I have found as a teacher and a pastor over the years, there are topics of discussion that put you into an immediate argument. As a high school teacher, it was always music and dress. As a reluctant user of technology, I am finding that social networks are moving quickly into this category. So here I go....let's start the argument. I wrote this several weeks ago after receiving a number of "have you seen what so-and-so has put on their facebook?" So not to move to the Facebook police, I offer to you this article and link to another one by Steve Altrooge of Sovereign Grace Ministries.
SOCIAL NETWORKING: Discerning Connections Through the Internet
Social networking online is the use of websites to share information with others and connect with them by creating a profile that may include a personal web page and a blog. These sites allow users to add friends, send messages and comment on other’s profile pages.
[1]This is not designed to mandate or to discourage anyone from participation in social networks. They have proven to be a great tool for contact with others and expressing interests. Facebook and My Space report that together they have over 280,000,000 registered users and now joined with Twitter, most teens and many adults are regular participants.
What the following is proposed to be is a call for discernment. Several concerns have arisen and in an attempt to be pro-active rather than responsive, I would like to present some considerations that may have implications to spiritual maturity and to matters of the family. Along with the positive factors of social networking, there are also issues that can create peril and have moral impact. These must not be ignored.
One issue is self-control. Do you identify with any of the following testimonies?
Joshua Harris, Senior Pastor of Covenant Life Church in Maryland, author, and blogger states, “I just don’t have enough self-control not to check my page constantly. In one week I saw what many of you warned about: it’s addictive. I found myself tempted to update my status every five minutes. Joshua Harris is walking across his office. Joshua Harris sitting in his office chair. Joshua Harris is wasting valuable time describing what he is doing.”
[2]Joe Carter who is the Director of Web Communications for the Family Research Council writes, “During the week I get so busy that I never find time to be alone with God. So I’ve decided to dedicate this Sunday afternoon to prayer, solitude and study. But before I get started I should check my e-mail so that I won’t have any unwanted distractions. Thirty-two new messages? My inbox was already overflowing so I should probably reply to at least a few of these right now. Six e-mails – no, wait, I really need to answer that one too – OK, seven e-mails down. Ah, I just got some invitations from Facebook. Those are easy to clear out so let me click through and accept those and I’m, hmm, I didn’t realize I had more notifications. Looks like Stacy finally launched a blog; I’ll just click through really quickly to check it out. A lot of posts on here already, some great stuff. I really should add her blog to my RSS reader before I forget… Now before I get started with prayer I should check….”
[3]Tim Sweetman who is an 18 year old journalist and contributor to Boundless Magazine with Focus on the Family says, “I see two issues at play in the realm of social networking and technology. One is lack of self control. I should be writing a paper, but I’m online; I should be reading God’s Word, but I’m online. The other is a little harder to perceive. It’s a notion that holds that words of mere humans are much more interesting to follow than God’s Word; the lives of mere humans are much more fun to get to know than God Himself.”
[4]It is not just the missing of devotions that can be the problem, but the other tasks and priorities in our lives that are taken away by the pull of reading the latest posting or email. It may be a project at work that is not getting done or the responsibilities around the house not being accomplished. When you spend time online at a social network site, you are giving up something else. What is it and what is the expense? Are the updates of what is mostly random trivial information keeping you from the duties that are yours in the home, in the workplace, or as a student?
Another issue to address is what is being posted on the sites and who is invited to participate. There seems to be for some a freedom to post details of their life and feelings presented for what is literally the world to know. Especially in consideration to those who invite “friends” of the opposite sex and are married to participate. Along with this is contact with people from your past that it would be prudent not to have such social contact as former boyfriends or girlfriends. A rule to consider before you post something is, “would I be willing to say this to this person face-to-face with my spouse (or for teens, my parents) next to me?” There is a line of intimacy in details that is meant to be preserved between spouses, parents, and children. Do you consider that when you post on a site like Facebook, it is presented on the world-wide web. It is for the world to see and it is in one way there forever. Even if you erase it, someone may have saved it. Many people have lost jobs and job opportunities because of things posted or misbehavior on social networks. What is and has been on their sites has cost some Christians their witness for Jesus Christ.
There is one more issue which is tougher to explain but does need to be pointed out for consideration. These social networks can be a tool that feed the flames of thinking way too highly of oneself and not pursue what would be biblical self-forgetfulness. What is being written become issues of concern about what others are saying about you and you lose focus on what God has said. No one needs a place to build up themselves more than they already do.
Al Mohler, the President of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and a social commentator offers several suggestions for safeguarding yourself on social networks:
1. Never allow social networking to replace or rival personal contact and communication. God made us to be social creatures that crave community. We cannot permit ourselves to substitute social networking for the harder work of building and maintaining personal relationships that are face to face.
2. Set clear parameters for the time devoted to social networking. These services can be seductive and time consuming. Social networking (and the Internet in general) can become obsessive and destructive of other relationships and higher priorities for the Christian.
3. Never write or post anything on a social networking site that you would not want the world to see, or anything that would compromise your Christian witness.
4. Never allow children and teenagers to have independent social networking access (or Internet access, for that matter). Parents should monitor, manage, supervise, and control the Internet access of their teens and children. Watch what your child posts and what their friends post.
5. Do not allow children and teens to accept any “friend” unknown to you. The social networking world can be a dangerous place, and parental protection here is vital.
6. Use social networking technology to bear witness to the gospel of Jesus Christ, but never think that this can replace the centrality of face-to-face evangelism, witness, and discipleship.
[5]Social networking is a wonderful technology. The opportunity to make contact with people is a marvelous tool. Lets just make sure we capture it under the mandate that we do all things to the glory of God and not allow it to become an idol.
