When the Algorithm Starts Preaching Back to You
Digital Ministry Friends with Rev. Gerlyn Henry
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about what it means to do ministry in a world where the metrics never stop talking.
Not church metrics—we’ve always had those. Attendance. Giving. Who showed up, who didn’t. The stuff we pretend isn’t that important but somehow always makes its way into a meeting agenda.
I’ve been thinking about digital metrics.
Views. Likes. Shares. Follower counts that jump overnight. Comments that come faster than you can read them. A dashboard that quietly (or not so quietly) tells you whether what you just said mattered.
Or at least…performed.
I was talking with a friend recently who’s experienced that kind of growth firsthand—going from a small, familiar online space to hundreds of thousands of people watching, listening, responding. The kind of growth that sounds exciting (and it is), but also comes with a strange kind of grief.
Because at some point, the internet stops being a place you show up as yourself. It becomes a place where people show up expecting a version of you.
That’s the shift that doesn’t get talked about enough.
There’s a moment—maybe gradual, maybe all at once—when you realize you’re no longer just posting. You’re being perceived. Interpreted. Projected onto. Known, but not actually known.
It’s the old pastoral dynamic, a parasocial relationship, just scaled up beyond anything we were trained for.
In a church, people feel like they know you because they hear you speak every week. Online, that same dynamic exists—but now it’s millions of people, many of whom you will never meet, all forming some version of you in their minds.
And then there are the numbers.
Here’s the honest part: they feel good.
When something lands, when a video connects, when the numbers spike—you feel it. There’s a kind of validation there that, if we’re being honest, parish ministry doesn’t always provide in the same way. You can preach your heart out on a Sunday and have no idea what actually made a difference. But online? The feedback is immediate. Quantifiable.
You know.
But that’s also the danger.
Because if you’re not careful, the numbers don’t just measure the work—they start to shape it.
You begin to wonder:
Why did that one work?
Why didn’t this one?
What do people want from me?
What version of me gets the green arrow and the confetti?
And suddenly, without even realizing it, the algorithm isn’t just distributing your message. It’s discipling you.
That’s the tension.
Because there’s real good happening here. I’ve seen it. I’ve been part of it. The reach is undeniable. The ability to offer a more expansive, liberating vision of faith to people who may never step into a church building—that matters.
Deeply.
But there’s also a cost.
A subtle shaping of identity.
A quiet erosion of privacy.
A growing awareness that you can’t quite show up anywhere as just…you.
Because someone might recognize you.
Because everything is potentially content.
Because the line between who you are and what you produce starts to blur.
So what do we do with that?
I don’t think the answer is to walk away. At least not for most of us. This is the world we’re in. This is where people are. There’s real, incarnational ministry happening here.
But I do think it means we have to hold this differently.
Looser. With more intention. With a deeper awareness that the numbers are not the same thing as faithfulness. That reach is not the same thing as impact. That being known is not the same thing as being in relationship.
And maybe most importantly—that this is a season.
That the waves will shift, as they always do.
The algorithm will move on.
The attention will go somewhere else.
And when it does, what will remain?
If we’ve done this well—not perfectly, but honestly—what remains won’t just be content. It will be connection. It will be the network of people we’ve collaborated with, learned from, built alongside. It will be the quieter, less measurable work of showing up with integrity in a space that constantly tempts us otherwise.
And maybe, just maybe, it will be a reminder that the work was never about the numbers in the first place. Even if they were really good at making us think it was.
Hey, are you reading this before 1:00 pm ET on Tuesday, June 2? You should join us for the our three week Community of Practice series on “How to do Hybird Worship”.