When Algorithms
Become the Pastor

On paper, most churches would say Sunday worship and small groups are the primary engines of spiritual formation. In practice, the primary discipler in most people's lives is the algorithm on their phone — and it has a better attendance record than we do.

Do the math. If someone attends corporate worship for 90 minutes and a small group for another 60, that is two and a half hours of intentional, scripture-shaped formation in a week. That same person likely spends six hours and forty minutes on screens every single day — with social media accounting for more than two of those hours, every day, 365 days a year. That is not background noise. That is a competing seminary.

Scripture has always assumed people are being formed all week long, not just on the Sabbath. Moses tells Israel to talk about God's commands "when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise" (Deuteronomy 6:6–7). Paul assumes believers will be "transformed by the renewing of your mind" — an ongoing process resisting conformity to the world (Romans 12:2). In 2026, the way we walk is a digital feed. The question is not whether someone is being discipled there. The question is by whom.

The Algorithm Has a Liturgy. And It Is Working.

Platforms are not neutral pipes. They are discipleship systems. They choose what your people see, in what order, with what emotional tone, and how often. They reward content that is sensational, identity-affirming, and emotionally charged — even when it is spiritually destructive.

The algorithm's liturgy is repetition without covenant: watch, react, swipe, repeat. The church's liturgy, at its best, is repetition with covenant: hear the Word, respond, gather at the table, go and live it out together. The difference matters enormously for formation. One builds habits of passive consumption. The other builds habits of active obedience. Jesus is clear: "Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock" (Matthew 7:24). When the primary words your people hear are not Christ's but the feed's, the house is being built — just not on the rock.

This is Frontier Problem #1: algorithms are out-discipling the local church. Not because the church is failing its mission. Because the platforms were engineered by some of the sharpest minds in the world to capture and hold human attention — and discipleship was never their concern.

What the Black Church Is Up Against Specifically

This problem hits Black communities at a distinct intersection of technology and trauma. The same feeds that surface Bible verses and worship clips will also serve a constant diet of videos about police violence, political instability, economic anxiety, and spiritual hot takes about church hurt and deconstruction. Over time, that mix catechizes people — into fear, cynicism, or a vague "spiritual but not religious" identity that feels safer than the historic Black church but offers far less covering.

The disaffiliation data is sharp and worth naming clearly. According to Pew Research, roughly one in five Black Americans — 21% — now say they are not religiously affiliated. Among younger generations, the numbers are harder to ignore: 28% of Black Gen Z and 33% of Black millennials report being religiously unaffiliated, compared to just 11% of Black baby boomers. And research shows that many of those leaving are not abandoning spirituality — they are relocating it.

The historic Black church has always been a multivalent space: spiritual formation center, organizing hub, cultural home, and survival strategy. When algorithms and alternative spiritual communities step into that space unchallenged, what is at stake is not just attendance — it is the continuity of a tradition that has carried Black people through enslavement, Jim Crow, mass incarceration, and every modern expression of racialized violence. When discipleship is outsourced to algorithms and decontextualized spirituality, texts like "Let justice roll down like waters" (Amos 5:24) lose their communal weight. They become captions instead of demands.

Doom Scrolling Is a Spiritual Formation Problem

If algorithms provide the delivery system and alternative communities provide the content, doom scrolling is the atmosphere that makes both stick. Research now ties doom scrolling — the compulsive consumption of negative news for extended periods — to elevated anxiety, depression, disrupted sleep, and a pervasive sense of hopelessness.

For Black people whose feeds are saturated with racialized violence, political conflict, and hot takes about the Black church itself, doom scrolling is more than a bad digital habit. It becomes a low-grade spiritual warfare tactic — slowly convincing people that nothing can change, no one can be trusted, and there is no place where the soul can actually rest.

Scripture is not naïve about this. The Psalms engage honestly with distressing news and overwhelming evil — but they model a different response. "Why, my soul, are you downcast?… Put your hope in God" (Psalm 42:5). "I have calmed and quieted my soul, like a weaned child with its mother" (Psalm 131:2). Paul's instruction in Philippians 4:8 to fix the mind on "whatever is true… honorable… just… pure… lovely… commendable" is not a positivity exercise. It is a counter-liturgy — a disciplined practice of orienting attention. Doom scrolling trains the mind in the opposite direction. If pastors do not name it as a discipleship issue, their people will assume it is just a personal quirk.

What Paul Would Do on Athens's Algorithm

Many Black millennials and Gen Z adults are not abandoning spirituality — they are relocating it. Essays and reporting on Black millennials show them seeking faith and fellowship in nontraditional spaces: wellness circles, meditation apps, online collectives built around "healing," "trauma," and "energy" — language that replaces sin, repentance, and resurrection.

The Bible does not dismiss spiritual hunger that surfaces outside the institutional church. Paul walks into Athens, sees an altar inscribed "To the unknown god," and proclaims the God they are already reaching for (Acts 17:22–23). He does not condemn the hunger. He names its object. The danger in 2026 is that many Black young adults are building whole spiritual frameworks on "unknown god" content — stitched together from clips, memes, and community threads that feel more real than anything they have experienced in a sanctuary. The pastoral task is not condemnation. It is proclamation: the God you are reaching for has a name, a face, and a covenant community.

Four Things to Do This Week

The frontier problem is not that technology is evil. It is that right now, technology is better organized for discipleship than most of our churches are. The good news: the Spirit has not stopped moving, and scripture has not lost its power. But power without plans loses ground. Here is where to start.

The Bottom Line

The algorithm will not stop discipling your people while you are not. It never sleeps, never takes a holiday weekend, and never loses interest in what your congregation is thinking about on a Tuesday afternoon. The question is not whether to engage this reality. It is whether the church will show up with something more compelling than a Sunday service that ended 144 hours ago.

The prophetic tradition of the Black church has always been grounded in scripture precisely because scripture is the deepest thing we have. When the feed is loud and the news is heavy, the Psalms are louder — if we give people access to them every day, not just once a week.