Only two days ago, as I sat down to do a little online research at my computer, my preschool-age grandson sidled up to peer at my screen.

“Can I play on your computer?” he asked.

“Sorry buddy, I’m working right now,” I explained.

He tilted his head forward, looking at me as if I had said the most ridiculous thing in the world and said incredulously, “On a Web site?” To a child his age, word processors and spreadsheets are for work; the Web is for play. But the astonishing thing is that he is comfortable enough with the concept of computers and what people do with them that he presumed to know better than I do.

He will never know of a time before cell phones could browse websites, before social media networks such as Facebook could connect long-separated friends with less effort than dialing a phone. He will grow up in an era where a large proportion of human interaction takes place not face to face, but across vast distances. His conversations will flow naturally like schools of salmon leaping over themselves up an incline current – two or more people, all writing at the same time in their chat programs, mentally managing the thread that must double back regularly to respond to and acknowledge all that has been said.

The world has changed so much in the last 20 years that it is barely recognizable anymore. The generation entering our youth groups and the workforce are no longer just human beings – they are, for all intents and purposes, cybernetic organisms, cyborgs. Most do not venture from their bedrooms without bringing some form of electronic media or communication device. So much of their interaction is digital that it has become not second nature, but first. They’ve grown up in a playground of information that few could have imagined even half a century ago.

To truly engage the digital generations (the current up-and-comers and those to come), churches must become cyborgs, as well. It is not enough to do what most churches do, which is to build a seldom updated Web site with little more to offer than a calendar of church events and a smattering of somewhat unwelcoming contact information.

What more can be done? Let’s start with the Web site itself. First and foremost, “digis” – those born in a developed country after 1980 – don’t like having to visit your Web site to get information. There are ways to stream that information to their various devices automatically so that visitors only have to show up once. The church’s calendar of events for instance, can be syndicated using RSS (Really Simple Syndication) that automatically updates a subscriber’s personal digital calendar every time he or she connects a device to an online computer. Richer content can be treated the same way. A few churches have started recording sermons (in audio and video formats) and providing RSS feeds for those, as well. If I miss a week at church, I know I’ll be able to find the sermon on my hard drive by Monday morning, then I can go to my small group on Tuesday night, not having missed a beat.

Those are two basic ways you can make it easy for digis to access the information you want them to have, with very little effort on their part. But it also gives them almost no reason to visit your site. You want them to do that. So make it attractive to them.

Let’s face it: Church, especially from the perspective of the uninitiated, is a form of media, similar to film, theatre, music, ballet, etc. Take a look at what major media producers do with their online presence. They brand it. Your church should have some branding – beyond just a logo. The Web site should have a look and feel that resonates with the people you want visiting it. Media itself carries a brand. Visit your favorite prime time TV show’s official website. You’ll find clips, previews and character profiles, and often the content and branding will change slightly as the show enters a new arc of the story. If your church tends to schedule sermons in series, brand each one. Treat each series like a new movie that is coming soon or is out now. Sermons are the meat of the church experience. They’re the chase scene in an action movie or the bit where he runs to the airport in the pouring rain to stop her getting on the plane to Europe in a romance. Give them the press they deserve.

Finally, the stickiest issue of all, so sticky in fact that no church I know of has been able to pull it off really well yet: social networking. Church is about community, isn’t it? Until now, that has meant people coming together at the church building or in each other’s homes, having various kinds of fellowship. That shouldn’t stop, by any means. But as I stated above, it’s digis’ first nature to interact online. How can a church expect to carry its community forward into future generations without providing a structure for it online? Methods include messageboards, member profiles, and online prayer request classified ads. The inherent problem with this is safety. How do you stop “net lurkers” and “forum trolls” from abusing your community? The best answer so far is manual moderation. People patrol the various pages and topics, watching out for offensive posts. It’s time-consuming and laborious. But moderation is a fixture of all kinds of secular online communities, by volunteers and paid staff. Here is where the problem becomes an opportunity. You’ve got digis with a need for this kind of interaction in your church community? Well, then you have a force of volunteers to moderate that interaction. It’s an elegant solution to a tough problem.

The beautiful thing is that you don’t have to change much of what you’re already doing; these are just additions. That means you won’t be taking away any of what your non-digi congregation has become accustomed to. Little, if anything, will have to be sacrificed.

