Preaching for the Viral Video

I want you to imagine a family sitting around the dinner table and enjoying devotions together. Mom and Dad are at either end with their children along the sides. Each of them has a Bible lying open before them. They have just taken turns reading a couple of verses each, and now dad is asking the children a few questions to help them better understand and apply what they have read: What does this teach us about God? What does it teach us about ourselves? How can we respond?

This seems like an everyday scene that could take place in any Christian home. But then you widen your gaze and notice a few details you overlooked with your first glance. You see a pair of tripods, each with a camera set on top, and because the lights are blinking, you know they are recording. You see a set of ring lights casting their glow over the family, and you notice that the table is pristine, so that every wrinkle has been ironed, every stain has been scrubbed, and every detail has been made picture-perfect. You realize that even though this family is doing their devotions, they are doing it as vloggers before a watching public. And you wonder: are they really doing family devotions or are they creating content? Are the parents discipling or acting? Is this worship or performance?

I don’t know of any families who vlog their family devotions, though it wouldn’t shock me to learn they’re out there. I would be concerned for such a family, not least because I would wonder whether the parents are really discipling their children through family devotions or whether they are simply creating content. I would wonder if what they say is for the benefit of their kids or for the benefit of themselves and their platform. Are they trying to reach the hearts of their children, or are they trying to gain followers? Is their main concern discipleship or virality? I’m not convinced it is possible to serve both their family and their audience in a context as important as this. The form and purpose of vlogging are simply incompatible with the form and purpose of devotions.

Though I don’t know of any families who vlog their devotions, I know of many churches that essentially vlog their worship services. Many churches record their services for the express purpose of creating social-media-friendly content that will be distributed in various lengths, platforms, and formats. To do this effectively, the pastors must prepare their content to fit the medium—vivid illustrations or punchy applications that can fit within the ever-changing limits of whatever the algorithms demand. These snippets must be able to stand alone, separated from the wider context of the sermon. They must be directed to the camera, not the congregation, and must have the kind of setting and background that draws every eye to the preacher. To make a splash in a world flooded with content, they must be carefully rehearsed and perfectly delivered. They must be social-media-first.

To be clear, I think there can be a place for churches to stream their services, as this can be helpful to members who are sick or housebound. It can also be a means for a church to “advertise,” in the sense of allowing those who may be looking for a church to understand what this one is all about. It’s not unusual for people to move to a new city having already chosen a church because they have watched its services online and know they will feel welcome and at home. This is a matter for each church to decide on its own.

But there is a world of difference between casually streaming a service and specifically using a service to create content.¹ There is a world of difference between the stream being peripheral and the stream being central. Just as I am not convinced that it is possible for parents to truly serve their children through family devotions when those devotions are for a vlog, I am not convinced that a pastor can truly serve his church if his sermons are for an online audience. If he is preaching for the viral video, can he really preach to the hearts of his people? If he is preaching for the audience on TikTok, can he really be preaching to the congregation before him? No man can serve two masters without eventually preferring one of them. 

Some things are simply too consequential and too holy to mess with or infringe upon. Parents discipling their children is one, and pastors preaching to their congregation is another. Social media has its way of creeping into every area of our lives and beginning to shape and re-form them. But surely some areas must be kept pure, some must remain untouched and untainted. To see these areas as opportunities to create content or generate virality is to debase and deform them. It’s to rob them of their significance and transform them into something less than God means for them to be. 

1. Some preaching moments may go viral inadvertently, of course. Consider Alistair Begg’s now-famous “the man on the middle cross” moment. It’s clear that it was not created for virality, but to serve the congregation in that moment. Watch it again and see how unpolished it is—people are clustered behind him, he sometimes stammers, pauses, and looks down at his notes, and so on. ↩︎