Anti-Social Media

Social media has become a sketchy place to be these days. Cyberbullying, collecting and selling of user data, polarized censorship, phony bot accounts, manipulative algorithms, and diminished reach for commercial pages to compel them to buy more ads to name but a few of the issues we have to deal with. With that being said, it has people wondering if we should give up on it. Yet, it seems many of us have a hard time doing so. Even with alternatives popping up and promising to deal with some of these issues, few are seeing the same amount of traffic as the established sites. So many of us are just running back to where the people already are, despite the pitfalls.

Let’s consider a few things concerning the church and the trappings of social media.

Online church. With the shutdown, many churches adopted streaming church services. Facebook proved to be a convenient way to do that without a huge investment. However, some are enjoying the convenience a bit too much, and the community of the church is suffering from it on many levels. So I would urge you to only utilize said services when absolutely necessary. (Matthew 18:20)

“We don't need members, we need participants.” - Ricardo Gomez, missionary

Reckless tongues. You can't truly stand up for a truth by violating another. That's why certain people like to purposely provoke their enemies just so they can point a finger at their hostility. A very old but effective tactic. We need to be wiser than that. Plus, the disconnect of social media makes it so easy to indulge our frustrations without thinking. (James 3:1-12, Matthew 10:16)

False accounts. With social media put under the microscope, it has brought about many realizations. One is that many "Christian" sites are fake. This explains why most "faith" based posts are either warm and fuzzy fluff or just critical. While there is a time and place for that we need in-depth teaching that focuses more on what is truth, more than what is not. While we need to hold each other accountable, a public forum is not the place for it. This strips the good news from the gospel and casts the church in a judgmental; head in the clouds light. I am sure that is exactly what the illegitimate gospel sites want. (Hebrews 5:11-14, Galatians 6:1-6)

Numbers. (1st Chronicle2 21:1-17) King David was once rebuked for taking a census for his glory, instead of God’s. It seems we still struggle with this. Or as a minister once told me "the reason that I focus on numbers is that the church members do." Social media has exaggerated this tendency threefold. It has everyone chasing likes and followers, so much so that people are utilizing "marketers" that artificially drive up your numbers with bot accounts. I try to remind myself, I don't need to reach a Million people, just the handful that is ready to hear what it is said through me.

Revival? While many are hoping for the next big revival, I’m doubtful that social media will be a major part of it. At least not directly. Too many terrible people are filtering the information. All those terrible people are leaving a trail of broken people in their wake though. This leaves the church with a choice, are we going to kick those broken people while they are down in judgment? Or are we going to offer wholeness to those in need? Which will require more face-to-face than Facebook.

The great Christian revolutions came not by the discovery of something that was not known before. They happen when someone takes radically something that was always there. -H. Richard Niebuhr

In the end, the question we must ask ourselves is this. Are we strong enough to endure the toxicity of social media without adding to it, or succumbing to it? While I want to make sure there are still a few rays of light within the darkness of social media if it ever came to the point that it did me more harm than I was doing it good. I would definitely wash my hands of it. How about you?

The Visual PARABLEist