Chris Martin and How Social Media Shapes Us
Feb 06, 2024
Chris Martin is an editor at Moody Publishers and a social media, marketing, and communications consultant. He writes regularly in his Substack newsletter, Terms of Service, and is publishing a book by the same name in February. Today, Chris shares how he was led into ministry, got a job working in publishing, and why he thinks social media does more harm than good. We have an extensive conversation about what social media is doing to us, common misconceptions, and what we can do to think more critically about it. Every Christian should be asking and seeking answers to these questions. Chris’ story reminds us that God often leads through our circumstances to the exact place we need to be.
Listen to Chris’ story now!
Stories Chris shared:
- Growing up in a Christian family in Indiana
- Thinking of faith in very transactional terms as a child
- The Sunday School teacher who led him to Christ
- Choosing to go to Taylor for college
- The intervention his friends staged to go into ministry
- How having theological debates shaped him
- Not getting a scholarship to Trinity Evangelical Divinity School
- Getting a job in social media and going to seminary
- The car accident that gave him a sense of reverence for the Lord
- Coaching authors on how to use social media
- How social media is shaping us
Great quotes from Chris:
I want you to steward your gifts better on the internet.
Even though I’d grown up in church, I’d never been taught theology.
Man created social media to serve man; but man has come to serve social media.
Social media are not neutral tools that can be used for good or evil.
Resources we mentioned:
- Chris’ website
- Terms of Service: The Real Cost of Social Media by Chris Martin
- Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business by Neil Postman
- The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power by Shoshana Zuboff
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