🙌It's the Friday Call to Worship!🙌

We've had an ongoing conversation about algorithms in our church's women's group. It started with an icebreaker, "What's showing up in your algorithms right now?" We laughed about our silly and specific interests. Then, I sent an 80's restyled church photo to our group chat, and they joked I "broke the Internet" when their social media feeds flooded with 80s pictures. We kept noticing how our content was curated by our exchanged messages. Recently, I asked God for encouragement for our group. I smiled as He leaned into our inside joke and whispered, "Create your own algorithms."

Algorithms simply use input to determine output. Social media algorithms are fine-tuned by what we watch, like, skip, or even linger on. In 2024, the scientific journal Body Image tracked more than 1 million TikTok videos delivered over one month to 42 people with eating disorders and a control group of 49 people without disordered eating. Those with eating disorders received 146% more appearance content, 335% more dieting content, and 4,343% more toxic/pro-eating-disorder content. While viewers with disordered eating users were 23% more likely to like dieting videos, they received them 335% more than the control group. Advanced algorithms employed micro-cues to create a curated environments, eventually a perceived reality. Our inputs, conscious or not, determine our outputs. It's like the old saying goes, "You always find what you're looking for."

Jesus teaches us to "enter through the narrow gate... that leads to life..." (Matthew 7:13-14) Algorithms are currently the world's fastest and most accessible "gate" builders, but followers of Christ have always had to choose between the world's "truth" and the one true God. Jesus says, "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me." (John 14:6)

Paul teaches the practical steps to "creating your own algorithms". Dwell on "whatever is true, honorable, just, pure, lovely, commendable, of moral excellence, and anything praiseworthy". (Philippians 4:4-8) Imagine our outputs if we that was our input! Let's practice.

Listen to "Narrow Way" by Aaron Williams.