Your Church Medium is Your Message

By: Bryan Willkom

Marshall McLuhan famously said, “The medium is the message.”

In other words, the form in which we we experience something is potentially more potent than the content itself.

Modern example: Social media reels. We consume the videos, yes, but the phone, the app, the scrolling, the design, the behaviors required to access the content are arguably more influential on us.

The takeaway?

It’s not just the content.

HOW we experience the content (the medium) has the power to shape how we live & think.

Take A book vs. A video… Two different mediums / forms of communication. We process and interpret each one differently don’t we? A difference that goes largely unnoticed.

Similarly to our communication or relational conflicts - 80% is nonverbal. It’s not what you said, it’s how you said it.

As you might guess, I’ve been of wondering about how this relates to our experience of Church and why Christianity (in its’ predominant form) is in trouble.

Consider the medium in which you’ve traditionally experienced church -

Sundays, Sermons, Stage-led Worship, Sanctuaries, Clergy-centered, Hierarchy, Certainty, Ritual, Liturgy, Doctrine, Denomination, etc.

The research suggests that these mediums are increasingly not working for people. And if they are working, they might not be working the way we want them too…

It begs to ask: Have traditional mediums resulted in a church that’s off-message?

Have our religious mediums made us unwell? Has the lifestyle of Jesus gotten lost through our unwillingness to let go of old things? Might the Spirit be saying to us in 2025: Experiment. Innovate. Break some Rules. Use other mediums. (???)

Have we identified the sort of mediums (methods, tools, practices, experiences) that lead toward Jesus-centered transformation?

Here’s a few mediums on our list: tables, weekdays, ordinary folks, stories, questions, curiosity, practices, presence etc.

But this isn’t an either/or thing. It’s a BOTH/AND thing.

There are plenty of healthy ways to utilize both new and traditional mediums to empower people toward spiritual progress and wholeness.

The bottom line is: We need to create healthier spiritual environments. Too many people have experienced church trauma because we used harmful mediums that spread harmful messages.

It’s time we do something about that.

So let’s pause and wonder - What sort of mediums will move the spiritual needle for folks in 2025 and beyond?

(Insert: 30 seconds of abundant curiosity)

At the end of the day, whatever church mediums we consume or experience habitually must eventually lead to the true message: Jesus helps us grow healthy fruit (love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control)

Or we’re doing it wrong.