I moved to the Bay Area with my family in 1993. Everyone told us the same thing: “Live in Marin.”

Marin, Berkeley, and San Francisco—those cities formed the heart of the Bay Area, we were told. Silicon Valley? That was something else entirely. An afterthought.

But for me, it was the only place that mattered.

I’d spent years in Washington, D.C. using technology as a force multiplier. Computers, digital tools, and early productivity software made me exponentially more effective at everything. Microsoft was my operating system. I studied Bill Gates obsessively; I even visited Microsoft years later just to see how he organized his workspace, trying to understand how a leader thinks through technology.

Then I discovered the Macintosh.

Steve Jobs wasn’t at Apple at the time—John Sculley was the CEO. I read Sculley’s book Odyssey: Pepsi to Apple to understand the company, but even from his perspective, one thing was obvious:

Steve Jobs was the one who changed everything.

So while my wife looked at houses in Marin, I asked two friends to show me Silicon Valley. Walking around Stanford inspired me. Apple felt ordinary—until I reached the Research and Development department, saw the locked doors, and realized: this is where the wizards work.

That’s when I called my wife and told her that she had to see Silicon Valley. She came, she saw, and we agreed: if we’re moving to the Bay Area, we’re living here.

Something was happening in Silicon Valley in 1993 that the rest of the world couldn’t see yet.

And as I studied Jobs—the reckless upstart who became the most influential CEO of the 21st century—I realized what made him different wasn’t just engineering genius.

It was his evangelistic mindset.

What Jobs understood (that the church forgot)

Steve Jobs was neither a pastor nor a theologian. But from what he did at Apple, we know that he understood evangelism better than almost anyone alive:

• Evangelism begins with vision. You see what others can’t see yet.
• Evangelism requires conviction. You bet everything on it.
• Evangelism is storytelling. You translate complexity into wonder.
• Evangelism creates culture, not customers. You build identity that transcends sales.
• Evangelism serves people. You ask David Brooks’ question from The Road to Character: not “What do I want from the world?” but “What does the world need from me?”

Jobs never evangelized to convert people to his beliefs.

He evangelized to change the world.

That’s why, even while battling cancer, he walked onstage March 2, 2011, and said this:

It’s in Apple’s DNA that technology alone is not enough. We believe that it is technology married with the humanities that yields us the results that make our hearts sing.

Steve Jobs, Becoming Steve Jobs by Brent Schlender & Rick Tetzeli, pp. 402–403

That sentence explains everything:

Why Apple mattered.
Why Jobs mattered.
Why Silicon Valley still shapes the world.

This wasn’t innovation. This was ancient wisdom.

The Apostle Paul stood before King Agrippa two thousand years ago with an evangelistic mindset and said the exact same thing—not about technology and humanities, but about vision and obedience:

“So then, King Agrippa, I was not disobedient to the vision from heaven.”

Acts 26:19 NIV

Paul was one of the most effective human beings in the spreading of the gospel. Through him, God communicated a vision that changed the world in his day and continues to inspire us now. 

Paul understood what Jobs rediscovered: evangelism is loyalty to a vision that changes everything.

Jobs didn’t invent this mindset. He recovered it. He built it into the fabric of Silicon Valley.

And that’s why AI is dominating the cultural conversation while God is losing ground.

The real reason we talk more about AI than God

Victor Hugo once wrote:

“There is one thing stronger than all the armies in the world, and that is an idea whose time has come.”

People today aren’t obsessed with AI just because it’s powerful technology.

They’re obsessed because Silicon Valley knows how to evangelize.

AI feels like the future because someone preached it that way.

Meanwhile, the church—once the most powerful evangelistic force on earth—is closing an estimated 15,000 buildings while AI opens doors, expands curiosity, democratizes access, shapes imagination.

Let’s be honest: People aren’t uninterested in God. We just stopped evangelizing him.

The data proves it:

• Spiritual openness is rising.
• Bible sales are climbing.
• Gen Z hungers for meaning.

The failure isn’t appetite. It’s evangelism.

Jesus saw this two thousand years ago:

Jesus went through many towns and villages. He taught in their synagogues. He preached the good news of the kingdom of God. He healed every disease and sickness. Whenever crowds came to Him, He had compassion for them because they were so deeply distraught, malaised, and heart-broken. They seemed to Him like lost sheep without a shepherd. Jesus understood what an awesome task was before Him, so He said to His disciples, ‘The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest to send more workers into His harvest field.’”

Matthew 9:35-38 VOICE

The harvest is plentiful. The workers are few. People are distraught, malaised, and heart-broken—and we’re wondering why they don’t come to church.

Churches talk to insiders. Silicon Valley talks to the world.
Churches defend. Silicon Valley proclaims.
Churches explain religion. Silicon Valley casts vision.

The world always follows vision, not explanation.

What this means

AI’s rise isn’t a threat to God.

It’s a reminder to the church.

It proves what happens when a community learns to cast vision, ignite conviction, tell stories, build culture, and meet human needs.

This is evangelism in its purest form.

Jobs didn’t show us how to build computers. He showed us how to communicate ideas that shape the human future.

Which brings us here:

The greatest idea the world has ever known—Jesus—has been pushed to the margins not because it’s weak, but because we stopped evangelizing it with the power, clarity, and conviction it deserves.

We’re not calling the world back to church attendance.

We’re calling it back to a vision—the vision of God for a world changed by the life of Christ, where every human being can live a beautiful life.