Since the internet era began, web search engines have become a necessity for the modern people. These search engines make the world connect in just a click regardless of distance and time difference. Web search engines (such as Yahoo, Bing, AOL, HotBot, Altavista, and more, and of course Google) have changed the way we receive the information we want and need.
The recent popularity of Google, as the leading search engine on the web has made a tremendous impact on the global village. Floods of information, from news, videos, to blogs, from the most important to the trivial, can easily be obtained in just a click. People from all parts of the world can get connected with much ease. Google, perhaps, gives the best links to the information that we can use in just about everything. Amazing as it is, Google has dramatically changed the way we seek and acquire information. When one searches for answers to his or her queries, people say, “Just google it!” trusting that the search engine has ‘link to the answer’ to all if not most of our questions. Indeed, Google has gone a long way. From just being a simple project of its founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin when they were students at Stanford University in the United States, [1] to becoming the leading search engine on the net, it has definitely mastered the art of ‘information linking’.
This simple research is aimed at closely looking at what Dwight Friesen calls, ‘The Parable of Google" [2] and what the Body of Christ can learn from it as the church aims to be the hub of the best possible links to information that it can share in building up God’s kingdom here on earth.
A CLOSER LOOK AT THE PARABLE OF GOOGLE
Dwight Friesen wittingly points out that nobody visits Google.com for the purpose of Google itself but to seek for answers to questions plaguing the minds of its visitors. [3]As it is, the search engine was not established to be an end in itself. It is the business of Google to furnish its patrons with valuable and significant information to their everyday needs. In fact, it is their mission “to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.” [4] Friesen stressed that this mission of Google.com should spark our kingdom imagination, allowing us to see ourselves from the perspective of Google’s mission. [5] In comparing how Christians can be useful as Google-like linkers, he articulated that God’s people should know how to live as a linker of meaning-making connections and suffering-eliminating relationships. [6]
The role of Google as a hub of links to information should be the same role that Christians ought to imagine themselves to be doing. In fact, As Christ’s ambassadors here on earth, they have the link to the best information that everybody needs to know yet many are not knowledgeable of. Just as Google was not created as an end in itself, but acts as a hub of links to information, Christ's followers are to act as well as people who selflessly share the links that they have to information about life and solutions to the pressing problems of humanity. It is noteworthy that as Google is the search engine with a suffering-eliminating task, Christians need look no further than to the Anchor of their faith- Jesus Christ himself, as the One who suffered to eliminate the sufferings of humanity itself.
The Hub that is Jesus, the selfless meaning-Maker of life who emptied himself so others would have their link to the Father, makes the perfect illustration of this idea of altruism. Paul’s epistle to the Philippians speaks of this kenosis, “…but (Christ) emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men.”(Phil. 2:7) [7] Selflessness, that is self-emptying, is a radical message in Jesus’ earthly ministry so that those who will believe in him will find meaning in their lives as he links them to the Father. He emptied himself by becoming like those who were in need of meaning and answers to life’s most vital questions. The link that he was and is still even now made people find not only meaning but life itself. This is emphasized in John 10:10 which states that Jesus has come to give life that is abundant, “…I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.” [8]
The message is clear that Jesus came to save, to serve, and to give an abundant life to those who will search for him. The usefulness of his incarnation and the access that man can have to the Father through him was manifested when he emptied himself of who he is and linked humanity to the One who can definitely assure of the truest meaning of life itself, thus eliminating and ending the suffering of humanity. Jesus connected us to the Answer to life’s questions.
As the aim of Christian living is Christlikeness, Christians should exude this selfless attitude when the confused and rejected come to them and search for definite answers. Their lives now in Christ is not to be lived for their own but to be shared, and specifically to be emptied of itself for the sake of connecting people to Christ, just as the latter had and is still connecting them to the Father. The parable of Google is a good example of how the Body of Christ should be represented here on earth.
The church is the link that points people to Christ, and Christ points them to the Father. And just as Jesus emptied himself of his divine attributes so humanity would have a renewed perspective of life, believers should in turn help demonstrate this selfless act by showing people the way to meaningfulness of life without expecting to gain anything in return. Christians let go of the link, empty themselves in order to help out, and answer the issues of life of those in need of help. Just as Google is responsible to link people to answers to their queries, Christ’s followers should be like it, serving as hubs that people can trust to link them to the answers they need. Again, it is necessary to point out that the believers are not in a way an answer, but a link to the real answers.
The term “google” is a play on the word “googol” which is a mathematical term for a 1 followed by 100 zeros. [9] Thus, Google’s founders are committed to give out one plus tons more of links to information which their visitors need. The links to information that the parable of google articulates as should be seen in the lives of Christ’s followers is not just a matter of pointing people to Christ but one that is incarnational- one that is alive and action-oriented. By this, Friesen states that as a link to information, believers are to passionately share their resources, knowledge, and relationships in any and every opportunity,[10] not keeping for themselves what they have, nor share what is only in abundance, but to sacrifice, if needed for the sake of those who are hungry, oppressed, sick, poor, and restless.
