What Are People For? With Pastor Chris Henry

Human connection is eroding quietly, and the tools promising to replace it cannot deliver what people actually need. Chris Henry, senior pastor of Second Presbyterian Church, makes the case that presence, usefulness, and committed community are not optional features of a well-lived life but its essential structure. Henry draws on thinkers including Wendell Berry, theologian David Bentley Hart, sociologist Mark Dunkelman, and researcher Jennifer Wallace to diagnose what he calls the anti-social century: a moment when convenience has become a substitute for commitment, digital companions simulate belonging, and young men in particular are being sold connection in forms that cannot deliver it. The talk moves from personal vulnerability, Henry's own reckoning over whether to attend his grandmother's funeral, to a theological argument rooted in the concept of the Imago Dei, to three direct pieces of pastoral advice for leaders: guard your experiences of deep formation, rebuild your middle ring of relationships, and find tangible ways to be useful to others. Henry closes with a question he refuses to leave rhetorical: there is someone in your life right now waiting to hear that they matter. Go find them. Chris Henry is senior pastor of Second Presbyterian Church.