Digital Tech and Discipleship for Youth



Digital media like videos or artificial intelligence exists in a complicated context, especially for young people. I recently spoke with several Mennonite Church Eastern Canada leaders who work closely with youth to hear their thoughts on the challenge of spiritual discipleship in the world of digital technology. Ted Steenburgh, a Sunday school teacher at Toronto United Mennonite Church (TUMC), says, “Being asked to accept dogma without being able to challenge and ask the hard questions” is a “push factor” for many youth, something that leads them to resist being part of the church. In this context, Steenburgh says, creating a “culture of questions” is a crucial component of church community.

For Steenburgh, technology is only “one tool in the toolbox.” Sometimes, too, it is a tool that acts as its own push factor when it “reduce[s] the positive potential of community.” Recently, Steenburgh asked youth to place phones in a basket during Sunday school, and he says the youth experience of activities “has been 90% better” as a result.

Jonathon Reed, a youth sponsor at TUMC, works in youth programming at Next Gen Men, a non-profit organization that takes “a strengths-based approach to build up positive masculinity, respectful communication and awareness of gender-based violence within the digital community.”
Reed describes how many youth connect online through spaces such as Discord servers, an online platform that allows groups to talk while simultaneously playing a game, doing homework or any other activity.

Years ago, Reed recalls being added to a Discord server whose group had shared a cabin at camp. “They were pretty toxic,” Reed says. “They wanted to be able to stay in touch throughout the year, and nobody made it for them, so they made it for themselves. The other thing that was happening was that, with no adults or positive role models involved, there were no guardrails or empowerment for making it a positive, inclusive and supportive space.”

Reed says, “There are structures on the internet that are designed to scaffold towards extremes. There is evidence on algorithmic structures promoting radicalization. Similarly, other structural characteristics like anonymity, lack of moderation and community norms are neutral structures that allow for different behaviours to take place… There’s also cultural characteristics that put boys on this conveyor belt towards harmful community.”

Reed is quick to point out that “given the opportunity, boys rise to the occasion. They’re not really satisfied with constantly being surrounded by toxicity. They want authentic friendships. They want to be with people they can trust.”

With Next Gen Men, Reed facilitates a Discord gaming server that strives to create “a corner of the internet where things are a little bit different” with a “culture of positivity and inclusion.”

Reed makes an effort to meet youth within their social context, and this becomes apparent in the way that the Discord server is moderated: when faced with a situation of questionable humour or diction, Reed asks: “What do these jokes mean for our community? What do these jokes enable or constrain? It enables fun, relationship… but what does it constrain? It could constrain a young person who is actually facing exploitation from talking about it. So if you think about that cost-benefit analysis, that’s a cost we can’t pay.”

When it comes to the church’s role in youth engagement, Reed acknowledges that youth need to be equipped with the skills and support required to live in community. “For young people to put themselves out there, that requires them to be willing to be rejected. What the church can offer is to be the ones to hold space and help out with logistics to make those things possible, so young people don’t have to risk as much to participate.”
Reed cautions, “If non-profit organizations aren’t thinking about digital engagement beyond just, ‘Let’s post stuff on Instagram or TikTok,’ and if they aren’t thinking about online community-building, they’re missing something.”

Although non-profits and the church don’t need to know all the answers right now, Reed argues: “If you’re not thinking about it, you’re on a crash course towards irrelevance.”

As out-of-touch adults, Reed says, this type of engagement can be challenging, and we won’t always know how to support youth in ways that are helpful and genuinely appreciated. “The most important strategy that we have is authentically co-creating with youth. Really listening to their voices. All of the best features of the Discord server that we’ve built came from young people.”



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