WHEN I hear the word ‘Gigi’ I’m immediately reminded of the highly successful 1958 romantic comedy of that name. But this is the digital age and Gigi, it would appear, is currently a social media influencer, albeit of a very different kind.

She has perfect hair and great make up of course, but in addition to this she can eat pizza made of molten lava and her hands can pass through the things she is holding! Yes, Gigi is an AI creation, the brainchild of an American student in need of cash!

When I read the BBC report that was entitled ‘Both of these influencers are successful - but only one is human’ I began to ask myself, “So who or what shapes your thinking, Rob?”

That’s a very important question for me because the apostle Paul told his good friends in Rome to take great care because non-Christian ideas and values can easily squeeze us into their mould.

It challenged me to reflect on my calling to be a social influencer too - because Jesus clearly expects that of His followers. He made that abundantly clear when He told His first disciples that they were to be ‘the salt of the earth and the light of the world’.

In other words, Jesus expects His disciples to have a positive impact on their culture and not simply blend in.

But if they are to fulfil this calling, they need to adopt His mindset and behave as He did. That will prove deeply counter cultural because there is no better way to describe Jesus than to use the word ‘servant’. Jesus made that abundantly clear when He told his quarrelsome disciples: “Whoever wants to be a leader among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first among you must become your slave. For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve.”

As one Christian writer neatly observed, Jesus is the archetypal ‘Duppy’. ‘Yuppies’ are upwardly mobile whereas Jesus was the reverse. He was downwardly mobile. He had no desire for status only a passion to do all He could to show His care for others even when that meant doing the slave’s job of washing dirty feet.

If I ever became a social influencer, I don’t think I’d want to be seen eating ‘lava pizza’ or mystifying viewers with mysterious hand movements. I’d prefer to highlight the importance of humility.

In the New Testament, the word for humility derives from two Greek words that together mean ‘lowliness of mind’. This wasn’t a very popular concept then, rather it was a sign of weakness and inferiority. But as far as the Bible is concerned it is a vital Christian virtue – because it means we are choosing to adopt the Christ like attitude of putting other peoples’ interests first. The songwriter Graham Kendrick summed it up perfectly when he wrote: “Each other’s needs to prefer”.