Social Media and the smartphone dominate our lives and our world. How are Christians supposed to respond to them?
Do we reject them outright as from the Devil? Do we accept and embrace them fully without any discernment?
Or, do we think about them from a Christian worldview, and think about the good, the bad and the ugly of social media and smartphones and therefore learn to be discerning, godly and even redemptive in our use of them?
That’s what this seminar is all about…we need to start thinking more carefully about social media and our smart phones.
Rapidly evolving
The statistics about social media are phenomenal! It’s almost impossible to imagine a world without Facebook and Instagram and the smartphone, yet it was only 12 years ago since the first iPhone came out (2007) and 15 years ago since Facebook was launched (2004). So, the world of the iPhone and social media is very new. And not only is it new, but it is also changing quickly…within months one platform can decline and another one rises up. For example, Instagram has seen since 2014…
“a year over year increase of no less than 100 million in terms of monthly active users. Between September 2017 and June 2018, the number of monthly active users on Instagram had increased by 200 million.*”
So as we inhabit this new and rapidly evolving world we need to stop and think and be discerning.
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly
The Good – social media can lead to so many good things – we can connect with old friends, organise events, promote positive messages, spread the gospel, keep track with family members and friends even if they’re on the other side of the world, keep up with current affairs etc. etc. So there are lots of good things that social media can bring.
The Bad – but social media also has the ability to make us into addicts; we cannot switch off, we cannot rest, we desperately need to know what is going on in everyone else’s life. We can easily become lazy and listless, we can waste time and never put our minds to anything because we’re constantly distracted and connected.
The Ugly – as has been widely broadcast, social media has become a new medium for bullying and has led to low self-esteem, mental illness and some tragic stories of teenagers committing suicide.
Navigating Social Media
So, how are we as Christians supposed to respond to all this? Tim Chester in his excellent little booklet highlights two of the chief dangers of social media (he is writing specifically about Facebook) are…
I can recreate my world through my words to gain approval
I can escape the limitations of my body
In other words, instead of accepting the world God has given us and finding approval through his words to us, we reject him and do it ourselves. And instead of living in the real world with real relationships where I meet and eat and engage with people in the flesh, I replace that for online relationships and escape the limitations of my body.
Kevin DeYoung in chapter 7 of his book Crazy Busy highlights three related dangers…
- The threat of addiction
- The threat of acedia (sloth, listlessness)
- The threat of never being alone
I have spoken more on this in a recent sermon on the use of our time and how we must relearn rhythms of rest as our model world is unable to ‘disconnect’.
Deyoung suggests some practical pointers to help us (which we’ll explore in the seminar):
- Cultivate a healthy suspicion towards technology and ‘progress’ **
- Be more thoughtful and understanding in your connectedness with others
- Deliberately use ‘old’ technology
- Make boundaries, and fight with all your might to protect them
- Bring our Christian theology to bear on these dangers of the digital age
And it’s this last point that Tim Chester does a great job of helping us with. Tim says that ultimately beneath all the problems of social media is our sin and idolatry and therefore the solution is not just a new set of social-media rules (rules never change the heart!) but repentance and faith. The solution is the gospel! In 2 Corinthians 4:4-6 Paul says:
4 The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel that displays the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. 5 For what we preach is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, and ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake. 6 For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,”[Genesis 1:3] made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of God’s glory displayed in the face of Christ.
In other words, our problem is that we are blinded and seeking glory, approval, intimacy, connectedness and love in the wrong places.
But as we hear God’s words to us, and understand his approval of us in Christ and experience the joy in our hearts as we see the face of Christ in the gospel, we can then use social media to not preach ourselves but preach Jesus Christ.
Rest in the Digital Age
The only way to find true rest in our digitally connected world is to more fully appreciate and embrace Jesus and what He has done for us. The only way to find real rest, joy and intimacy in our social media-saturated existence is to repent of the idols that social media and smartphones enable us to serve (the idols of self, approval, the ego) and believe in Jesus who gives us joy, peace, connection to God, rest, approval, acquittal and eternal life.
Seminar Details
CCC Central – Sunday 15th November at 6pm (after the Sunday Service)
CCC South – TBC at 12pm (after the Sunday Service)
*https://sproutsocial.com/insights/social-media-statistics/
**By the way, it’s not just Christians who are saying this…the world around us is coming to grips with all this too, just read this article – 8 good reasons to give up your smart phone