letters that make up most of the New Testament were themselves a communication technology — ink, parchment, and couriers carrying the apostle’s voice to churches he could not visit in person.
Paul understood the value of that technology and used it deliberately. He instructed that his letters be circulated and read aloud to multiple congregations: “And when this letter has been read among you, have it also read in the church of the Laodiceans; and see that you also read the letter from Laodicea.” (Colossians 4:16) That is a first-century distribution strategy.
Paul’s guiding principle for ministry was flexibility in method for the sake of the message: “I have become all things to all people, that by all means I might save some. I do it all for the sake of the gospel.” (1 Corinthians 9:22-23)
By all means. Paul was not attached to a particular delivery system. He was attached to the gospel. The printing press, the radio, the cassette tape, and the livestream all stand in that same tradition — tools the church has picked up to carry an unchanging message to achanging world.
So the question for the rural church is not whether to use technology. It’s how — and, more importantly, in service of what.
When the Tool Becomes the Identity
There is a remarkable and often overlooked story in the Old Testament that speaks directly to this moment.
In Numbers 21, when the Israelites were dying from venomous snakes in the wilderness, God instructed Moses to make a bronze serpent and set it on a pole. Anyone who was bitten could look at it and live. “So Moses made a bronze serpent and set it on a pole. And if a serpent bit anyone, he would look at the bronze serpent and live.” (Numbers 21:9) It was a tool — commanded by God, used by God, a genuine instrument of grace.
Fast forward roughly seven hundred years. In 2 Kings 18, King Hezekiah launches a reform of Israel’s worship, and among the things he destroys is that very same bronze serpent. “He broke in pieces the bronze serpent that Moses had made, for until those days the people of Israel had made offerings to it (it was called Nehushtan).” (2 Kings 18:4)
The tool that God had once used to bring healing had become an object of devotion in its own right. The people had given it a name. They were burning incense to it. Something that was meant to point beyond itself had become the thing itself.
That is the danger of technology in the church — not that the tools are evil, but that they have a way of quietly moving from the margins to the center. It rarely happens on purpose. It happens when:
- The worship team spends more time on the slides than in prayer.
- Attendance numbers are replaced by “views,” and no one is quite sure which one matters.
- The Facebook page becomes the primary way the church “speaks” and the voice it uses sounds more like marketing than like a family.
- Members stop calling one another because there’s a group text — and then stop reading the group text.
None of these are moral failures. They are drift. And drift is precisely what Hezekiah’s reform was correcting.
Paul gives us a filter for evaluating this drift: “‘All things are lawful,’ but not all things are helpful. ‘All things are lawful,’ but not all things build up.” (1 Corinthians 10:23) The question is never merely, Can we do this? It is always, Does this build up the body?
Know Who You Are Before You Choose Your Tools
The farmer who knows his land can use any technology on the market wisely, because he can evaluate every new tool against what he already knows to be true about his ground. The church that knows its identity can do the same.
So before any conversation about screens, streams, or apps, the rural church needs to answer a more fundamental question: Who are we?
Scripture gives a clear description of the church’s core identity in its earliest days: “And they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers… And all who believed were together and had all things in common… attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they received their food with glad and generous hearts.” (Acts 2:42, 44, 46)
Teaching. Fellowship. The Table. Prayer. Togetherness. Generous hearts. Shared homes.
That is the soil. Every tool a church adopts should be evaluated by whether it nourishes that soil or depletes it.
For a rural congregation, this core identity usually includes some additional, beloved features: people know one another by name and by history. Visitors are noticed and welcomed personally. The minister is present in the community, not just the pulpit. Members show up at each other’s hospital bedsides, hayfields, and funerals. Worship is participatory — the congregation sings rather than watches.
Leaders can put this into practice with a simple exercise. Before adopting any significant new technology, gather your elders, your minister, and a handful of members and ask together:
- What does this tool help us do that we’re already called to do?
- What might this tool quietly replace?
- Who does this tool serve — and who might it leave behind?
- If this tool disappeared tomorrow, would we still be the same church?
That last question is the Nehushtan test. If the honest answer is no — if a church cannot imagine functioning without a particular piece of technology it is worth asking whether a tool has slipped into the place of an identity.
Practical Wisdom
With identity established as the filter, here is practical guidance for the three areas where most rural churches are wrestling with technology today.
Worship and Production Technology
Screens, sound systems, lighting, and cameras can serve worship well. Clear sound helps the hard-of-hearing elder follow the sermon. Projected lyrics free hands and lift heads. Scripture on the screen helps the visitor who doesn’t know where Habakkuk is.
But worship technology has a unique power to shift the congregation from participants to audience — and that shift strikes at the heart of what worship is. Paul’s vision of the gathered church is profoundly participatory: “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God.” (Colossians 3:16) Notice the direction — one another. Worship is not something done for the congregation; it is something done by the congregation.
Practical guidance:
- Serve the congregation, not the technology. If you livestream, the people physically present are your first congregation. Don’t rearrange the service, the lighting, or the minister’s movements primarily for the online viewer.
- Keep it simple and reliable. In a small church, a modest system that works every week is far better than an elaborate one that only one volunteer understands. When that volunteer is sick, the service shouldn’t fall apart.
- Let the technology disappear. The best worship technology is invisible. If people are noticing the slides, the transitions, or the lighting more than they are noticing God, something has shifted.
- Protect congregational singing. If the volume of the sound system makes it impossible for people to hear their neighbors sing, it’s too loud. The voice of the congregation is the instrument that matters most.
- Use excellence as service, not performance. “Play skillfully on the strings, with loud shouts.” (Psalm 33:3) Skill and preparation honor God — but the goal is helping people worship, not impressing them.
