TikTok post opens a conversation
By Kelly Woods
I bumped into my neighbour on TikTok.
Let me set the scene.
At the end of May, Nigel Hanscamp and I were streaming on Sonderverse. Among the various conversations about theology, spirituality, and prayer, we discussed a simple question:
Have you outgrown what you were told about God? What is God like to you now?
It was one of those questions that seemed to open something up.
The next day, I posted a short TikTok reflecting on the question. There was no strategy behind it; it was my personal TikTok where I was simply sharing a thought that had stayed with me after the stream.
Then I moved on with my week.
A few days later, I was dropping Wesley, my dog, off at the groomers.
The groomers have looked after Wesley for years. We know each other in the way many locals do. We chat when I drop him off. We talk about dogs, life, and whatever else happens to come up. It is the kind of relationship built through small but repeated encounters.
As I was checking Wesley in, one of the staff members said something that caught me completely off guard.
“Hey, I really liked your TikTok where you asked that question.”
For a moment, my brain struggled to process what had just happened – the collision of the digital world and the physical world.
“Oh,” I replied. “The one where I asked what God is like to us now?”
What followed was a beautiful conversation about faith. We spoke honestly about spirituality, questions, and our experiences of God. It was thoughtful, personal and unexpectedly rich.
And it happened in a dog-grooming salon.
The whole interaction impacted me deeply, because it reminded me of something I think many of us forget – social media is not just a global network. it is also a neighbourhood.
We often imagine social media as broadcasting. It’s often a place where we post thoughts, photos, opinions and reflections into the ether, filled by an anonymous audience scattered across countries and continents.
But the digital world is also populated by people who live around us.
The algorithm is not only connecting us to strangers on the other side of the world. It is connecting us to the people who share our streets, our cafés, our schools, our workplaces and our local shops.
In many ways, social media functions like a public square. It is where conversations happen. It is where people encounter one another. It is where ideas are exchanged and identities are revealed. It is where neighbours unexpectedly bump into each other.
The surprising thing about my conversation at the groomers was not that someone had seen my TikTok, but it was realising I had bumped into my neighbour this week online before I bumped into them in person.
This interaction should help us to think differently about how we show up on social media. What does it mean to participate neighbourly in the digital world? To be present, attentive and intentional. I do not mean posting more content, but rather what would it mean to keep our attention on those participating in this space, rather than focusing on the content that is on it; because behind every view, comment and interaction is a real person. Sometimes that person is sitting on the other side of the world. Sometimes they are standing beside you in the supermarket.
Sometimes they are caring for your dog.
For those of us interested in faith, this feels particularly important. Conversations about God do not only happen in church buildings, Bible studies, or organised events. They happen wherever people encounter one another honestly.
Increasingly, that includes social media.
The challenge is not whether we should be online or offline. The challenge is how we inhabit these spaces. My unexpected conversation at the groomers reminded me that social media is not an escape from our local communities. Sometimes the person who responds to your reflections about God is not a stranger on the other side of the world.
Sometimes they’re holding the leash of your dog.