Your teenager shares a clip from a revival event. Thousands of people swaying, crying, falling to the floor. The speaker is dynamic. The music is electric. The comments are full of “this is what we’ve been waiting for” and fire emojis.
And something in your gut says, I don’t know about this.
But you can’t articulate why. It looks spiritual. It sounds Christian. They’re saying the name of Jesus. So why does it feel hollow?
If you’re reading this, it’s because you care. You’re paying attention to what’s shaping your kid’s faith, and that already matters more than you know. A lot of parents aren’t even asking these questions. The fact that you’re here, wrestling with this, says something about the kind of guide you’re trying to be.
What I’ve come to understand, both from years of studying how young people build their beliefs online and from my own journey through spiritual spaces that promised transformation but delivered something else entirely: the markers of hollow spirituality are subtle. They don’t announce themselves. And the digital environment your kids are swimming in is designed to amplify exactly the kind of content that feels powerful but builds nothing lasting.
If you’re a parent, a mentor, a church leader trying to help young people navigate this landscape, this one’s for you. Not because I have all the answers, but because I’ve walked this road from the other side. And I wish someone had helped me see what I couldn’t see about myself.
The Algorithm Isn’t Neutral
Something I wish someone had told me years ago: the way social media works, content that is popular, emotionally resonant, and shareable rises to the top. It gains a kind of authority simply by being seen.
Popularity starts to feel like proof.
And the content that goes viral is almost always the content that hits fast and hits hard. Novel. Intense. Emotionally charged.
You know what doesn’t go viral? Slow, careful biblical teaching. The kind of spiritual growth that happens over years of faithful study. The steady, unglamorous work of understanding Scripture in context.
A mentor might notice this playing out when a young person says “church feels dead” or “I don’t feel God there.” They might not be rejecting God at all. They might be conditioned by an environment that has trained them to expect spiritual content that hits like a TikTok video. The slow work of faith feels boring by comparison.
I get it. I chased those spiritual highs too, thinking the louder and more intense the experience, the closer I must be to God.
It didn’t hold.
What I Didn’t Know I Didn’t Know
For a long time, I thought spiritual authenticity was about intensity. About feeling something. If I felt moved, shaken, transformed in the moment, that must be real.
What I didn’t understand was that I was building on sand. I had moments. I didn’t have roots.
Intensity isn’t intimacy with God. I wish someone had told me that earlier.
I’m sharing this not because my story is special, but because I remember what it’s like to believe you’re drawing closer to God while using approaches that center you instead of Him. I had enough biblical literacy from my Christian upbringing to sound credible. Enough sincere seeking to be convincing. I was earnest. I was also earnestly headed in the wrong direction.
Paul warned Timothy about exactly this: “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).
That time isn’t coming. It’s here. And the digital environment has accelerated it beyond anything Paul could have imagined.
The numbers tell the story: only about 10% of Americans read the Bible daily now. Only one in five have ever read the whole thing even once. And yet the vast majority of spiritual seekers say their path is something they “must find on their own.”
Do you see the gap there?
People are constructing entire belief systems based on feelings, intuition, viral clips, and whatever “speaks to them” in the moment, without any grounding in the text that’s supposed to anchor the faith they claim.
That’s not their fault, necessarily. It’s the water they’re swimming in. But it does mean that when they encounter spiritual content online (even content that uses Christian language and says the name of Jesus), they have no filter for evaluating whether it’s true.
When Everything Feels Like Encounter
So what does hollow spirituality look like? This is where I need to tread carefully, because real spiritual hunger often shows up at these events too. People aren’t wrong to want to encounter God. Real encounters happen. The question is whether what’s being encountered is building people toward Christ or consuming them in the moment.
Over the years, I’ve learned to notice certain patterns, both in my own past and in the content that floods young people’s feeds:
Experience takes precedence over Scripture. The testimony is about what was felt, not what was true. “I sensed the presence of God” becomes the primary evidence, with no biblical anchor to test it against. And I know how real those feelings can be. The issue isn’t that the experience was fake. The issue is that feelings, however powerful, need something outside themselves to evaluate them.
Novelty gets confused with depth. “God revealed something to me that no one has ever taught before” should raise questions. If it’s from God, it will align with what He’s already revealed. The Christian faith has been explored by brilliant, Spirit-filled people for two thousand years. That doesn’t mean there’s nothing new to learn. But if a teaching contradicts what faithful believers have understood across time and cultures, that’s worth examining.
Personal empowerment takes center stage. Watch for language about “claiming your breakthrough,” “stepping into your anointing,” or “manifesting your season.” This is self-empowerment dressed in Christian vocabulary. I recognize it because I used that same language, convinced I was helping people when I was reinforcing the idea that they were their own highest authority.
Careful biblical teaching gets dismissed as dead religion. “Don’t let religion steal your relationship with Jesus” sounds freeing until you realize it’s cutting people off from the very teaching that would help them know Him. The Bible isn’t a rulebook designed to control you. It’s the revelation of who God is.
The messenger eclipses the message. Celebrity-centered content where the teacher’s personality, platform, or “special anointing” matters more than Christ. If you walk away remembering the speaker more than Scripture, something’s off.
I’m not saying every experience at these events is fake. I’m saying experiences need something outside themselves to evaluate them. And that “something” is Scripture, read carefully, in community, over time.
(The uncomfortable part: I operated in some of these patterns myself. I had enough sincere seeking to be convincing. I used Christian language because I believed I was connecting with God. The Holy Spirit’s conviction, when it came, wasn’t harsh. It was more like a persistent question I couldn’t shake. A gentle but insistent invitation to reconsider what I was building.)
What Your Kids Need From You
I want you to hear this: shutting down questions accelerates drift.
