A neighborhood changes around a church.
The church stays in place. The people, questions and circumstances change. Listen again, question assumptions and discern together how the church can serve here.
Explore your context with the canvas →Christian mission · Context · Design
What really is good news here?
Our neighborhoods, cultures and technologies keep changing. Christian mission calls us to keep asking how the good news of Jesus can be heard and lived in this place, with these people.
Practical tools for churches, Christian organizations and product teams, connecting theological reflection with decisions about what we build and how we serve.
One approach · Three starting points
What are you working on?
Understand the perspective
How Christian calling, context and responsibility shape design. Ten principles make the implications concrete for digital products.
Read the principles →Work with the canvas
Listen with your team, clarify your missional identity and shape a next step. Start with the church canvas, or explore the nonprofit and business drafts.
Open the canvas →Explore product decisions
Compare approaches to Bible reading, prayer, community and AI. Try examples and weigh their implications through theology, research and everyday use.
Explore the patterns →THE APPROACH IN PRACTICE
What really is the good news in our context?
A changing context calls for renewed listening, prayer and action. The same question connects a church’s life in its neighborhood with the choices a product team makes on a screen.
Someone returns to a Bible reading plan.
After a difficult break, a missed streak can bring shame. Another opening welcomes them and offers a manageable restart. Try the alternatives with people to learn what supports their practice.
Compare approaches to progress →Someone asks AI for spiritual guidance.
Make sources accessible, invite discernment and recognize when a conversation with a person matters. Another AI answer is not always the best next step.
Read the principles for product teams →CONTEXT · FORMATION · FAITHFULNESS
What we design shapes how people practise faith.
The good news of Jesus gives this work its purpose. Scripture, prayer, the church’s wisdom and the people affected by our work belong in the design process. As circumstances change, we return to them: whom are we serving, and what does faithful service ask of us here?
Technology can make remarkable things possible. Good work also strengthens the freedom to need a tool less. Continued use can support a meaningful practice; it is not, by itself, evidence of spiritual growth.
Essay: On Which Rock Are We Building? →
The people are the point.
Keep exploring
Bring the questions to your own work.
Read On Which Rock Are We Building? for the argument about trust, formation and responsibility. When Silicon Catches the Light explores the reflected-light metaphor behind the visual identity.
Missional by Design is an open resource by Tobias Treppmann, developed through Oratio&Co. The principles and research welcome theological, pastoral and practitioner feedback.
About the work and how to contribute →
For help applying the approach with your team: Oratio&Co.