Daniel Darling is Senior Pastor of Gages Lake Bible Church in Chicago. I recently chatted with him about Christian media and his mission to help others use timeless spiritual disciplines to master technology.

Dan, from the stories you share in your new book, iFaith: Connecting with God in the 21st Century, a boyhood fascination with radio appears to have been the spark for your interest in Christian media and technology.

That’s true.

Growing up, my parents made the decision to not have a TV in the house. That turned out to be a blessing for me because I grew up reading books and listening to the radio.

I listened to the old time classics, sports and news radio, and kids programming on Christian radio WMBI here in Chicago.

In college, I remember listening to Chuck Swindoll’s series, “Life of Moses,” on the radio.

That had a such a profound impact on me.

Is the age of radio passing?

I don’t think it’s passing, I think it’s changing. Digital technology is enabling people to be much more selective about what they listen to. But, I don’t think listening to a sermon in the car while you’re driving will ever be replaced. I love the idea of someone being able to stumble into the gospel on radio.

Audio content is still very desirable and very popular.

It’s obvious that you are personally making the transition to new media.

I’m a big consumer of new media. I use Google reader to check my favorite blogs every day on my phone. I podcast. I’m a blogger. I’m on Twitter and Facebook. Many of my business transactions are done online. And, I use the Net for sermon preparation and Bible study.

My sermons are podcast through our website. We use the Sermon Cloud platform to get the messages out to iTunes and other aggregators.

Because technology is producing shorter attention spans, do you think people will sit still for a thirty-minute sermon online?

I think there’s always a segment of the population that’s going to be restless, and we are probably more ADD as a society.

That being said, the Internet is allowing people to have access to great spiritual content. They can listen to the best preachers in the country, when they want to listen to them. I think there’s a demand for that.

I also see some of the more popular spiritual blogs like The Gospel Coalition, Tim Challies, Jon Acuff’s Stuff Christians Like and others, presenting long-form articles with a lot of meaty content.

So, I don’t think everybody is wanting just short video sound clips.

Do you see any danger in using technology and media in our worship or in creating a context for delivering the gospel to an online audience?

Yes, I do. I think we have to be careful about adapting too much technology into our church services. We need to create a sacred space that is not completely mastered by technology, that allows people to focus on God and worship in community.

Also, I haven’t complete wrapped my mind around church online, though I highly respect some of the pastors doing it well. They have reached a lot of people with the gospel. They have highly effective ministries.

As a gateway into the church, I think church online is really good. Then we’re creating community, not helping people withdraw from it.

Do you think every technology has to square with Scripture?

That’s a tough question. I’m reading through Tim Challies’ book, “The Next Story.” He says, and I think this is good, that technology itself has a message and a theology.

We have to think through our uses of technology and the purpose of it. The biggest thing we have to do is leverage technology for the advancement of the kingdom.

We need to make sure we’re mastering technology and not having it master us.

I will not be mastered by anything. 1 Corinthians 6:12

That is going to take leadership and more formal instruction.

Yes it will. It will take enormous teaching and intentionality on the part of those of us who communicate the Word.

We have to educate our people on how to live in the Digital Age. Each person and family’s technology budget, their theology of technology, will be a little bit different. We need to avoid being legalistic about it.

I wrote iFaith in an attempt to address some these issues. God hasn’t changed. His character hasn’t changed, or the way He reaches out to us. We need to help people think deeper on these things.

I think this is very important and we are all wrestling with it.