Research shows that over a third of young Christians feel they can’t ask their hardest questions in church. That’s not necessarily about your church or your home. But it tells us something about the broader current we’re all swimming against. Somewhere along the way, a lot of young people got the message that doubt is dangerous rather than a normal part of faith.
So they go looking elsewhere. And the algorithm is happy to serve them content that feels like answers.
The danger isn’t that your kids ask hard questions. The danger is that they stop asking you.
I don’t say that to add to your worry. I say it because I wish someone had told me that when I stopped asking the adults in my life, it wasn’t because I’d found better answers elsewhere. I couldn’t handle the silence anymore. I wanted someone to sit with me in the questions, not hand me conclusions.
Your kid might share every clip with you. Or they might not share anything at all. You might have no idea what they’re watching or who’s shaping their beliefs. That’s okay. This isn’t about surveillance. It’s about building the kind of relationship where they want to talk, even when they’re not sure what to say.
Teaching discernment isn’t about interrogating every video they watch or banning them from social media entirely. It’s about building the habits of evaluation so deeply that they become reflexive.
Four questions I wish I’d learned to ask years ago. They work for any spiritual content, online or in person:
What Scripture is this built on? Solid teaching fits with the whole Bible, not one verse pulled out of context. Can you find this message in Scripture, or does it sound spiritual without being rooted?
Is this pointing me to Jesus or to the teacher? Christ-centered content keeps bringing you back to the cross. Celebrity-centered content keeps bringing you back to the platform.
Does this change how I live, or how I feel? Real transformation shows up in daily obedience, not emotional intensity alone. Sensationalism creates spikes. Scripture creates steady growth.
What have faithful Christians across generations said about this? Test content against historical consistency. Is this something believers have taught across time, or is it trending this week?
The goal isn’t to create suspicious kids who can’t engage with anything. It’s to build the discernment muscles that help them evaluate what they’re consuming.
Don’t Interrogate. Model Curiosity.
When your teenager shares something from their feed, try this instead of immediately correcting: “That’s interesting. What Scripture is that from?” or “What do you think that means for how we live?”
You’re not attacking. You’re asking the questions they should learn to ask themselves.
Sometimes you’ll find the content they’re engaging with is solid. Sometimes it’s different from what you’re used to. The goal isn’t to shut everything down. It’s to help them develop a filter that can tell the difference between spectacle and substance.
The Slow Work That Holds
I know this isn’t the answer you wanted. You wanted a solution, a checklist, maybe a list of accounts to block.
But the real work is slower than that. It’s building a home where hard questions are welcome. Where doubt isn’t threatening because you’re confident in a bedrock strong enough to handle it. Where you model the kind of faith that keeps going even when it doesn’t feel electric.
What makes a difference, both in my own return to faith rooted in Scripture and in communities that build resilient believers:
Read Scripture together like you’re discovering something. Not as an expert imparting wisdom, but as someone still uncovering things. “I’ve been thinking about this passage. What do you think it means?” That posture is contagious. When your kids see you wrestling with the text, they learn that wrestling is allowed. That questions are part of the journey, not a threat to it.
Build rhythms, not events. The algorithm thrives on spikes. Faith thrives on consistency. A weekly dinner conversation where you talk about something real. A short devotional in the car. Asking “What’s something that made you think today?” before bed. The goal isn’t a mountain-top experience every Tuesday. It’s the quiet accumulation of a shared vocabulary, a common framework, a family culture where God is part of the conversation.
Let them see your own growth. Kids know when you’re faking it. If you’re telling them to read their Bible but they never see you reading yours, they notice. That might mean admitting you’re still figuring things out. That might mean saying “I don’t know, but let’s look together.” That vulnerability isn’t weakness. It’s exactly what they need to see.
Connect them to community beyond your household. Your voice matters. But at some point, they need to hear it from other adults they respect. A youth pastor who takes their questions seriously. A mentor who’s walked through doubt and came out with deeper faith. Grandparents who can share what decades of trusting God look like. You’re not the only voice, and you shouldn’t try to be.
There’s this passage in Acts 2 that keeps pulling at me. The early church devoted themselves to “the apostles’ teaching, to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread, and to prayer” (Acts 2:42, NLT). No smoke machines. No viral moments. Scripture, community, and the Spirit at work.
And it changed the world.
Something about that simplicity matters more than ever right now. In an environment designed to grab attention, the most countercultural thing we can do is offer something that requires patience. That doesn’t hit immediately but holds forever.
If You’re Not Sure Where to Start
You might be reading this realizing that your own biblical grounding isn’t as solid as you thought. That’s okay. It’s not too late. You don’t have to have it all figured out before you can help someone else.
Start with one Gospel. Mark is short, fast-paced, and gets to the point. Read it like a story, not a textbook. See if Jesus is different than what you remember.
Then try reading it with your kid. Not as the expert with answers, but as someone curious about what’s there. “I’ve been thinking about this passage. What do you think it means?”
That’s it. That’s the first step. You can do that in five minutes tonight.
The best filter against hollow spirituality isn’t more suspicion. It’s deeper knowledge of the real thing.
The algorithm will move on to the next trend. Truth remains.
Your kids are being offered spiritual content that promises intensity and delivers emptiness. You get to offer them something different: depth that holds when life gets hard.
That’s not a competition you win with better marketing. It’s an anchor you build with faithful presence, honest conversation, and the slow, unglamorous work of opening Scripture together.
You don’t have to have all the answers. You have to be willing to look for them together.
(There’s this whole thing Paul writes to the Ephesians about the church being built together into a dwelling place for God’s Spirit. Not individuals doing their own thing, but something constructed together, brick by brick, over time. I keep thinking about what that means for families trying to build something in their kids that will last. But that’s probably a whole other conversation.)
