Knock knock.
Who’s at the door? A complete stranger, wanting to know if they can cook you dinner in your kitchen on their dime.
Sound outlandish? It’s actually a common practice for Brad Lancaster on Discover Connection.
“I believe our society today is facing a really big problem,” Lancaster says. “We are more divided and disconnected than ever before … but I personally believe that what we’re all searching for is just real, genuine connection. And the sole mission of this channel is to explore what human connection really is.”
And in pursuit of that mission, well, Lancaster and some friends will put themselves in some interesting situations to do it.
Lancaster and his friends do end up making a whole lot of connections. Whether they’re offering to make them dinner or asking for a ride across the country, they’ve heard a lot of stories and gotten to show how quickly strangers can become friends.
That’s great for the channel’s mission, which aims to combat what Lancaster sees as a world that’s becoming increasingly more divided and hostile to strangers. To that end, Lancaster does a lot of other nice things, too, such as helping strangers with whatever they need done and buying people gifts for Christmas.
That said, there are some issues viewers need to note. We hear some lighter language like “h—” and “d–n” somewhat frequently. In addition, though heavier swears like the f- and s-word are typically censored out, we did hear a couple that managed to sneak past the censor. Likewise, God’s name is taken in vain, including in the form of “g-dd–n.”
A couple videos contain jokes that reference sexual encounters. One woman admits she’d like to sleep with one of the men on the channel. In one video, a man must attempt to invite strangers to a barbecue while in a public restroom, and in the same video, another man goes into Victoria’s Secret to invite a woman. We see men and women in swimsuits. People drink alcohol.
Lancaster notes that everyone longs for connection, and there’s truth to that. It’s why he has set out to make friends with so many people and make the world seem just a bit kinder.
But perhaps the reason everyone yearns for connection is because we are severed from God, the only One who can truly satisfy that desire for complete and true connection—one that abounds in love and an intimate knowledge of who we are in Him.
Discover Connection doesn’t quite get there. But the channel does show us how easy it truly can be to become friends with total strangers, and it does help to break down a mean world syndrome that latches to our hearts.
Of course, those positive things come with a bit of swearing and the occasional crude joke that will make the channel a bit more difficult to allow your child to watch. But at the very least, we can appreciate the heart and mission behind it.
Kennedy Unthank studied journalism at the University of Missouri. He knew he wanted to write for a living when he won a contest for “best fantasy story” while in the 4th grade. What he didn’t know at the time, however, was that he was the only person to submit a story. Regardless, the seed was planted. Kennedy collects and plays board games in his free time, and he loves to talk about biblical apologetics. He thinks the ending of Lost “wasn’t that bad.”
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