{"id":14355,"date":"2026-07-14T15:41:19","date_gmt":"2026-07-14T19:41:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/?p=14355"},"modified":"2026-07-14T15:41:19","modified_gmt":"2026-07-14T19:41:19","slug":"connected-finding-real-community-in-a-digital-world","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/2026\/07\/connected-finding-real-community-in-a-digital-world.html","title":{"rendered":"CONNECTED: Finding Real Community in a Digital World"},"content":{"rendered":"
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We’re more connected than ever\u2014and lonelier than ever.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You can text a friend in seconds, video chat with family across the country, and scroll through hundreds of updates before breakfast. And yet so many of us feel isolated, distracted, and hungry for something deeper.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Last Sunday, I mentioned a statistic worth repeating: after sleep, screen time now takes up the second-largest portion of our lives. In fact, the U.S. Surgeon General issued an advisory this year warning that children and teens now spend as much or more time on screens as they do sleeping or sitting in school. The average American teenager logs more than eight hours of screen time every day\u2014nearly half their waking hours. And the toll is real: CDC research found that teens with four or more hours of daily screen time reported depression symptoms at nearly three times the rate of their peers with less screen time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But this isn’t just a teenage problem. It’s an us<\/em> problem. Technology can pull us together or push us apart. And the answer isn’t ditching our smartphones; it’s rediscovering the kind of connection we were actually made for: with God and with each other.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Beginning July 19<\/strong>, we’re starting a new 4-week message series called: “CONNECTED: Finding Real Community in a Digital World.”<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our theme verse comes from the apostle John, who understood something about the limits of long-distance communication: “Though I have much to write to you, I would rather not use paper and ink. Instead I hope to come to you and talk face to face, so that our joy may be complete”<\/em> (2 John 12).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even John knew: some things can only happen face to face.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So where do we find real community? We’ll go back to the very first church. Acts 2:42 tells us the earliest believers devoted themselves to four things: the apostles’ teaching, the fellowship, the breaking of bread, and prayer. Those four devotions still hold the answer today. Each week, we’ll take one of them and ask what it looks like to move from digital substitutes to the real thing:<\/p>\n\n\n\n