You are listening to the Passion City Church DC podcast. To learn more about Passion City Church, including our gathering times in Atlanta in Washington, D.C.

Visit us online at Passion City Church.com.

Today's talk comes from Pastor Ben Stewart.

Well, we're wrapping up a series today that we called the beauty of belonging.

And a few of a couple of weeks ago, our brother Mikado Henson came and gave a great message talking about that,

that we are built for community and there's beauty

when we find belonging in the community of Christ and then in the second week we

talked about the cultural trends that mitigate against that.

That individualism, though it's not all bad,

trends towards isolation.

And it's interesting, after we talked about that,

the Atlantic put out an article that that amend this series in the worst of ways.

It says from 2003 to 2020,

American men reduced their average hours

of face-to-face socialization by 30%.

Unmarried Americans, the decline was even bigger, 35%.

For teenagers, 45%. Less and less time communing with people face to face.

And they note in the article that increasing isolation has been mirrored by an increase in anxiety and depression,

that there's a downside to our isolating.

And yet we said we don't try to get back

to some bygone era, we're not trying to go

to some idealized past, we're trying to

...