For awhile I have been contemplating Facebook, and what about it makes it the largest and fastest growing social networking site/service on the internet, in spite of all the issues with privacy.
Yes I have a Facebook account, but my security settings are locked down tight, and I am very careful who I friend. That being said I came across this blog entry on CNet.com, that talks about Facebook’s mission. This paragraph really stood out.
As the Internet has made us more isolated, it’s made us crave, with ever greater intensity, the company of others. Facebook is perhaps the world’s greatest and most interesting experiment in how much we are prepared to open up ourselves, how much, indeed, we’re prepared to give up of ourselves, in order to gain some kind of emotional, if not physical, connection with others. (Even when those “others” are brands and not people.)
Community forces us yes to be vulnerable but the community we are really meant for forces us to open up beyond the screens of the internet. Here is what I truly think community is…
———- Originally posted on Philter48.com—————-
This world is built on it , we are created for it. yet we miss it cause we are to busy looking for it in the wrong places.
Something is happening, can you feel it? More and more people I run into are talking about it. Something is missing in this world and people are starting to wonder if we can get back what we have lost. With all the craziness in the, the distractions, and the apathy… Can we get back what we are truly meant to be a part of?
Everyone seems to agree there is an innate need in every person to believe in something. I believe in and follow Christ, son of the one true God and the one and only way to the Father.
There is also an innate need to learn/understand. We are seekers of knowledge. Lets face it we have to learn to do everything in life at some level, and we do that by gaining knowledge through experience and study.
Ok so belief in something and learning/understanding are fairly well held universal needs every human has. There is still this other need.
We are meant for community just as He (Elohim) is himself a community.
We are made in God’s image and in Genesis 1 when God says: “Let us make man in our image, in our likeness,” there is a reason to believe that He had this need in mind. The “our” in this Gen 1 is Elohim, a plural to reference the triune God. This implies that we are to be in the image of God the Father the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
The Triune God is Himself a community. God is: The Father our authority, who judges our actions, gave us Jesus our example of what our actions should be, who left us his Spirit our guide, so we can live under the authority, by transforming us into the example. The three being one are in Community working with each other. One can not work without the other, and to deny one is to deny all.
We also read in Genesis 2, right after God creates man, he says: “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.” Did you catch that? It is not good for us to be alone. (I know God says man here and many use this as a connection to marriage between a man and woman. It very much is, it also shows that we are meant for relationship with another, an in the case of Community, others.)
Being made in God’s image, he recognizes we are not meant to work through this life alone. So if God in His very nature is community, it would stand to reason that we(being created in their image Gen 1:26) are to be in community with not only God but other believers of His Son. Other wise we will break:
Ecclesiastes 4:12 Though one may be overpowered, two can defend themselves. A cord of three strands is not quickly broken.
When Paul says God will provide you a way out of temptation, so you may stand up under it… WOW… That way to stand up is community, not in isolation.
1 Corinthians 10:13 No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it.
We have to have the right people in our lives to lean on so we can resist temptation in the first place, but also to be called into account when we step out of line.
God wants his children to be connected, to a community who will prop each other up, support, encourage, pray, and hold each other accountable. Whatever that group looks like, as long as the focus is on Christ, Him as the model, and everyone is working to be more like Him.
