You’ve probably seen the notification before.
Maybe it came at 11pm while you were prepping for tomorrow’s service. A text from another youth leader. A trending topic you stumbled across while checking the schedule. A parent forwarding you a news story with nothing but a question mark and your name.
And then that sinking feeling. Because you recognize the name. The Christian influencer with the massive following. The one whose reels your students share in the group chat. The one whose books are on their nightstands. The one whose voice has been in their ears every single day, shaping how they think about God, faith, relationships, everything.
Moral failure. Public deconstruction. A slow-motion collapse everyone saw except the people who needed to see it most.
The next morning, you’re walking into a room full of teenagers. Some are devastated. Some are cynical, already crafting their “I never really liked them anyway” narrative. Some are suspiciously quiet. And you’re supposed to somehow disciple them through this.
I don’t have a script for you. But I do have some things I’ve been sitting with about why these moments hit so hard, and what they reveal about the kind of faith we’re building in the young people we serve.
Why This Isn’t Just About One Person
I wish someone had explained this to me earlier: the reason influencer failures devastate young believers isn’t simply because they looked up to that person. It’s because the architecture of digital platforms has fundamentally rewired how spiritual authority works.
Think about it. In traditional church settings, authority is hierarchical. Based on credentials, ordination, institutional backing, faithfulness over time. Whether or not that system works perfectly ( it doesn’t), at least the rules were clear. Authority came from somewhere outside the individual claiming it.
Online, authority operates completely differently. The most trusted voices aren’t the ones with seminary degrees or decades of patient ministry. They’re the ones whose content gets engagement. Whose reels go viral. Whose comments section feels like community.
The upvote system and engagement metrics function as a kind of algorithmic oracle. Popular responses gain authority through community validation. If enough people like it, it must be true. If it moves them emotionally, it must be from God. The algorithm amplifies what feels good, and what feels good starts to feel authoritative.
The reframe that changed how I think about this: Viral isn’t the same as true. And slow isn’t a liability in a viral world. It might be the whole point.
This isn’t your students’ fault. The platforms are designed this way. They reward emotional resonance over doctrinal depth. They favor novelty over slow, faithful teaching. They create parasocial relationships where your teenager feels like they know that influencer, even though the influencer doesn’t know them at all.
So when that person falls, it’s not like losing a distant celebrity. It registers as betrayal by someone they trusted. Someone who felt closer than their pastors. Someone whose voice has been discipling them daily in ways we can’t see or control.
When the Foundation Isn’t What We Thought
I’m sharing this part not because my story is unique, but because I know what it’s like to build something that looks like solid faith until life puts weight on it.
I chased spiritual intensity for years. I was seeking God, sincerely. I studied voraciously, consumed Christian content constantly, developed practices that felt meaningful. I had experiences. I had emotional resonance. I had what felt like a thriving spiritual life.
But I was building without realizing how shallow the ground was. I had knowledge about Christianity, but I wasn’t rooted in humble dependence on Christ. I had spiritual experiences, but they were disconnected from the accountability of embodied community. When circumstances shifted (and they always do), I discovered that sensation-based faith collapses under weight.
This is what I see in so many young people whose faith is tethered to personalities rather than Scripture. It’s not that they’re shallow or uncommitted. Many of them are hungry for God. But they’ve been formed by a system that prioritizes experience over doctrine, feeling over truth, charisma over faithfulness.
And this is where I want to be careful, because I know most of us are doing our best. We care about these kids. We show up week after week, preparing lessons, answering questions, trying to build something real. The effort isn’t the problem.
But consider this: research consistently shows that a significant percentage of young Christians feel they can’t bring their hardest questions to church. Some studies suggest it’s over a third. Think about what that means. Over a third of the young people we’re pouring into don’t feel safe voicing their real doubts to us.
So they take those doubts elsewhere. To forums. To comment sections. To influencers whose content makes them feel understood in ways that Sunday morning never did.
And when those influencers fall, they don’t lose a spiritual guide. They lose the only place that felt safe for their questions.(I wonder: what would need to change for your students to bring you their real questions? Not the Sunday School questions. The 1am questions. The ones about whether any of this is even real. What would that take?)
What We Offer That the Algorithm Can’t
This is where I want to be careful. Because the temptation for ministry leaders is to look at what influencers do and think: Maybe we need better production value. Maybe we need to be funnier. Maybe we need to be on more platforms.
And listen, I’m not against engaging content. A well-produced reel can open a door. But engaging content can never hold someone’s hand when they walk through it.
If our strategy for building lasting faith is to compete with influencers on their own terms, we’ve already lost. Because they will always be better at being entertaining than we are at being entertaining while also telling people things they don’t want to hear.
What we offer is fundamentally different. Not better production. Not more followers. But something the algorithm cannot provide: embodied presence. Accountable relationships. Teaching that persists after the platform personality has flamed out.
Digital content can introduce ideas. Only embodied community can form character. And character is what holds when circumstances don’t.
Paul understood this. When he told Timothy to “watch your life and doctrine closely” (1 Timothy 4:16, NLT), he wasn’t building a platform. He was building a person. The authority he was conferring wasn’t based on Timothy’s engagement metrics. It was based on his faithfulness over time, his willingness to be accountable, his commitment to teaching truth even when it wasn’t popular.
“Persevere in them,” Paul says, “because if you do, you will save both yourself and your hearers.”That word persevere is doing heavy lifting there. Paul isn’t describing viral moments or breakthrough content. He’s describing the slow, steady, often invisible work of building something that lasts.
