What The World Wants Most vs. What The Gospel Is
I recently listened to a podcast which talked about 'What The World Wants Most' based around a study by Anasse Bari, professor of computer science at New York University.
The study collected 600 million Twitter posts from 2018. 24% of all tweets beginning with “I wish” or “I want” said “I wish someone cared.” After removing all sarcastic and spam tweets, the study came up with list of the 'Things the World Wants Most'. When listening to this, I was struck by how the Good News of Jesus Christ is made to be answer to all of these, but so often we fail to think of Jesus in this light.
When Jesus said He was the Saviour of the World, He really is. And we, His Church, also play our part in this.
1) The World Wants More Time vs God is Sovereign Over Time
In the 220 million tweets that began with “I wish,” 19% said: “I wish I could go back in time.”
Why is it that we're always wanting more time or to control time? A lot of us will be familiar with the feeling of constantly needing more time, and that life is too busy. And we can be busy doing all good things (Serving, Bible Studies, Mid-week groups...)
But what does the Gospel say about time? I love how the Bible speaks about God being in control of time and knowing our every move and I was reminded of Psalm 90:
“For a thousand years in Your sight are like a day that has just gone by, or like a watch in the night.” v4
"The years of our life are seventy, or even by reason of strength eighty; yet their span is but toil and trouble; they are soon gone, and we fly away" v10
Imagine if the Church were a group of people who were not wishing time away, nor rushing against the clock? There is a real freedom to be gained by fully embracing God's sovereignty over time, and it could speak volumes to the World around us.
In contrast to wishing for more time, or more control over time, we can offer hope and joy through knowing God's control over even the tiniest aspects of our life.
2) The World Wants Better Relationships vs God Offers Us Deep Relationships
Bari found the “I want” posts were often followed by: Better friends, healthy relationships, long- term relationships. It's interesting how people don't just want friends and relationships, they want better, healthier, longer connections.
I think we can all understand this desire for real, deep relationships and, how exciting is it that the Gospel has the answer! Through knowing God, we are able to build a deep, long lasting relationship with Him and those around us.
Another physchologist Dr Robert Waldinger conducts the worlds longest current study into happiness, tracking just under 300 men from 1938 and he notes “it’s the quality of your close relationships that matters.”
What does this mean for us? As followers of Christ, a deep, close relationship is on offer and I wonder how many of us are reading this, are fully pursuing this? Alongside a relationship with Christ, we are also put into a body of believers to build deep relationships with.
It would be amazing to see the church fully demonstrating this depth of relationship and community. Our mission here at Church Pages is to help build the Church community through online communications however, we know this is only a fraction of the power of the church to bring people together.
3) The World Wants More Rest vs God Offers us Sabbath Rest
For tweets that began with “I wish,” the second most common wish was: Rest. This isn't just physical rest, this is emotional and mental rest.
In his book, 'Every Good Endeavour' Tim Keller talks about how, as Christians, we have access to deep, Sabbath rest modelled by God on the seventh day. Keller speaks about how rest is first and foremost an act of the heart, to rest in what God has accomplished for us in Christ. Then physical rest, as shown in Exodus when Sabbath rest was introduced in the law. Sabbath rest is a bit like an act of trust - if I stop, will the world really be okay? God seems to have built this pattern of work and rest to remind us that He again, is in control and holds the universe together.
To a world that wants more rest, we as the Church have the opportunity to demonstrate this in a radical, life-changing way.
4) The World Wants To Disappear vs God Offers Us Life and Hope
The final, saddening takeaway from Bari's study was that a considerable amount of tweets were related to disappearing, crying or wanting to die. In short, hopelessness.
In Waldinger's study, he concluded simply that 'Loneliness kills'. We recently wrote about how loneliness in the over 50's is now becoming a national epidemic and how the Church could tackle loneliness in society.
Within these articles we considered how the church could respond to the rise in loneliness however, we can easily forget to also address our personal health. In a world that's more connected than ever, we can all fall into feeling alone and unseen. This is a particular passion of the team here at Church Pages as we know what it's like to have all the tech (we build websites after all!) but none of the connection - and you can read more about that here.
I would encourage you that, as believers, we have both life and hope:
- Life: "His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence" 2 Peter: 1-3
- Hope: "For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what they already have? But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently." Romans 8:24
How can we encourage one another today in this hope? How are we modelling this message of life and hope to the World?
Can we help?
Speaking about the study, Dr. Robert Waldinger said, "The surprising finding is that our relationships and how happy we are in our relationships has a powerful influence on our health...It turns out that people who are more socially connected to family, to friends, to community are happier, they're physically healthier and they live longer than people who are less well connected."
This is definitely our heart and if you'd like to know more about how we work with Churches to help them connect with their communities through building websites, do not hesitate to get in touch. Additionally, if you have any thoughts on the studies discussed, it would be great to get your comments below.
Sources:
https://www.communicationguys.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/S3-E124-Notes.pdf
https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/the-power-of-deep-rest/