Raising Digital Disciples: Helping Kids Follow Jesus in a Screen-Filled World

Technology is woven into nearly every part of kids’ lives from school and friendships to hobbies and entertainment. It’s also deeply embedded in our ministries: we use slides, videos, music, apps, and social media to connect with children, teens, and families.

Tech is a powerful tool for discipleship… and a powerful source of distraction.

C.S. Lewis captures this danger in The Screwtape Letters, where a demon boasts that his patient eventually realizes, “I spent most of my life doing neither what I ought nor what I liked.”

Lewis is describing a life frittered away by distraction and wasted time, exactly what many of our kids (and leaders!) face with endless scrolling, notifications, and digital noise.

In This Article:

• What technology is doing to our faith

• Three ways kids engage with media

• Raising kids who follow Jesus in a world of screens

What Is Technology Doing to Our Faith?

Recent research suggests this isn’t just a theory:

• One study found 58% of Christians feel their faith suffers because of online engagement.

• 70% report that phone alerts regularly disrupt prayer.

• Many say they check their phones before they pray.

If this is affecting adults, it’s absolutely shaping the children and teens we serve.

So, we need one another to think intentionally about healthy tech use in our programs and in the families we support, so that technology becomes a servant of spiritual formation, not a substitute for it. This is the work of digital discipleship in our time.

Three Ways Kids Engage with Media

Before we talk about “how much” tech to use, it helps to think about what the tech is doing. Most media your kids and teens consume will fall into one (or more) of these categories:

1. Entertainment – Purely for Enjoyment

This is media whose main goal is fun: games, silly videos, memes, movies, music playlists.

• Potential gift: Joy, laughter, creativity, shared experiences.

• Potential danger: Constant stimulation, addiction to entertainment, numbed attention, and comparison.

In ministry, entertainment isn’t wrong. But if everything we do is entertainment-driven, kids can learn to expect the Gospel to always be “as exciting as TikTok” and that’s not realistic or healthy.

2. Education – Learning Ideas and Stories

This includes teaching videos, animated Bible stories, explainer clips, and any digital tool that helps kids understand something.

• Potential gift: Makes complex or abstract ideas concrete and visual; engages different learning styles; can review content at home.

• Potential danger: Kids become passive consumers rather than active learners; they may know the facts but never internalize or wrestle through it.

Used wisely, educational media is a fantastic ally in discipleship especially when it’s paired with conversation and real-life application.

3. (Spiritual) Experience – Guiding Kids into Practices

This is media designed to lead children through a spiritual practice: worship songs with motions, guided prayer or reflection videos, digital devotionals, or meditative visuals and music.

• Potential gift: Helps kids experience God, not just learn about Him; supports kids who struggle to focus; creates shared moments of worship.

• Potential danger: Kids learn to rely on media for spiritual experience.

The key is to use spiritual-experience media as a pathway, not a replacement for direct prayer, Scripture reading, and community life.

Raising Kids Who Follow Jesus in a World of Screens

As we think about the kids in our ministries, our goal isn’t to shelter them from every screen, but to help them follow Jesus in a world full of screens. When we choose media with purpose, build in space for silence and Scripture, and model healthy habits with our own devices, we’re teaching children that their attention—and their hearts—belong to God.

Technology will keep changing, but the call of discipleship remains the same: to help the next generation love God with all their heart, soul, mind, and strength, whether they’re holding a Bible, a tablet, or both.

If you’re looking for a quick framework to evaluate tech through a discipleship lens, we’ve created a free Check Your Tech leader guide to help ministry leaders evaluate when—and why—they use screens in ministry.