(Special note today: What is written in these posts is always a first draft of what ends up on the podcast. Today’s a good example of the recorded version being a nice second draft. So…just in case you just read the emails instead of listening, today’s your prompt to listen. #justsayin)

Lead:

What if you approached social media like being a missionary to another culture?

Intro:

A few years ago I was speaking at a conference in Atlanta, GA, and I got one of the most frequently asked questions I ever got: How do you engage an audience that you can’t see?"

For those of you who don’t know, for a couple decades I’ve been in the conferencing industry — that’s the technology that enables conference calls and, as I specialized in, webinars and video conferencing and virtual events. But I didn’t teach technology, I taught communication skills. So even though I was an onsite conference, the session I was teaching was about online presentations. Hence the FAQ — how do you engage an audience that you can’t see.

Well, the rest of that story — and more importantly, answer the question for you about how to approach technology as part of the Christian life — is what we’ll get to in our All Our Minds segment. You might be surprised at the answer I gave them…because they sure were!

In yesterday’s Bible segment we started into the next section of Paul calling out the church in Corinth on their divisiveness that included, literally, a discussion about ladies dressing like prostitutes at church (quite literally), dudes acting in an unbecoming way, and then he evolved into talking about spirituals gifts. His main point: every part of the body needs every other part. Then we left off with him saying “desire the higher gifts, and I will show you an even better way.” And remember the context here — he’s addressing division in the church, so how does that illuminate on what we read today?

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Bible:

Passage: 1 Corinthians 13-14
Translation: CSB (Christian Standard Bible)
Verses: 53
Words: ~1124

All Our Minds:

So there I was, in front of about 150 people. Someone just asked how to engage a virtual audience they can’t see when making a live, online presentation.

“You wanna know the secret?”

I lowered my voice and paused, tactics that professional speakers use to make the audience lean in in anticipation.

“You love them.”

And the look on their faces was priceless. It’s not what they were expecting in a presentation skills class for sure. But I was serious.

Here’s the problem: We live in a world that didn’t exist 10 or 15 years ago. We grew up in a world where ALL of life and school was shaped by information scarcity — the dominant paradigm for all of human history. But in less than two decades it has shifted from scarce to abundant to overwhelming. And the consequences are beginning to mount: we will only see increased deficits of attention, the ability to make meaning out of it all, and knowing which way to go.

Embedded in every problem, though, is a solution. As I argue in my secular presentations, relationship is the oldest new killer app.

So what’s this mean for how we engage people when we’re online? We love them.

Yesterday we talked about how you’ll be perceived as more interesting when you’re more interested. Today I want to add one nugget to that: I call it neighborhood switching.

Imagine for a moment that you had the gift of teleportation. In the blink of an eye you could change from being at a coffee meeting in Portland, Oregon to walking down the street to speak to a group in Delhi, India. From there you blink and you’re at a meal in Tokyo, and then home again. One thing that would be utterly obvious to you is a change of culture. And assuming you did some research or had a good guide, you’d know that how you connect with people as you relate to them is different in each of those places — handshakes, relationships between genders, eye contact, body language and gestures, and on and on. Being present of mind is triggered by presence of body.

Now let’s move that online, and pretend for a minute you’re connected to people from all over. People connect on social media less because of demographics like location and age, and more based on psychographics — common interests or affinities. Behavioral stuff.

Here’s the payoff — and what you will not see a lot of people doing: Be “in the neighborhood” mentally. Shift your presence of mind.

How people interact on Facebook is different than LinkedIn is different than Twitter or Instagram or WhatsApp, WeChat, QQ, or TikTok. The culture is different, the tone is different, the literary conventions are different. See where we’re going with this?

If you show up in a new neighborhood and expect it to be like the neighborhood you just left, you will not be as effective as a Christian ambassador.

You wouldn’t go on a mission trip to Uganda without trying to relate to them in their culture, perhaps even learning a language. In fact, you’d probably be the first to agree that importing your Americanism would be frowned upon.

The bottom line

That, my friends, is neighborhood switching. It’s having the presence of mind to be present culturally onsite or online. It’s a new challenge that didn’t exist a few years ago, because you might teleport into a new culture while you’re sitting in the dentist office waiting for your name to be called. But if you’re a visitor whose behavior is being watched, let alone an ambassador on a mission to love people like Jesus, it’s an easy way to step up your game. Be observant. Be flexible. And pray for wisdom to a God whose Holy Spirit can guide your interactions online just as much He can if you get on an airplane.

Wisdom:

Passage: Proverbs 12:1-6
Translation: CSB (Christian Standard Bible)
Verses: 6
Words: ~96

Love you!

-R

ForTheHope is a daily audio Bible + apologetics podcast and blog. We’ve got a passion for just keepin’ it real, having conversations like normal people, and living out the love of Jesus better every single day.

Roger Courville, CSP is a globally-recognized expert in digitally-extended communication and connection, an award-winning speaker, award-winning author, and a passionately bad guitarist. Follow him on Twitter -- @RogerCourville and @JoinForTheHope – or his blog: www.forthehope.org.

Sources and resources:

Thank you for supporting this ministry should you choose to use the Amazon affiliate links below.

Not used today, but stuff I like:

J. P. Moreland, “God and the Argument from Mind,” in Christian Apologetics: An Anthology of Primary Sources, ed. Khaldoun A. Sweis and Chad V. Meister (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2012), 403. (link)

J. P. Moreland, Scientism and Secularism: Learning to Respond to a Dangerous Ideology (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2018), Kindle location 656-657. (link)

The Story of Reality, Greg Koukl — Love this book. A killer intro to the Christian worldview that is philosophically and theologically sound while being accessible to all readers.

How to Read the Bible Book by Book, Fee & Stuart — Just bought this myself (and haven’t read it), but Fee’s book on how to read the Bible for all it’s worth is a mega-best-selling classic.

#931: 1 Corinthians 13-14 | Neighborhood switching | Proverbs 12:1-6