Selfies Are Not the Self: Forming Embodied Youth in a Disembodied Age

“They’re constantly posting pictures of themselves now,” the youth pastor told me about his students. “Makeup pictures. Gym selfies. Girls and guys both. It’s incredibly disembodying for them.”

Disembodying.

That word struck me. I had heard of this phenomenon before; putting an internet-connected camera in the pocket of every teenager had, perhaps predictably, not gone well. Whether it was “sexting” or posting “thirst traps,” I had primarily heard about this behavior through the lens of lust and sexual sin. “Disembodiment” seemed a bit dramatic to me. But my friend was on to something.

Long before social media or smartphones, before the internet or digital cameras, 20th century media philosopher Marshall McLuhan was speaking that same language. McLuhan called it “discarnation,” where electronic media strips away physical presence, converting it into data, and giving the illusion of omnipresence . . . at the expense of being anywhere at all. A devout Catholic, it’s no coincidence that his term calls to mind the direct reversal of Christ’s incarnational rescue mission. This “discarnation” was, in his words, “strictly Luciferan.” In 1979, he wrote that “discarnate man is not compatible with an incarnate Church.”[1]

To McLuhan, my youth pastor friend’s comment would not have been extreme at all.

The Kids Are Discarnate

Glance through their social media feeds or messaging apps, and you’d be forgiven for assuming that modern teenagers are obsessed with bodies. You’d be right. Modern teenagers are sending, receiving, viewing, and now, with AI, creating images of bare flesh and body parts at alarming, unprecedented rates.

And yet, images of bodies are not bodies. “Selfies” are not the self. They’re data. Objects. Commodities. When the “self” is an unstable construction, the body becomes little more than marketing.

Minds, Hearts, and Bodies

“Aim for the heart, not just the head.”

You’ve surely heard this exhortation in youth ministry. And it’s right. Your students are not just brains-on-sticks, and ministry to whole persons means aiming for their loves, longings, and desires, not just their beliefs.

But, of course, our students aren’t only minds and hearts. They are bodies. It’s become common ministry parlance to say, “embodied souls,” but God’s order of operations in Genesis 1, forming Adam from the dust before breathing life into him, might suggest “ensouled bodies” as the preferable descriptor. Your youth room isn’t just filled with brains and hearts; it’s filled with ensouled bodies.

You’ve read the books and think pieces. You’ve felt the frustration of a well-crafted message that bounces right off a group of sleepy, sugared-up students. You’ve seen them, embraced them, maybe even smelled them. You’ve probably taught them that their bodies matter to God. But as McLuhan also famously observed, “the medium is the message.”[2]

We can preach the body’s goodness and yet still practice its irrelevance on the same Wednesday night. And the practice is far more likely to stick. This means our churches’ youth ministry must be more than an intellectual or even emotional enterprise—it must be embodied.

Embodied Youth Ministry

What could this look like?

Perhaps you start thinking immediately of things to subtract. Less noise. Less technology. Fewer screens. Trust me, I’m with you on all three. Cutting back on disembodying distractions could very well be the right place to start, but I want to encourage you that it’s not the right place to end.

Increasingly, research shows that teenagers know their technology is making them miserable. They don’t love their phones, but they hate missing out. They know the noise is making them sick, but they’re terrified of the silence. When teenagers are so thirsty for connection and validation that they’ll go to a well they know is poisoned just to get a drink, what an amazing opportunity we have as the church to offer something better, something truly beautiful. We don’t want our youth ministries to be known for what they lack. We want them to be known for their abundance.

What follows are some ideas to stir your imagination and start casting a vision for what a more embodied youth ministry could look like in your church. I’ve broken them into three broad categories of healthy embodiment in which we want our students to grow:

Presence: Growing in the ability to be present, as a whole person, with God, with others, and with oneself (Ps. 131, Heb. 10:25).

Stewardship: Growing in both understanding of and care for one’s physical body (Eph. 5:29, 1 Tim. 4:8, Prov. 31:17).

Offering: Growing in both the desire and skill to offer one’s body in loving service to others (Rom. 12:1, 4–8; Prov. 31:19–20).

Present in the Body

Silence

In a world of constant entertainment, stimulation, and dopamine pings, silence becomes deeply destabilizing.[3] What would it look like to incorporate times of silence and meditating on God’s Word into your youth ministry? Perhaps that’s just a few minutes before each youth group meeting or Sunday school class, or maybe it’s a daylong silent retreat. Students may need help knowing how to quiet their minds and listen to the Spirit speak through his Word, as difficult emotions they’ve been avoiding may rise to the surface. You and your volunteers should be ready to help students process these feelings and bring them to the Lord in prayer. Let your youth ministry be a safe, supportive place for them to learn how to be present— with themselves, others, and God.

