Weekly Words with Brandon More: Authentic Faith Only Happens In Community
Over the last month I’ve really been doing two things. 1) I’ve been sitting down with all the seniors to hear their testimonies in preparation for our GME experiences. And 2) I’ve been thinking about Artificial Intelligence and its impact on us as humans and specifically in the realm of faith.
One of the things I did was watch an interview with Andy Crouch. He’s a leading thinker and writer on culture from a Christian perspective and the interviewer asked Andy Crouch, “What are we risking when we make artificial intelligence our spiritual guides?”
I think his response is gold. I’ve summarized it like this:
“If all you need is information, artificial intelligence works. But when it gets to the deep work of faith, we need real people to help us navigate our fear, guilt, and shame. People we can be vulnerable with and grow with.”
–Andy Crouch
We live in the most individualistic society there ever has been. And what I’m about to say isn’t just about you, it’s really an indictment on our society today, but I’m guessing that most of us can count on one hand the number of times you’ve had real, genuine, authentic conversations about the faith outside of church, small group, or Bible class.
Some of you want to talk about the faith with your friends, but you don’t want them to feel judged.
Some of you want to talk about the Bible, but you’re insecure about saying the wrong things.
Some of you know you should be talking about it, but you feel insecure about where you’re at spiritually so you hope other people don’t talk about it.
Whether we talk about it or not, we all have these questions, thoughts, and fears about our faith that we’re trying to work through. Over the next decade the easiest thing for us to do will be to turn to Artificial Intelligence for those answers rather than talk with the real people in our lives.
Seriously, Google, YouTube, & OpenAI are platforms that promise that if we just come to them, all our problems will be solved. They’ve got “all the answers.” It will become increasingly more common for us to search, “How to grow in my faith” on YouTube than it will be to seek out mentors in our community who will faithfully disciple us.
While God has given us resources online to help us, here’s why this is a potential problem:
Christianity is fundamentally anti-individualistic.
In fact, I would say it this way: Authentic Faith Only Happens In Community
The passage from Chapel on Tuesday (High School // Middle School) is riddled with community language.
12 When I send Artemas or Tychicus to you, do your best to come to me at Nicopolis, for I have decided to spend the winter there. 13 Do your best to speed Zenas the lawyer and Apollos on their way; see that they lack nothing. 14 And let our people learn to devote themselves to good works, so as to help cases of urgent need, and not be unfruitful.
15 All who are with me send greetings to you. Greet those who love us in the faith.
Grace be with you all.
—Titus 3:12-15 (ESV)
At the conclusion of this letter we see that while it’s a letter from Paul to Titus, it’s also a letter from one community of Christians to another.
And according to this passage, what are all of us supposed to do?
Learn to devote ourselves to good works. Why? To help cases of urgent need and to live a fruitful life.
Time prohibits a full explanation here, but I do want to address one key component of this verse.
We must be people who commit to learning how to live the way God instructs in community. Learning requires a growth mindset, not a fixed one. To illustrate, let me draw back the curtain on my time playing baseball.
I had a fixed mindset. I had countless teammates who threw the baseball upwards of 100mph. I stayed steady at 88-90. I hit 95 once and it surprised everyone—me, the catcher, the hitter, and the umpire. That’s a story for another day.
I regularly told myself, “I’ll never be as good at pitching as these guys who throw 100.” My mind was fixed. My mind was driven by comparison, not the desire to learn.
So instead of being faithful with what I could do, one offseason I began training in a way that *promised* velocity gains. “If I just do this, maybe I can be like those guys,” I thought. That ended up being the off season I tore my UCL, which effectively ended my career.
I believe in God’s sovereignty, and I also believe it was my comparison, my insecurity, and my fixed mindset that helped cut my career short.
I share all that to say this: many of us walk into our church communities and we compare ourselves to the people around us. We think, “There’s no way I can be as spiritually mature as them.” Or, “I’ll never know the Word like them.”
And, effectively, all manner of spiritual growth, health, and fruitfulness is cut off because of our comparison.
The same community that God intends to use to draw us into a more authentic faith, Satan twists in our minds to move us further away from authenticity. The second we start comparing ourselves to others within our faith community is the same second we begin faking it and begin to isolate ourselves from that community. A person who is insecure about their relationship with God will almost always go to Google for spiritual guidance before they go to a trusted friend or mentor.
But God hasn’t wired us that way.
He’s wired us for community.
To learn together.
To serve together.
To meet needs.
To be fruitful.
Together.
Let’s not miss out on God’s best because of our insecurities and comparrison. Let’s not isolate ourselves and trust artificial intelligence more than we trust God.
Have a great week,
Brandon