The Healthy Church Staff Podcast
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The Healthy Church Staff Podcast
How to Lead Your Church When No One Knows What’s Real Anymore
Ministry has never been more challenging as we navigate a world saturated with AI-generated misinformation, digital fatigue, and eroding trust. Church leaders must shift from pursuing polish to prioritizing proximity, as your authentic presence becomes the most powerful apologetic in an era where reality itself is questioned.
• Deep fakes are coming for pastors, not just politicians, with AI technology soon able to create convincingly fake videos of you saying things you never said
• Disinformation is more effectively discipling Christians than many churches, as the average believer scrolls 3-4 hours daily absorbing subtle narratives
• Digital exhaustion is a form of spiritual exhaustion that comes from processing too much, not necessarily doing too much
• Making discernment a discipleship priority helps equip believers to distinguish truth from manipulation
• The currency of effective ministry in 2025 isn't relevance but reliability—being a trustworthy presence when algorithms and institutions fail
• Practical ways to build trust include slowing the pace, normalizing digital Sabbaths, and prioritizing face-to-face interactions
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In a world drowning with misinformation and AI-generated lies and endless digital noise, ministry's never been harder or more needed. And as deepfakes blur reality and digital fatigue wears down the people of your church, how can church leaders like you build trust and offer clarity and Shepard? We're going to talk about that today, right here on the Healthy Church Staff Podcast. Hi there, my name is Todd Rhodes, one of the co-founders over at chemistrystaffingcom, and I'm also your host right here on the Healthy Church Staff Podcast. All right, what if your congregation doesn't know what's real anymore? How do you preach truth? We're not just battling sin and distraction anymore. We're battling disinformation and deep fakes and digital burnout. Ministry in 2025 requires really something deeper than clever sermons or creative graphics. It requires proximity and discernment and relational trust. Now stick with me. We're going to unpack a little bit more about how you can lead with truth in a world that's built on lies. But the world that we're living in today, it's just different. It's different than it was even two or three years ago, if you just take a look at how AI is starting to change things. We're living in a world today where anybody with an iPhone and the right app can create a really convincing lie Deep. Fakes are just for politics. They're coming for pastors too, and if you think they're not, you might be surprising yourself. Ai generated voices and faces can twist your words. You might wake up one morning and find that there's a video of you on the internet saying something that you never said, and chances are, if it happened today, you'd be able to tell it wouldn't be perfect. But give it a year or two and the technology is going to get so good that it's going to be almost impossible to differentiate. Church members may wake up. Your church members may wake up sometime soon and see headlines that sound true, even about your church, but they're not. And all of this that we're living in just begins to erode trust, because people are tired not just from content overload anymore, but from knowing not just who to trust, but what to trust. Who knows? It creates this fog, and your presence matters more than your polish. Your people don't need perfection, they need proximity, they need you to be close, they need a shepherd that they can see and that they can touch and that they can trust, because this is really, if you think about it, this is the new discipleship battlefield, because this is the hard truth Disinformation is doing a better job discipling people than most churches are. Let me say that again Disinformation is doing a better job discipling people than most churches are. Here's why the average Christian scrolls for about three or four hours a day. Three or four hours a day. They're absorbing subtle narratives without fear, or about fear and outrage, and identity and truth, and none of it's neutral None of it.
Speaker 1:So, as a pastor, you're not just competing with busyness, you're also competing with an entire alternative reality. Make discernment a discipleship priority. Now that might be a new way of thinking about it. But teach your people how to tell truth from manipulation. Create spaces, safe spaces for real conversations, and model yourself and your team. Model what it looks like to stay grounded in Scripture while navigating complexity. So how do you do this? How do you do this? Theologically? You teach the Bible and you teach people how to study the Bible, because the Bible is true and nobody can take that away. But you can't trust what other people sometimes are saying about the Bible or what AI is saying about the Bible. You need to be able to be self-sufficient and not be a little baby Christian. So how does this all figure it? Here's how I would like to describe this.
Speaker 1:Okay, digital exhaustion is really a form of spiritual exhaustion and if you admit it, your team feels it, they do and your congregation feels it, and the burnout isn't just from doing too much. Matter of fact, you can do nothing and you can still suffer from this digital exhaustion, but the burnout isn't from doing too much, it's from processing too much. It's from processing too much. Everybody's mentally maxed out, even before they show up at your church on Sunday. The inbox is never empty, the notifications never stop, the attention spans anymore, paper thin. So how do you lead differently?
Speaker 1:I think here's a few suggestions Slow the pace, slow it down, prioritize stillness, normalize and teach and keep a digital Sabbath where you take time off from all of this distraction, all of this stuff that just clouds our mind, and make in-person presence, even at your services, a sacred rhythm again. Your job isn't to entertain the digitally drained and, honestly, if you're still trying to entertain, you're fighting a losing battle. There's people out there and things out there and apps out there that are much better at entertaining than what we are in the church. Let's just be real. Your job isn't to entertain, it's to reorient them toward peace, and that starts with how you model your own digital habits, and it's not going to come quickly, it's not going to be a mass. You just flip the switch and everything goes away.
Speaker 1:Rebuilding trust is going to happen one person at a time, because the currency of 2025, ministry, isn't relevance, relevance, it's not the ticket in 2025. The ticket in 2025, the currency, is reliability. And when most people don't trust institutions or headlines, or even the algorithms that are tailored specifically to them, they turn to who shows up, and that could be you. So practical ideas, bottom line. How do you do this? Visit somebody, call them instead of text.
Speaker 1:Pray for somebody face-to-face, preach like you know that people are hanging on by a thread because they are and know that your job isn't to impress but to reassure, because deep fakes can replicate a place, but they can't replicate a presence. They can mimic a voice, but they can't mimic empathy, and no matter the amount of disinformation that comes their way, it can be overcome with a trusted relationship. This isn't a call for panic. Don't hear panic in my voice. It's a call for proximity and, in an age of AI fakery and digital fatigue and truth decay, your presence is the most powerful apologetic. Those are my thoughts today. Hope they're helpful to you. This is Todd Rhodes. I am the host right here on the Healthy Church Staff Podcast. Thanks so much for joining me. We're here every single weekday and you can join me again right here tomorrow. Okay, I hope you will. You.
