“The Lord did not come to make a display. He came to heal and to teach suffering men. For one who wanted to make a display the thing would have been just to appear and dazzle the beholders. But for Him Who came to heal and to teach the way was not merely to dwell here, but to put Himself at the disposal of those who needed Him, and to be manifested according as they could bear it, not vitiating the value of the Divine appearing by exceeding their capacity to receive it.
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We intentionally have a lean social media presence for our church. We believe that the greatest gift we offer to one another is our embodied presence. Looking one another in the eye, a real embrace, the nuance of a spoken blessing across a kitchen table. None of those things are found on social media, so we have chosen to direct our energy elsewhere. Some of our staff have a normal social media presence, others have deleted all of their accounts. As a church, we have made a conscious decision to focus on energy away from social media. This decision is not for everyone, although we do encourage you to reflect whether your social media habits are helping or hindering your sense of peace.
We are generally suspicious of the telos of social media, toward what end it is taking us. Social media is amplifying the lesser angels of our nature. Online we tend to become less human, less generous, and more polarized. The antidote to this downward spiral is a reaffirmation of local embodied presence. For us, this goes by the name “church.” Jesus is the gift of God, which is Spirit made flesh. Social media reverses that logic, turning flesh and blood humans into zeros and ones, algorithms, and disembodied ideas. We are tired of staring at pixels and calling it connection. We crave encounter and belonging. So do you.
We gather in person on Sundays at 10:30am at 75 N Marengo Ave Pasadena CA 91101.
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Resources we love
Team Human
by Douglas Rushkoff.
He has this phrase that resonates for me: “Find the others.” He also said this, which feels important to remember:
A baby starved of social contact has difficulty developing a regulated nervous system. Young men with few social acquaintances develop high adrenaline levels. Lonely students have low levels of immune cells. Prison inmates prefer violence to solitary confinement. In the US, social isolation is a greater public health problem than obesity.
How To Do Nothing
by Jenny Odell, who said this:
What if we spent less time shouting into the void and being washed over with shouting in return-and more time talking in rooms to those for whom our words are intended? If we have only so much attention to give, and only so much time on this earth, we might want to think about reinfusing our attention and our communication with the intention that both deserve.
On the Incarnation
by Athanasius, a fourth century writer