J. Oswald Sanders in his book Spiritual Leadership says that we should not hoard our personal resources to preserve ourselves but to pour out our lives at any cost for the sake of other people.[11] Christians are to act out their faith so the people who approach them will not only be satisfied with their real need, who is Christ, but be aided also in their felt needs in the here and now-the need to be comforted in their physical conditions, let alone their desperation to live in this competitive and insensitive dog-eat-dog world.
This is succinctly emphasized in the book of James 2:15-16. When James was expounding on how is one to show his faith, he emphasized that it should be coupled with an action and not just verbally uttering what is helpful.[12] The practicality of linking people to find answers in their everyday life is underscored in this epistle, teaching that faith is sure dead without works. Therefore the responsibility to help our brothers and sisters in the faith, does not end in praying for them and wishing them well, but to act out by selflessly linking them to what they are searching for-whether it be connecting them to people who knows where to find the answers to their longings or to organizations that are best fit to solve and aid their human needs. This is how Google works as Friesen cleverly highlights that this should help spark our kingdom imagination[13] - not just helping our fellow believers so as to be edified in the faith, but more so, to link the lost and the confused back to life. The church has to somehow reimagine that God's kingdom, according to Christ, is not about individualism but helping others to have a link to the One who made us better individuals in the community. [14]
Christians as well should not be threatened when those whom they share their links with thrive in their lives. It is in this truth that we see the goal of Christ which is to give a life that is abundant as found in John 10:10. To thrive is to abound and to live blessed lives in Christ. So as we link people to the best answers to the questions perplexing them, we are helping them to have meaningful, blessed lives and thus, we are truly becoming Christ’s representatives of his blessings on earth.
CONCLUSION
The Parable of Google is a challenge to what we Christians believe we are. Many of Christ’s followers think that they have the answers and solutions to about almost everything that man needs. Yet, this parable causes us to rethink of our roles as Christians here on earth and to reimagine our kingdom connections and what we ought to do with the links that we have.
The mission of Google to make information as accessible and as useful as possible should cause us to see ourselves as the links for people to get connected to what they have been searching for, and be selfless vessels of the links to the answers to man’s queries. It is never the responsibility of Google to give the answer to their visitor’s needs, but the search engine makes it certain that as an efficient hub and a steward of billions of information, it will selflessly give the links to the best possible answers to those who inquire of them. It is in this note that Christians ought to learn from Google.com.
Being a good steward of these links is never equated to becoming or being the answer itself, but as the Parable of Google teaches us, we should be selfless hubs pointing people to the true and genuine answer that they have been looking for. We are therefore urged to relinquish the best links we have, empty ourselves with the best connections so that people who need them will see and find meaning in life. As Christ has lived emptying himself of himself, we ought to empty ourselves of what we have for the sake of others.
If we are able to learn and live the message of the Parable of Google, it will be interesting to see people living with joy in their hearts knowing that there are those who care enough to share the links to the answers to their uncertainties. How wonderful it will be, if as Christians who know the best links to the best answer in life’s most important questions, the world would be a much better place to live in, thus fulfilling what Christ has intended for his Church to be.
endnotes:
[1] Google.Com.“Milestones,”http://www.google.com/corporate/milestones.html(accessed December 1, 2010).
[2] Dwight Friesen, Thy Kingdom Connected, What the Church Can Learn from Facebook, the Internet, and Other Networks (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 2009), 159. The researcher does not own the words he used in the title but will stick to them in developing the ideas presented in this paper. The Parable of Google is a subtitle of the 3rd chapter of Friesen’s book.
[3]Friesen, 81.
[4] Google.Com. “Business Overview,” http://www.google.com/corporate/html (accessed December 1, 2010).
[5] Friesen, 82.
[6] Friesen, 82.
[7] From the New American Standard Bible translation. The Young’s Literal Translation (YLT) and American Standard Version (ASV) follow this rendering of NASB. All Scripture references are taken from the New American Standard Bible.
[8] John 10:10, NASB.
[9] Google.Com. “Company Overview,” http://www.google.com/corporate/.html (accessed December 1, 2010).
[10] Friesen, 80.
[11] J. Oswald Sanders, Spiritual Leadership: Principles of Excellence for Every Believer, Updated Ed. (Chicago: Moody Press, 2007), 115-116.
[12] James 2:15-16 states “ 15If a brother or sister is without clothing and in need of daily food, 16and one of you says to them, "Go in peace, be warmed and be filled," and yet you do not give them what is necessary for their body, what use is that?” (NASB).
[13] Friesen, 82.
[14] Jim Belcher, Deep Church, A Third Way Beyond Emerging and Traditional (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2009), p.110.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Belcher, Jim. Deep Church, A Third Way Beyond Emerging and Traditional. Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2009.
Friesen, Dwight J.Thy Kingdom Connected, What the Church Can Learn from Facebook, the Internet, and Other Networks. Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 2009.
Google.Com. “Business Overview.”http://www.google.com/corporate/html (accessed December 1, 2010).
Google.Com. “Company Overview.”http://www.google.com/corporate/.html (accessed December 1, 2010).
Google.Com. “Milestones.” http://www.google.com/corporate/milestones.html(accessed December 1, 2010).
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