LOVE REPORTED (25)
Scripture: Colossians 1:1-14
This content is part of a series.
Love Reported (25)
Lectionary, Year C, Proper 10
Christopher B. Harbin
Colossians 1:1-14
We often live in silos or echo chambers. We surround ourselves with people who are like us, who are more prone to think like us, dress like us, talk like us, and move in the same socioeconomic circles as us. Our neighborhoods reflect that tendency. The media we consume normalizes more of the same. Social media platform algorithms exacerbate the same prospect of hearing only messages that would echo what we already think, believe, and say. We end up getting a very slanted picture of people whose walk in life is different from our own. Empathy gets cast aside because we do not hear or share the experiences of people who do not belong to our own tribe. When it comes to how people view the church, most face the same issues of analysis at a distance. How would folks outside our circles hear that we are anything other than what they have come to expect us to be?
My Twitter feed looks different from my Facebook feed. On Facebook, I am surrounded by people I have known from various stages of life and ministry. Most of them are somehow tied to church, missions, seminary, or Christian schools I have attended. My feed may be more diverse than yours, as I have friends from living in three countries, as well as missionary colleagues and their children who grew up in multi-cultural settings. Twitter is a different story. I purposefully chose to follow accounts of people who are not quite like me. A number of those are people I would not normally encounter in my course of life. It has taken intentionality to ensure I hear from people of color, follow accounts of women, get viewpoints from atheists, engage with native peoples, Jews, Muslims, healthcare professionals, epidemiologists, economists, immigrants, lawyers, and others outside of my natural echo-chamber. Twitter works hard to make that feed remain an echo chamber, limiting which posts I see. The platform reinforces homogenei ...
Lectionary, Year C, Proper 10
Christopher B. Harbin
Colossians 1:1-14
We often live in silos or echo chambers. We surround ourselves with people who are like us, who are more prone to think like us, dress like us, talk like us, and move in the same socioeconomic circles as us. Our neighborhoods reflect that tendency. The media we consume normalizes more of the same. Social media platform algorithms exacerbate the same prospect of hearing only messages that would echo what we already think, believe, and say. We end up getting a very slanted picture of people whose walk in life is different from our own. Empathy gets cast aside because we do not hear or share the experiences of people who do not belong to our own tribe. When it comes to how people view the church, most face the same issues of analysis at a distance. How would folks outside our circles hear that we are anything other than what they have come to expect us to be?
My Twitter feed looks different from my Facebook feed. On Facebook, I am surrounded by people I have known from various stages of life and ministry. Most of them are somehow tied to church, missions, seminary, or Christian schools I have attended. My feed may be more diverse than yours, as I have friends from living in three countries, as well as missionary colleagues and their children who grew up in multi-cultural settings. Twitter is a different story. I purposefully chose to follow accounts of people who are not quite like me. A number of those are people I would not normally encounter in my course of life. It has taken intentionality to ensure I hear from people of color, follow accounts of women, get viewpoints from atheists, engage with native peoples, Jews, Muslims, healthcare professionals, epidemiologists, economists, immigrants, lawyers, and others outside of my natural echo-chamber. Twitter works hard to make that feed remain an echo chamber, limiting which posts I see. The platform reinforces homogenei ...
There are 9311 characters in the full content. This excerpt only shows a 2000 character sample of the full content.
Price: $5.99 or 1 credit
