Word Of Mouth And Other Shades Of Evangelism

The concern is, that if the world begins to consume A.I. generated content, that churches can’t generate their own content on the kind of scale that without A.I. Sora’s pulpit will be much more powerful than the Church of TikTok it reformed from. Because Sora’s pulpit will not have influencers that have to film and edit and upload. Those things cost time and money. Money the church would have to gather to spend. And right now the A.I. pulpit can print the money is uses and we can only tithe it. All that production is done in aggregate. The very second a video is requested, or algorithm’d, all of it is done for us and consummation is all that is left. And I mean that word as dirty as you read it. Because just as Jesus said that lust was where adultery started. So too is the idea of content as mission field that seeds idolatry in your heart.

And it would be ignorant to say this isn’t something the church should be considering, but there is a better way to play a game you’re gonna lose because it’s in the rules that your team loses. AND THAT WAY IS TO NOT PLAY THAT GAME!

In the Movie ‘Nick and Nora’s Infinite Playlist” we’re introduced to what might be the coolest band that never existed. The entire movie is about songs we never hear. One of it’s main characters are a group of faces we never see. There are hints to them all throughout the movie. But we never get to them. That’s because them not being mainstream and available to anyone is the whole damn point. The movie is a bit of a romp, but the message leaks out the medium like light in a basket. Everyone wants to hear “Where’s Fluffy” The fictional indy rock band of your electric sheep's dreams.

“But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should shew forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light;”

1 Peter 2:9 KJV

That word “holy” is an important one because holy things are never common. They are never the mean or median of culture. Holy things are different. So to a holy person, place, or thing, means being different. Drastically so. Where’s Fluffy was a holy band. Not in action or deed, but in separation from that which perverts action and deed in the music industry. In their case, advertisement. They had no billboards, no posters, no suits to taint their sound. Just sound and comradery and the powerful means of reputation. They bet on doing what no one else was doing and being the only band in the music scene that didn’t rely on agents, advertisers, and much of the music industry. And in doing so, could leave little more than hints and rumors as to their next show and pack its seats. No radio commercials, though they did end up there in mention. No social media strategy to speak of at all. In their absence of the music worlds deeds was a presence inside the world of music. They were never trying to be winsome, they were trying to be good. They wanted to be the band that everyone has never heard of because everyone was too busy searching for them. One whose CD’s can’t be bought at stores but have to be bought at their shows. I know they’re fictional, but I've never seen a better example of being in a world and not of it. Or an better description of what cool is. And I was a youth pastor for a while there.

For entirely too long, the wages of winsome third way evangelism has made sure we’re as set apart as split peas in so much soup. And now as the world ramps up it’s neon gods of data and algorithm, the church has a unique chance to be different. We are doing the same song and dance that secularism is doing and insisting that our results are as valid as theirs. But we could be doing what would make us set apart. We could be doing what’s actually cool but instead are gonna do what all the cool kids are doing.

What happens when you have to be at a church to hear anointed preaching? When all the preaching you could search for online becomes invalidated by the kind you can’t. When you have to be at a church to hear amazing worship songs? Or have to attend that church to learn them, because K-Love doesn't have any version to play or have Steven Furtick rework for Elevation.

What happens when you have to do more than rest in the modern trend of “we get to” that has captured the minds and skill sets of the everyman? You hear that phrase among the weakest of actual witnesses. “we get to.” We get to go to church. We get to worship freely, Get to read our bibles. Get to exercise agency.

Will all due respect, the optional flavour of that sentiment has always made my face scowl a bit. You get to worship the all mighty creator of the universe, and the work His very own son did for you on a cross for your salvation. But only if you want. You should be happy you have such options. Rejoice in the agency you’ve pulled from the ether. What happened to every knee bowing (Phil 2:10). Nothing, that’s what. And we can rest in that omnipotence just as as much as the sentiment behind the “we get to” crowd. But unlike them, we might just discover something better than everything else.

For years the comparison between the sermon and the TED talk has been cliche to talk about, however valid. But what if the sermon couldn’t be a TED talk, on account of it never been recorded for online distribution. What if Worship music couldn’t be an industry. What if your bible was something so special it was printed in house and you didn’t have to search Amazon for the perfect customizable printing of it to start your faithful reading of it.

And what if they world can have it’s A.I. generated content in spades, at the cost of losing the church playing that game. What does it look like when the church is apart of that world, and not in it. Ask yourself what any part of a media saturated world looks like when the church sets itself apart from it.

What happens when every single Christian stops using porn? The same thing that would happen if every single Christian stopped using A.I. . The industry would notice the demographic shift and simple but effective marketing techniques would be used to convince that market that what it was abstaining from was good for it. You would be told that so long as the porn is ethically sourced, or made by the couple themselves, it’s kosher, The same way you’ll be told that as long as the A.I. is christian it’s fine. And that as long as we use this A.I. for ministry it is redeemed as much as the smut.

The reason I can draw the conclusions and comparisons I do is because the marketing doesn’t work on everyone. It never does. Some people don’t fall for hype and end up at shows with bands you’ll never hear on Sora, K-love, or any variation there of. They don’t think porn is sexy, because it’s obscene, and hold similar opinions about Music and  A.I. for similar reasons. Correlation is important when it comes to discerning what is holy and what is not. Because if something acts like the bad thing and pursues its markets like the bad thing. It may in fact be bad. Regardless of how popular it is. Which means it is not and can not be holy. Seven A.I. clones of a K-pop band will never make K-pop good music. And at this particular moment in time the church has an opportunity to repent of chasing the next big thing, and return to worship of the best thing. To set itself apart from the culture it can do nothing but war with.

And the easiest way it can do this is to be the kind of thing that can be found in the world but never of it. Nothing would convince a world so enamoured by technology of a transcendent God above it, than a departure from technology as if it were sinful in the first place. But that does require an acknowledgement that all of our technology, as a work of our hands, is never as righteous as we want it to be.

“But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags; and we all do fade as a leaf; and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away.”

Isaiah 64:6 KJV