Disposable Cameras

Whatever your church’s policy on phones during youth trips, I know this is a question every church has considered . . . and probably reconsidered. Removing the distractions of texting and social media are easy calls; the “better thing” is already waiting as the students sit next to each other on the bus, have conversations, and play games together. But the camera is different. The impulse to remember meaningful moments is good. So, what’s the “better thing” to replace the phone camera while still encouraging presence?

What if the church bought disposable cameras for students to take on the trip? Disposable cameras give you a limited number of frames. Students have to think before they shoot. They can’t review, retake, or share. They can’t see anything until they get home, and even then, only after the film is developed. The waiting is part of the formation, and so is the physical object in their hand at the end. The pictures will almost certainly be poor quality, but they’ll do a better job memorializing the trip because they capture memories rather than manufacture them.

Stewarding the Body

Moderation and Nourishment

How much thought have you given to the rhythms of your youth ministry: what students eat and drink at your events, when they sleep, how their bodies feel walking out the door? Given the real prevalence of disordered eating among our students, we don’t want to label “good” and “bad” foods or encourage hyper fixation on calories. But neither can we assume these decisions don’t matter. What if, in the snacks and meals we serve, we intentionally celebrated God’s abundant provision of nourishing and delicious food to sustain our bodies?

Healthy Rhythms

What is the “message” if we preach that their bodies matter to God, but then send students home from an all-night lock-in sleepless and buzzed on Oreos and Mountain Dew? Lock-ins have their place, but so do retreats that leave students rested, fed, and physically present to themselves and their families. Hanging out, watching movies, and playing games build connections, but so does a challenging hike. We can model moderation and intentionality in both the food we offer and the rhythms we keep.

Offering the Body

Work of the Church

The body is a gift we receive with joy and then offer as a living sacrifice—to God, and, in acts of self-giving love, to others. One of the first and most foundational ways students learn this is by getting involved in the church’s regular, embodied work. Maybe that’s setting up chairs or taking out the trash after youth group meetings. Maybe that’s attending church workdays, helping the deacons load a moving truck, or visiting a shut-in. What about Sunday morning tasks like preparing communion or making coffee? All these jobs teach students that God has given them bodies to use in service of others, even when it’s not glamorous.

Developing Skills & Handicrafts

Too often, we limit our vision of physical service to the necessary tasks that require any warm, able body. And this is good; no one is above picking up trash or disinfecting nursery toys. But when those jobs are the only outlets for embodied service, we miss the wide, beautiful variety of ways God gives his people to serve with their individually gifted and skilled bodies.

What could it look like to help students identify and develop particular skills they can use in particular ways to serve God’s Kingdom? What if you invited adults in your church to teach seminars or workshops on things like gardening, cooking, auto repair, animal care, or interior design? Beyond the hands-on skills students could discover, this opens opportunities for invaluable cross-generational relationships, connecting students with godly adults besides their parents or the youth team. Perhaps this doesn’t immediately sound like “ministry,” but I can assure you it will be one of the things they remember most when they look back on their youth group days. They’ll be learning to serve their future churches not only through grunt work, but also through the joy and delight of creation, cultivation, and repair.

Learning in the Body of Christ

Whatever shape an embodied youth ministry takes in your context, the underlying invitation is the same. Students live with the messy, awkward reality of their bodies every day. So many of them seek answers for their tender questions online, or from friends who are just as confused. Let the church—and your youth ministry—be the place where those questions are welcomed, not shut down or shamed. May our students see that their church is neither surprised nor ashamed of their bodies . . . and neither is their Creator.

Embodied youth ministry is much more than a teaching series. It’s a whole-person formation of mind, heart, and body. The teenagers in your youth room are being formed every day. The question is: Which message about their bodies are they absorbing, and from whom? They will learn from the algorithm, or they will learn from the church. They will learn that their bodies are products to be optimized and posted, or they will learn that their bodies are gifts to be received, stewarded, and offered. They will learn from a medium that disincarnates, or they will learn from a Body that is incarnate.

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[1] Dennis Cali, “The sacramental view of Marshall McLuhan, Walter Ong and James Carey,” Explorations in Media Ecology, vol. 16, 2017, 144–145, https://www.researchgate.net/publication/322361980_The_sacramental_view_of_Marshall_McLuhan_Walter_Ong_and_James_Carey.

[2] Marshall McLuhan, Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man (McGraw-Hill: 1964), 7.

[3] Seth Troutt, Digitization & Neodocetism: Generation Z’s Understanding of Their Bodies in Light of Expanding Digital Existences, 2021.