Ask God to bless your endeavors to engage the digi generation – the most complex communicators the world has ever seen. It’s possible and necessary. But here’s the caution: Don’t do any of this without being focused on his Mission and his Glory.

At least that’s the way I see it. What do you think?

Until next time,

Ken Godevenos

Ken’s new book, “Human Resources for the Church: Applying Corporate Principles in a Spiritual Setting,” is a much-needed practical handbook for pastors, executive pastors, church board chairs and church HR committees. Order inquiries can be sent to kgod@accordconsulting.com.

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I invited my son, Basil M. Godevenos, now in his late 20s and also an author, to write the blog on this topic. Here’s his take.

Jessica finally has her driver’s license. She’s been looking forward to it for nearly a year and now she can finally take her parents’ car out on her own. They’re proud, but a little nervous. Who can blame them? Michael’s parents are running out of reasonable arguments to make against him asking Emily out to see a movie. They don’t want to hinder his social development by stifling romance, but they’re worried about the choices he and Emily might make. Your church can help ease the minds of Jessica and Michael’s respective parents. In fact, in all likelihood, it already is.

Church youth groups and other similar programs for young people go a long way toward fostering a sense of responsibility in the teenagers they serve. They do it by their very nature, almost automatically.

The capable, godly men and women who pastor youth groups strive to make them not only desirable for teens, but also encouraging for them. A youth group is supposed to help students grow beyond many of the issues they deal with day to day at school. Youth pastors and sponsors are often far more successful than teachers at moving their advice beyond cliques and popularity contests.

Please don’t blame teachers though. The fact of the matter is teachers (particularly in public schools) simply aren’t given the weaponry needed to win that battle. Pastors have a message of true equality and love. Teachers, on the other hand, are asked to leave the source of life and love outside the classroom; in fact, teachers have a difficult time raising a banner that a real majority of their students would get behind in the first place. It is more or less taboo for a school teacher to preach a message of any social importance, such as politics or religion.

By encouraging teens to create for themselves an environment of acceptance and inclusiveness, youth groups provide a solid setting for introducing kids to various kinds of commitment. Commitment to their friends (regardless of class, clothing or athletic ability), commitment to an ideal or message they all believe, and commitment to the group as a whole, even if some of its parts seem more different than similar.

During my high school days, church on Wednesday night was the place where the wealthy, designer-clothes-wearing jock could be seen laughing and joking with the poor, artsy kid in threadbare corduroy. To see that interaction feels good, no matter which end of the spectrum you’re on. Kids recognize a good thing when they experience it, and they’ll fight to keep it in their lives.

That’s what it’s really about. That’s where the lessons in responsibility begin. Give the youth something good, something they really don’t want to lose, and help them to see how they can take ownership of it. Help them to see how they can add their own flavor to it, making it better for everyone, and keeping it good for a long, long time.

How to accomplish this? If you have a youth group at your church, you’re most likely already doing it. You’re already providing an enjoyable, structured venue for social interaction. You’re already reinforcing a positive and (hopefully) convicting message that everyone in the group can stand behind (again, hopefully).

“Structured” is an important word. Enjoyable venues for social interaction are, for example, pizza places and movie theaters. But when kids go there with their chosen friends, even if other schoolmates are at the same place, they keep to their small cliques and climb their respective popularity ladders, as teen society forces them to do. By adding a structured event that an entire and homogenous mixture of kids is experiencing together, you create a positive experience of belonging to a fun group, without the pressure of being like the cool kids.

A quick note about the importance of “cool”: A thousand times please, when you hire a youth pastor, take your candidate’s knowledge of current teen culture into consideration. A youth pastor should be able to earn the respect of the kid at the very top of the high school social dog pile yet never alienate any of the more socially awkward members of the group. I’ve seen youth groups that are all sports, sunglasses and physical activity, and I’ve seen youth groups that are 100 percent “Kumbaya,” lace blouses and knit sweaters with animals on them. Neither extreme is a viable model.

Speaking a convicting message to your youth is crucial as well. You’ll be giving them an objective point of focus that will help them unify, transcending the segregated groups that naturally form.

The aim is to make your teens love the group as much as they love their iPods. Give them ownership of it; make them responsible for it. Give them a good thing, then trust them not to break it, just like Jessica’s parents will do with the car and Michael’s parents with dating Emily.

At least that’s the way Basil sees it. What do you think?