What Slow and Steady Gets You
I spent years operating in spiritual isolation, convinced I could freelance my faith without consequence. I studied and processed alone, telling myself this was spiritual independence when it was me avoiding the friction of community.
When I joined a church after years of wandering, I was terrified. I worried I’d be judged. I worried whether I’d be accepted. What I found instead was something I couldn’t have gotten from any content, no matter how well-produced: people who knew my name. A vicar who affirmed my messy journey. A community where I wasn’t consuming spiritual ideas but being seen, known, and walked with.
That’s the thing. Certain kinds of formation only happen in friction with other people.
An influencer can tell your student that God loves them. Only you can show up when their parents are divorcing. A podcast can explain forgiveness. Only you can sit with them when they’ve been the one who needs forgiving. Content delivers information. Presence delivers formation.
So what does slow and steady get you that the algorithm can’t provide?
It gets you students who come back to you after an influencer fails, because you built the relational ground that could absorb that disappointment. It gets you the privilege of being present for the moments that matter. Of praying with them when they’re scared. Of challenging them when they’re drifting. Of celebrating when they take steps of faith that nobody else even noticed.
The algorithm doesn’t know their names. You do.
And that matters more than any of us probably realize.
Building Faith That Can Absorb Disappointment
So what does this look like in practice? A few things I’m working through:
Create space for real questions. If over a third of young Christians feel unable to voice their doubts in church, we have to reckon with that. Not by abandoning doctrinal guardrails (those boundaries that help us know what Christianity teaches), but by making it clear that wrestling with faith is part of faith, not evidence of its absence. The Psalms are full of lament and complaint and “how long, O Lord?” That’s not weak faith. That’s honest faith. And honest faith can survive what performative faith cannot.
Teach evaluation skills, not only content. Our young people are consuming hours of spiritual content every week. Most of it unvetted. Instead of fighting that reality, we can equip them to assess what they’re hearing. Does this teaching align with Scripture? Does this person’s life match their message over time? Is this pointing me toward Christ or toward a personality?
Paul warned Timothy about this exact dynamic: “For a time is coming when people will no longer listen to sound and wholesome teaching. They will follow their own desires and will look for teachers who will tell them whatever their itching ears want to hear” (2 Timothy 4:3, NLT).
Sound familiar? The algorithmic feed is a machine designed to scratch itching ears.
Model faithful imperfection. One reason influencer failures hit so hard is that many young people have been sold a version of Christian leadership that doesn’t leave room for struggle. So when the cracks show, the whole structure collapses.
Consider normalizing what repentance looks like. Showing them that faithful leaders also fail, return, and keep going. That authority isn’t about perfection but about consistently pointing to Christ even through our own weakness.
Use failures as discipleship opportunities. When a prominent figure falls, don’t do damage control. Use it. Ask your students: What was this person’s faith built on? What made their teaching compelling? What does Scripture say about the things they were teaching? Where did their authority come from, and was that the right source?
These moments, painful as they are, can become some of the most formative conversations you’ll ever have.
What Remains
There’s a passage in Hebrews: “Remember your leaders who taught you the word of God. Think of all the good that has come from their lives, and follow the example of their faith. Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever” (Hebrews 13:7-8, NLT).
Notice the juxtaposition. Human leaders are to be remembered and honored. Their faithful example matters. But the very next breath points to something else entirely: Jesus Christ, who doesn’t change. Who doesn’t fall. Whose authority isn’t based on engagement or charisma or platform.
That’s what we’re building toward. Not faith in leaders (including ourselves). Faith in Christ. Leaders point. Christ remains.
The church existed before social media. It will exist after. Every platform personality will eventually disappear, whether through failure, irrelevance, or simple mortality. The question isn’t whether the influencers your students follow will disappoint them. They will. The question is whether we’re building faith that can absorb that disappointment without collapsing.
I don’t have this figured out. I’m still working through what it means to disciple in an age of algorithmic formation, where the voices in my students’ ears every day are voices I didn’t choose and can’t control.
But I’m starting to believe that the slow work, the embodied work, the showing-up-week-after-week work, that’s not a liability in a viral world.
It might be exactly what’s needed.
Because platforms come and go. Personalities rise and fall. But Christ is the same. Yesterday. Today. Forever.
And maybe, if we do this well, the young people we serve will be able to say that too. Not because their favorite teacher never failed them. But because their faith was never built on teachers in the first place.
Something Small You Could Try This Week
If you want to start somewhere concrete: Pick one student. Just one. And this week, learn one thing about their life that has nothing to do with church. Their favorite show. What’s stressing them out at school. What they’re excited about that nobody’s asked them yet. That’s it. You’re not solving the whole digital formation crisis. You’re laying one brick in a structure that can hold weight.
If you’re feeling overwhelmed: You don’t have to compete with the algorithm. You can’t. And that’s not your job. Your job is to be present, to be faithful, to keep showing up. The algorithm will keep churning out content. You keep showing up for humans.
If the next influencer collapse is already on the horizon: Don’t dread it. Prepare for it. Think now about how you’d use that moment as a discipleship conversation. What questions would you ask? What Scripture would you point to? Having a framework ready doesn’t mean you’re hoping for failure. It means you’re ready to build when the ground shakes.
And one question worth considering before the notification comes:
If the influencer your students trust most fell tomorrow, what would be left? Not your curriculum. Not your programs. What relationship would be there to catch them?
That might be worth thinking about.
Start with one student. One conversation. One brick.
See what builds from there.
