John 1

Alistair Johnson

We live in a 'hyperconnected' world, a world in which many different means of communication are used; more specifically social networking sites. You are never more than one click or tap away from millions of people all over the globe. Whether it's Facebook, Twitter, emails or some other form of connectedness, we are bombarded with connections.

We are famous in our own world.

We want people to 'like' our status, retweet our tweets and reply to our emails, in a way that has never been before. With the rise in smart phones our level of connectedness is only going to increase. We live in a 'switched on' ethos and rarely take ourselves offline and never consider the impact of our hyperconnected society on our lives.

Facebook gives us a stage, a microphone and a spotlight to perform to an invisible audience. It allows us to live out our teenage desires where the world is watching and listening to our life and beliefs. Cyberspace allows us to have a platform to voice our life to our followers; those who will listen. The effect of this hyperconnected culture is to transform our relationships from friendships to audience members to whom we perform.

Communication is a central facet of our lives. To be human is to communicate, whether it is with our mouths, our bodies or our phones we are constantly communicating. In John 1 we see a God who, from the beginning of time has been a communicative God. From the start He is interested in his people and cares about them.

• In John 1: 1 there is indication that God is a communicating God. He is extravagant in his communication with his people. His single stance is relentless love. From the beginning we see that God exists within community and communicates; God is a communicating God.
• In John 1: 1-5 we see how God communicates in context. Continually throughout the Bible we see God come into the context of the time and place to communicate with his people. The arrival of Jesus, born in a stable to a carpenter father and to a young mother, was a great example of this.
• In John 1:14 God shows us that he communicates in both word and deed. Not just spiritually but also physically. He demonstrates to us that God's communication is visible and vulnerable.
• In John 1:6-7 we see that God gave us the gift of communication and began the communicative process of redemption.

One of the dangers of living in the hyperconnected world, is our friends turn into our audience members and we turn into performers. Self-exposure is the currency of Facebook, twitter and other social networking sites.

Though there are clear dangers of this hyperconnectedness, there also are some unique opportunities for us to share the gospel in new creative ways.

In a world that at times can bombard us with connectedness it is important to reflect on how Jesus, the master of communication, interacted with people. He seems to have this incredible ability to speak so clearly and simply and yet sometimes in these incomprehensible riddles. A clear trait of Jesus' ministry was his complete understanding of connection. We see him speak honestly into the lives of all he met and make these immediate, life-transforming connections in a short space of time. He pulled and drew people in rather than pushing them away. A great example of his holistic understanding of relationships can be seen in his interaction with the woman at the well. This interaction sees him speak powerfully into her life and build a lasting connection in a short period of time.

A challenge that Jesus' life has given us is that connections with people are paramount to living a successful Christian life. Hyperconnection allows us to have connections with large amounts of people but also allows for us to be less committed to genuine connections. Jesus challenges us to turn our connections into relationships and not allow our relationships to just be connections.