April 12, 2026 | Traditional Worship | Your Algorithm - Wk 1: Romans 12:2

But every thought, every habit is a small vote for the kind of person that we're becoming. It learns what captures our attention, and then it gives us more of it. It's digital and it's also spiritual. Paul gives us the big turning point though, because you're not being conformed by this world, he's saying, but be transformed. This is the metamorphosis like a butterfly by the renewing of your mind. It starts with our mind. What do we dwell on? Our what we dwell on shapes our desires. What do we desire shapes on how we live. And how we live shapes who we are becoming. [00:51:25] (43 seconds)  #ThoughtsBecomeYou

scripture does not tell us to seclude ourselves from the world. Paul is not saying, you just, you know, stay at home, don't let any of that outside stuff impact you. He's not saying that. He's saying be cautious not to absorb and imitate the patterns of this world. Be in this world, but live in the world, but don't be in the world. Transformation also doesn't begin when we try harder. Wouldn't that be nice? If we could just try harder, I'm gonna be transformed. But transformation comes begins to come at least when we're aware. [00:52:21] (35 seconds)  #InWorldNotOfIt

We're conformed by some patterns of this world. We're not asking for all that to come at us, but it is. We're being conformed sometimes when when, you know, somebody yells at us or gets out their car in traffic and yells at us, you know, we can be we might wanna fight back. We're we can easily be conformed by the patterns of this world. We're being conformed. It's passive. Also, being transformed is passive too. We are being we cannot transform ourselves. [00:41:24] (33 seconds)  #WeAreBeingShaped

But the first thing that we do is is begin with this, is the question is not whether or not we are being shaped, it is by what and into whom. By what are we being shaped and who is it creating curating us to be? Because believe it or not, when we see all those images, read those articles, you know, it does impact us. This is not a only a digital algorithm, We need to look at it as a formative algorithm. It forms us. It it changes us. [00:35:16] (43 seconds)  #WhatIsShapingYou

Formation doesn't knock. It doesn't ask like, is this okay? It seeps drip by drip. It doesn't shout. It repeats over and over time. Repetition becomes who we are. Some of the forces of algorithm are things that we're choosing. We are choosing again what we read, what we watch, what these things, but there are also things, there are many things that are absorbed by our life. I know that that the family everybody grew up with had had an algorithm or a culture and sometimes it was not good. [00:46:33] (39 seconds)  #FormationByRepetition

Where do I go for comfort when I'm tired? Do I want to veg out and, you know, just turn something on TV? Do I wanna read? Do wanna sit with, you know, close family? Where do you go for comfort when you're tired? What voices are shaping us when we look at our world? There's so many loud voices right now and not only are they loud, but they're incredibly incredibly strong with their language as well, you know, as their message. So how do we guard our hearts and our minds, you know, when we read how that affect affects our algorithm? [00:48:56] (45 seconds)  #GuardYourVoices

Because whether we realize or not all of these factors, they create our algorithm. An algorithm that is conforming us to the patterns of this world, or our algorithms can be nothing's gonna keep me from my bible study Wednesday morning. You know, or you know, I I I I have choir is my worship. My I I remember y'all saying that choir is my time of worship. I will not miss that unless I'm sick. Those parts of our algorithm build build towards our spiritual formation. So what do we have in our algorithm that is keeping us from conforming to the patterns of this world? [00:49:41] (40 seconds)  #BuildYourSpiritualAlgorithm

Also, we've remembered that formation, it doesn't ask permission. Nothing asks before it shapes us. We are being shaped. The things that we give our attention to to it begins to form. It begins to form when we give our attention to it, it begins to we realize it's what we desire. Oh, yes. I didn't even think about that. I would love that. Or maybe what we fear. Maybe when we didn't even know something was a threat that now we realize it is and it increases our anxiety. [00:45:57] (36 seconds)  #AttentionShapesDesire