Belonging

Internet Chat rooms are a phenomenom of the technology age, leading people to form “relationships” online and neglect them in person.

Top 10 Signs You’re Addicted to the Net

(some of these may go over your head if you don’t have a computer)

10. You wake up at 3 a.m. to go to the bathroom and stop and check your e-mail on the way back to bed.

9. You get a tattoo that reads "This body best viewed with Netscape Navigator 1.1 or higher."

8. You name your children Eudora, Mozilla and Dotcom.

7. You turn off your modem and get this awful empty feeling, like you just pulled the plug on a loved one.

6. You spend half of the plane trip with your laptop on your lap...and your child in the overhead compartment.

5. You decide to stay in college for an additional year or two, just for the free Internet access.

4. You laugh at people with 2400-baud modems.

3. You start using smileys in your snail mail.

2. The last mate you picked up was a JPEG.

1. Your hard drive crashes. You haven’t logged in for two hours. You start to twitch. You pick up the phone and manually dial your ISP’s access number. You try to hum to communicate with the modem. An d You succeed.

1. Our Need to Belong

Human beings have an incredible need to belong. We need each other. We need to know we are loved and connected to one another. An anomaly is a person who is a hermit, who lives apart from everyone else. That is unusual. Most of us need people and hunger for companionship and human touch.

A. Internet Phenomena.

i. Addiction to chat rooms

1. Chinese shut down private internet cafes’; college student begs for 5 minutes on the net.

2. Psychologists tell us that those who use chat rooms seek a freedom from their lonliness. Attractive because…..

a. Everyone knows your name (Like the Cheer’s Bar)

b. You can be “yourself” (or for that fact, someone else)

c. You are welcomed no matter what you look like, feel like.

d. You can behave as you wish and meet your social needs.

e. Many feel their best friends are on line.

f. People tend to be more open because no one sees them or hears their voice

g. Alternative form of social interaction

h. You can express yourself through symbols and “macros” (smile, kiss, frown, etc). and the subtleties of our true expression are hidden from perceptive eyes.

i. Must go back over and over to keep your name before others lest they forget you.

j. Users feel more like their “true” selves than in “real” life. In some ways like writers or poets who through their work learn to express themselves without being in the presence of others.

3. What is missing here?

a. You never touch anyone or are touched by anyone.

i. Human beings need human touch. (basic Maslow’s Hierarchy)

1. Baby will die without touch.

ii. Touch is a vital component of our most intimate relationships.

1. A pat on the back

2. A hug

3. A kiss

4. A hand held in comfort

iii. Without it, adults will experience loss and profound sense of longing.

ii. People NEED each other!

1. There are a record number of single adults in America – an all time high!

2. Vance Packard calls America, “a nation of strangers”

3. There is an epidemic of loneliness in our society

4. 4 in 10 Americans admit to frequent lonliness.

5. The advertisers understand this need

a. Never do they show ppl drinking alone (as often happens) but in the context of enjoying other people’s company.

b. Advertisers know that Americans really are longing to be CONNECTED.

B. Revelation time:

i. Fill in the blank….

1. I am a _________________ (Christian; Dad, Mom, American, Southern Baptist, Republican, Indian’s fan) etc.

2. I go to ______________________ (Indians games, Here’s Hope Church, etc)

3. I belong to ______________________ (Here’s Hope Church, The Elks, My Spouse)

ii. If you say you “belong” you are saying you are an integral part of the life and work of that organization or church.

iii. If you say you “go to those activities” you are really saying that you are an observer or a partial participant and have not yet entered into the life of that organization.

1. Imagine going to an Indians game and getting to play…you wouldn’t say you “go to the game” anymore, you would say you BELONG to the team!

2. The difference between GOING and BELONGING can be seen in the picture of a football game with 60,000 fans desperately needing exercise, watching 22 men desperately needing rest.

3. The church is By the fourth century, the churches in Rome were feeding an estimated 20,000 poor people each week. The church at that time presented to the world a visible alternative to the prevailing social order. As Georges Florovsky has written in "Empire and Desert: Antinomies of Christian History"