Some years ago, there was a series of commercials for Toyota in which a twenty something daughter described how worried she was about her parents. They were getting older and she had “read an article, well the majority of an article, on line about how older people are getting more and more anti-social.” Her prescription for her anti-social parents was to aggressively recommend Facebook to them. She bemoaned the fact that they had only 19 Facebook “friends” (mouthing the words “so sad”) while she had almost 700. Meanwhile, while the daughter was trolling Facebook videos of puppies and proclaiming, “this is living”, her parents were out riding mountain bikes with their active friends. The commercial was cute and funny in its portrayal of what we call community and friendship in the social media age. But there might be a down side. Isolation, loneliness, depression. An article published in the July 2017 issue of the American Journal of Preventive Medicine concluded that people who spend the more than two hours a day on social had a much higher feeling of social isolation than those who spent a half hour per day or less on social media. Other studies link excessive social media use to depression and anxiety. While no one can say whether social media use causes isolation and depression or is a merely a symptom, these studies do alert us to the fact we as God’s image bearers are social people who need community and relationships, particularly with God. Pastor Jeff will explore this topic this week in his message “I Am Always With You” based on Psalm 139: 1-18. Come and join us at 9:30am for worship and … well … community! See you then.