Until next time,

Ken Godevenos

Ken’s new book, “Human Resources for the Church: Applying Corporate Principles in a Spiritual Setting,” is a much-needed 432-page practical handbook for pastors, executive pastors, church board chairs and church HR committees. Order enquiries can be made at kgod@accordconsulting.com.

Related Content:

Ken’s Most Recent Monthly Column, “Challenges for Churches in a Complicated Real Estate Market”

Read Ken’s Personal Blog

Follow Ken on Twitter.

Feb.12 the world celebrated the 200th anniversary of the birth of one of the modern era’s most influential people. It wasn’t Abraham Lincoln – although it was his 200th birthday, as well. It was Charles Darwin.

Our society’s priorities are evident by the fact that Darwin’s bicentennial received far more public attention than Lincoln’s. Even I am guilty because this blog entry is about Darwin, not Lincoln.

The fact is Darwin has become something of a religious figure among the Western self-proclaimed intelligentia. The legged “Darwin Fish” car ornament is meant to satirize the the ichthus. But it may be less ironic than it appears.

A Cult for the Smart?

Darwinism seems to oscillate between virtuous and despicable depending on the context (i.e. when applied by Hitler to devalue Hebrew life (despicable) vs. when applied to show that Mother Nature will produce a version of humanity even better than the one that exists today (virtuous). Darwinism gets away with that because it is couched in a disguise carefully crafted from many complex and largely inaccessible sciences (biology, genetics, chemistry, geology, paleontology, etc.) and we all know and accept that science is morally neutral.

But when you peel away the disguise, Darwinism is exposed for what it really is: a cult religion. Darwin’s “The Origin of Species” is quite short and focuses mainly on animal origins. The passage concerning human evolution is scarcely more than a sentence long.

Much work has been done in the study of evolutionary biology, and much of it seems to be synonymous with the name “Darwin.” How do you attribute work that occurred after a man’s death to that man himself? By affixing an “ism” to his name. Evolutionists, whether consciously or not – have set up their own messiah, a name to act as banner and shield.

Skip the Debate

It’s for the above reasons that it’s next to useless to engage in a debate about creation and evolution as a means of evangelism. Anyone who will bother to discuss the particulars of the evolutionists’ side at any useful length is usually as convinced of their truth as a zealot is of the truth of religion. This is not a position from which one tends to budge. Ask yourself: Have you ever entered a conversation about theology seriously considering the possibility you might be convinced that your faith is misplaced? Neither does an evolutionist.

I totally and unequivocally believe in the biblical creation story. However, the fact is that how God created life on Earth is secondary at best to how he rescued it from itself. That is the message we were called to spread. I don’t see how the length of time (as if the concept of time has any real meaning to God) used to create the universe has any bearing on the message.

Let’s leave Darwin and his bicentennial birthday behind for the time being and move over to the topic of evangelism. There are times when it seems the only way you can evangelize to someone is to engage in a debate, whatever the specific issue chosen. Don’t get sucked in. Debating points to which both parties are virtually married is an exercise in futility. You’re stepping into a rollercoaster. The ride might be thrilling, but you both have to get off in the same place you got on. It’s ultimately going to be a circular argument.

Here is a lesson we can take from Darwinism. Darwinism shuns circles. The “circle of life” is hippy hokum to a Darwinist. Darwinists believe in lines, millions of lines branching off into more and more lines, more and more possible destinations, all spawning from one point. What you have to do as an evangelist is find that point of origin. That is where you and your colleague/friend/family member/counselee will begin your journey. Your point of origin must be some truth you can both agree upon.

The best way to find your point of origin is to ask questions and listen. Let them speak at length about their own beliefs. Human beings seek truth for the same reasons, regardless of where that journey leads them. When they get to those reasons, pay close attention for it is here you are most likely to find common ground.

Be a Darwinist Evangelist

Don’t get trapped in a circular discussion. Think like a Darwinist. Work the conversation backward down to a point you can both agree on and then follow the branches to wherever the Spirit leads. At least that’s the way I see. What do you think?

Until next time,

Ken Godevenos

Ken’s new book, “Human Resources for the Church: Applying Corporate Principles in a Spiritual Setting,” is a useful 432-page practical handbook for pastors, executive pastors, church board chairs, and church HR committees. Orders can be made at kgod@accordconsulting.com.

Related Content:

Ken’s Most Recent Monthly Column, “Challenges for Churches in a Complicated Real Estate Market"

Ken’s Personal Blog

Follow Ken on Twitter