Mikel Berger’s Bailiwick

The pastoral intern working with the youth at my church emailed me asking for my thoughts on Facebook for an article he is writing for the church’s newsletter. Below is the email I wrote up quick and sent him. If you’ve got any other thoughts, ideas, or resources let us both know by leaving a comment below.

As an aside, I recently setup a page for our church on Facebook. We’re not using it for much right now. Does your church have a Facebook page? If not, why not? If you do, what are you using it for?

[update] Jesse’s article has been published. Be sure to check it out.

First, I think it’s great you’re writing this. I’d encourage you to think not just about the newsletter but also how this will be on the church website. While we can put the exact same article on the website that goes in the newsletter, I’d suggest that when we put it the website we can include some extra or additional information. It could just be more thoughts you have that won’t fit in the space allotted in the newsletter or links to additional articles or whatever. The website version can live on as a resource for our church and others a lot longer than the newsletter article. (i.e. if a parent next year comes to you with facebook concerns, you can more easily point them to the website than find the old newsletter).

Anyway, my thoughts off the top of my head. Your job is to glean something useful from my ramblings.

Here’s a good article you should read from Mars Hill Church.

The main benefit of Facebook, MySpace, and other social networking sites is that it allows you to stay in contact or reconnect with friends and family. For me it’s been a way to stay in contact and keep up with the lives of people that don’t live near me and who I otherwise wouldn’t have a chance. I’ve had some direct and indirect witnessing opportunities by being involved and engaged in those people’s lives because of Facebook. However, for the most part this is mostly a superficial relationship. Not that this is wrong at all, we just need to realize Facebook isn’t going to replace those deeper relationships. Being my facebook friend doesn’t mean you’re my accountability partner.

I think a Christian needs to look at social networks as a mission field (just like they should look at their school, work, etc.). A Christian needs to be engaged and involved in our culture. For kids especially, this means they need to understand how a Christian should use these tools. God has these kids in this time and culture and I believe it is their responsibility to think critically about how those tools can be used and in some cases redeemed for God glorifying purposes.

I don’t think there are any fundamental differences between Facebook or MySpace. It is better for them to think critically about how they are going to participate than about specific features of a certain site or another. If the article focuses too much on a specific site, it will quickly become dated as the online world moves onto the next “cool” site or even as Facebook and MySpace change themselves to keep up with their competition.

There are some Christian-only social networks. I’m sure they fill some sort of purpose, but in general I don’t like them. If there is some valid reason to be on there, I’d encourage people to also be on Facebook/MySpace. I see those Christian-only sites as the virtual equivalent of a secluded religious compound. We are called to go out into the world and spread the good news, not to hide away in our virtual corner of the world.

I think the biggest danger for a Christian kid in dealing with these networks is that they could become very narcissistic. These sites are all setup to be all about me. My profile, what I’m doing right now, what I think about this or that, what music , movies, and books I like, etc.

The obvious worry is to be concerned about what data you share. Both sites have the ability to restrict who can see and what info they can see. Any user of these services really needs to understand who can see what. Also, they need to be discerning about more subtle “leaks” of information. For example, you might not give your address or even last name out, but if you have a picture of yourself online wearing your high school team sweatshirt and your first name, I can probably find out a lot about you just knowing your name is Mike and you play basketball for Lafayette Jeff (for example).

They need to realize that people aren’t 100% truthful or transparent on these sites. This isn’t just the 35 year old pretending to be 13 that you see on Dateline: To Catch a Predator. They need to realize people filter what they want you to see about them. Just as those kids are filtering what they say. We are all sinners. We all have dark sides but that is very rarely put up on your profile and I’m not saying that it should be. Kids don’t need to share that about themselves on Facebook (their parents or the youth pastor is a better option!), but they should realize other people aren’t as “perfect” as their profiles might play them out to be.