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Jesus: the stickiest story ever told

@stickyJesus The world changes, but

My message doesn't.

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So, are you following Zoë ? I've been following her for about a year. She's always eating at great restaurants, reading interesting books, and doing interesting things. Check it out—I even have her status updates and photos feeding to my phone. Pretty cool, huh?

It's conversations like this one, overheard while standing inline at Starbucks, that just a few years ago could have gotten you a restraining order or, at the very least, raised a few eyebrows. But that was then and this is now. "Following" another person online simply means you have access to the person's real-time updates when you join online social networks such as Twitter, MySpace, Facebook, or one of the many other social platforms. They know you are following them, and they may be following you just as closely.

Many of these networks include an ever-growing list of friends, followers, or connections that make up the millions of niche communities thriving online. Such sites have redefined our interpersonal relationships and what it means to be followed or have a big following. Even a word as simple as friends has been amended from people you might invite to your wedding to people you wouldn't recognize if you ended up shipwrecked together. Yes, our vernacular has morphed exactly that much.

For millions of people worldwide, social media sites have forever changed how to stay in touch with family, friends, clients, and coworkers. In the landscape of online communities, users share status updates, a variety of media, blog entries, news, resources, and other personal and professional information.

Connection

is the very

core of what makes us

human

The degree to which people now use social media tools is jaw-dropping to techies, the press, businesses, and even the college kids who unwittingly designed some of the sites just for fun. But if you were to peel away the layers of any social network and look beyond the graphic interfaces, lingo, widgets, and apps, you'd find beating at the core the universal human need for relationship. That we tend to thrive—and survive—in relationship with others is the core of our humanness and a reflection of our Creator.

In his book The Church of Facebook, Jesse Rice accurately frames this online migration as the human need for home and writes, "At the root of our human existence is our great need for connection: connection with one another, with our own hearts and minds, and with a loving God who intended intimate connection with us from the beginning. Connection is the very core of what makes us human and the very means by which we express our humanity."¹

That expression of humanity is streaming online twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, and it spans the entire planet. In fact, if you were to dip a ladle into any social networking sphere during any time of the day, you would find people from every country, race, and creed reaching out, venting, educating, joking, grieving, making money, spending money, celebrating, polarizing, unifying, inspiring, advising, and even praying. It's a cacophony of human dialogue similar to what you would hear while eavesdropping at a food court or an after-hours business mixer—only it's taking place in a digital environment.