Resistance and Reimagination

What it means to build faithfully when the world moves fast

Hey Christians in Tech👋

Over the last few weeks, I've been on the road a lot.

Some of that travel was for work. Some of it was representing Christians in Tech. All of it left me with the same quiet, undeniable feeling:

Not just in churches. Not just in nonprofits. Not just in the "obviously spiritual" spaces.

In venture. In startups. In AI. In gaming. In film. In rooms full of builders, funders, investors, creators, and operators trying to figure out how to do serious work without handing over their souls in the process.

And honestly, that's been one of the most humbling parts.

Because the story is not, "Look how impressive these Christians are." The story is, "Look how faithful God is." He is already at work in rooms we're often tempted to write off as too secular, too ambitious, too powerful, or too complicated.

A few rooms, one common thread

One of the most meaningful stops was Venture Forge, the inaugural founder showcase and conference hosted at Stanford through our friends at Connect Silicon Valley. Venture Forge's aim is clear: to gather people who believe business can generate not only financial return, but spiritual, social, and cultural impact. Connect SV has a similarly simple and ambitious heartbeat: connecting people with each other, and with God, in Silicon Valley.

The room was stacked with serious leaders. People like Henry Kaestner, co-founder of Faith Driven Entrepreneur and Faith Driven Investor and a partner at Sovereign's Capital; Trae Stephens, partner at Founders Fund and co-founder/executive chairman of Anduril; and Tim Draper, the longtime Silicon Valley venture capitalist behind Draper Fisher Jurvetson and Draper Associates.

And yet, for me, the high point wasn't the star power.

It was the closing message from Jay Kim, lead pastor of WestGate Church in Silicon Valley and author of Analog Church, Analog Christian, and Listen, Listen, Speak. If you don't know Jay's work, you should. It is thoughtful, grounded, and deeply attuned to what it means to follow Jesus in a hyper-digital age.

His message was titled "Resistance and Reimagination." And I haven't been able to shake it.

What follows is the core of that sermon — the message that moved that room. It's the kind of message that doesn't just land intellectually. It lands in your chest. In your choices. In how you build.

When photography arrived, it changed everything for artists. Painters had a choice: surrender, retreat, or create differently. Picasso and others chose to resist and reimagine. They leaned into a new world instead of fighting it from the sidelines.

As men and women leading, innovating, and funding new ideas in an age of technological advancement moving at unprecedented speeds, you face a similar opportunity. The way of Jesus has always been the way of resistance and reimagination.

When asked about the greatest commandment, Jesus recites the Shema:

Heart, soul, mind, strength — it describes the entire, integrated human being. To be fully human as God intends is to become a person of love with all that we are. As Andy Crouch says, "The human being is a heart-soul-mind-strength complex designed for love."

So how do we do this, or become this, as we go about the work we're called to do?

The Heart: Contentment Purifies Ambition

The ancient Greeks called the heart the "seat of our affections"—the desires and motivations that orient our lives. To love God with our hearts is to orient our desires toward Him. But we live in a time when our longings are increasingly mimetic. We mostly want what others have, and in turn, we fail to know what we really want—or better yet, what we really need.

René Girard explains it this way:

As you build and innovate and invest, you must resist the lie that a meaningful life can only be found in getting what others have—having more than what others have. A truly meaningful life is found in learning to most desire what is already yours: the love of God and the people of God.

This is what Paul means when he writes:

When you're content with who you are and whose you are, you can pursue hard things without losing yourself in the pursuit. You can build boldly without needing the validation of the market. You can fail without it being an identity crisis.

The Mind: Wisdom in an Age of Information

In 1990, public intellectual Neil Postman described the television age like this:

What Postman saw three decades ago is exponentially more true today. People know so much but they do so little. People crave entertainment but recoil at responsibility. People are great at posting but inept at participating.

So as you innovate and build and invest, ask yourself: Are we perpetuating this great dilemma of our day, or are we offering an alternative way to be truly human in our technological age?

What people lack today isn't knowledge. What we lack is wisdom. I've sat with PhDs and C-suite executives whose lives were unraveling—not because they didn't know how to think, but because they didn't know how to live.

Intellect, information, and insight are important, but they're often rigid. Wisdom is agile. It's not just thinking the right thoughts; it's living the right life. As Dallas Willard defines it:

Wisdom looks like discernment in a culture of consumption. Patience in a culture of speed. Humility in a culture of ego. Generosity in a culture of excess.

The Strength: Formation Before Capacity

Cultural and technological advancement, by nature, defaults toward convenience—increased accessibility, decreased friction. This is often a gift. But when friction disappears, formation often does too. In the digital age, we risk becoming strong and weak at the same time.

AI extends cognition. Automation extends productivity. Capital extends influence. Platforms extend reach.

But if external capacity grows faster than internal formation, something breaks. You can't expand your influence faster than you expand your character. You can't scale your platform faster than you scale your prayer life. You can't grow your capital without growing your capacity to steward it wisely.

Resistance and reimagination may look like building companies that strengthen human agency rather than erode it. Structuring capital for long-term flourishing rather than short-term payoffs. Whether you intend to or not, your work is forming people. The only real question is: how?

Identity Before Output: You Are Beloved First

In the kingdom of God, you are not defined by your success or achievements or accomplishments or your net worth. In the kingdom of God, you are defined by your belovedness.

In the kingdom of God, faithfulness outruns accomplishment. In the kingdom of God, character outweighs capacity.

The true measure of success in the kingdom is not what you build but who you become.

So build boldly. Invest wisely. Take risks. Create. Innovate. But may you do it all from that place of security and settledness, from a place of true identity—as a son, as a daughter, already beloved, already of great worth to God our Father.

— Andy

We're expanding to San Francisco. Christians in Tech is building community at the intersection of faith and tech on the West Coast, and we need people like you to help make it happen.

Leading this effort on the ground is Laura.

Meet Laura. A recent graduate who spent time as a Venture Fellow and hosting post-grad events in Boston, bringing together young professionals and building community. Growing up Catholic in Ohio, faith has always been central to her life. She's heading to San Francisco with a passion for creating community at the intersection of faith and tech.

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LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/laura-t-dang | lauradang.com

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