Communication Tools
Group texts, email newsletters, church apps, and social media pages can be enormously helpful in a rural context, where members may live many miles apart and see each other only once or twice a week. A quick text can mobilize meals for a grieving family in minutes. A Facebook post can let the whole community know about a benefit supper.
But digital communication has a subtle way of replacing the personal touch that rural churches have always been known for. The phone call becomes a text. The text becomes a post. The post becomes a notification that no one reads.
The apostle John — who certainly knew the value of written communication still expressed a clear preference for presence: “Though I have much to write to you, I would rather not use paper and ink. Instead I hope to come to you and talk face to face, so that our joy may be complete.” (2 John 12) Writing was useful. Presence was better. Joy was complete only face to face.
Practical guidance:
- Use digital tools for information, people for care. A group text is great for announcing the potluck. It is not how you check on the widow who missed three Sundays. Information can be broadcast; pastoral care must be personal.
- Don’t let the tool silence anyone. Many rural congregations have members who don’t use smartphones, email, or Facebook. Every digital communication strategy should have a non-digital counterpart — a printed bulletin, a phone call, a card in the mail — so no one is left outside the family conversation.
- Make your online voice sound like your church. A church’s social media presence should sound like the people who actually attend there — warm, local, personal — not like a polished brand. Post the photo of the youth group washing cars, not just the stock image with a Bible verse.
- Guard the tone. Online communication has a way of turning disagreements sharp. “Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt.” (Colossians 4:6) Church group chats should never become the place where conflict is aired. Hard conversations belong in person.
Online and Hybrid Church
The livestream has been a genuine gift to the homebound, the hospitalized, the traveling, the military family, and the college student far from home. For many rural churches, it has also reached people in the community who would never walk through the doors — at least not yet.
But online church carries the most significant identity risk of any technology a congregation adopts, because it can quietly redefine what “going to church” means. When watching becomes equivalent to gathering, something essential is lost.
The New Testament describes the church as a body — a word that is inescapably physical. “Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it.” (1 Corinthians 12:27) The writer of Hebrews treats physical gathering as an act of mutual care, not personal convenience: “And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another.” (Hebrews 10:24-25)
You can watch a sermon online. You cannot be hugged by the woman who prayed you through your divorce. You cannot hold the new baby in the nursery or shake the hand of the visitor sitting alone in the back row. The incarnation itself is God’s ultimate statement on the importance of physical presence: “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.” (John 1:14) God did not send a message. He came.
Practical guidance:
- Frame the livestream as a bridge, not a destination. Speak to online viewers warmly — and also invite them clearly toward the gathered body. “If you’re watching from home today because you can’t be with us, we love you and we’re praying for you. If you’re able to be here, we’d love to see you in person.”
- Name the difference honestly. Leaders should gently and regularly teach that online participation is a gift for those who cannot gather — not a substitute for those who can.
- Connect online viewers to real people. Assign someone to follow up personally with regular online viewers. A livestream that leads to a phone call and then a visit is doing its job.
- Extend the Table to the homebound. For those who genuinely cannot attend, take the Lord’s Supper to them in person whenever possible. Let the livestream supplement that ministry, not replace it.
- Measure what matters. Views are not disciples. Track whether online ministry is producing real connection — visits, conversations, people moving toward the gathered church — not just numbers.
A Word to the Congregation
For church members reading this, a few thoughts for you.
Be patient with change — and honest about it. Your leaders are trying to serve a congregation that includes both people who have never sent a text message and people who have never written a check. That is not easy. When new technology arrives, give it a fair chance. And when something about it genuinely troubles you, not just because it’s new, but because it seems to be changing who your church is, say so, kindly and directly, to the people making the decisions.
Don’t let the screen do your loving for you. It’s easy to “like” a post about someone’s surgery and feel as though you’ve done something. You haven’t — not really. Call. Visit. Bring a meal. The technology can tell you who needs care. Only you can give it.
If you can be there, be there. The livestream is a gift for the times you genuinely can’t make it. But your presence in the room matters more than you realize — not only to you, but to the people around you. The young family needs to see you. The visitor needs to be greeted by you. Your voice is part of the congregation’s song. When you are absent, something is missing that no camera can capture.
Help those who are being left behind. If your church has moved announcements, giving, or prayer requests online, look around for the members who aren’t keeping up. Offer to help them set up their phone. Or simply call them and pass the news along. Be the bridge.
Use your own devices with discernment. The church’s technology decisions matter, but so do yours. The phone in your pocket during worship can either help you follow along in Scripture or pull your attention a thousand miles away. “Whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus.” (Colossians 3:17) That includes what you do with the screen in your hand.
Know Your Land
The farmer with the GPS guided tractor is no less a farmer for using it. If anything, the tool lets him farm more ground, more precisely, than his grandfather ever could. But the farmer who forgets his land — who trusts the screen over his own hands in the soil — will eventually lose his crop.
The rural church is not less faithful for using a projector, a group text, or a livestream. Those tools can extend its reach to the homebound, the distant, and the curious. They can help it communicate more clearly and worship more fully. They can carry an ancient message into a modern world, exactly as the Roman roads and the apostolic letters once did.
But the church that forgets who it is that lets the tool move from the margins to the center, that starts burning incense to its own Nehushtan — will slowly lose the very thing that made it worth gathering in the first place.
So know your land. Know who you are: a people devoted to the Word, to one another, to the Table, and to prayer. A family that knows each other’s names. A body that shows up in person. And then pick up whatever tools will help you be more of that — and set down any that make you less.
“Let all things be done for building up.” — 1 Corinthians 14:26
The tool serves the church. The church serves Christ. Keep them in that order, and you’ll never have to choose between using technology and keeping your soul.
