Facebook

So, my good friend BB hat tiped a conversation we had the other day. Now I tip my hat back to him. I'm posting pretty much what I said at youth group two weeks ago to our high schoolers. Pick it apart if you like, I hope you do. Post a comment, or not. I'm just throwin this out there.

1. Facebook is a document-able representation of you
This can be a very dangerous thing. People can sum you up from the comforts of there own computer chair. What you put on there can be very telling. Your parents, your teachers, your youth pastors can all have access to your profiles. Honestly, think to yourself would you want your profile or ALL your comments to be seen by everyone here? So why would you say them at all? ALL your photos? There is a disconnect between what you do in real life and what you “do” on facebook. It’s easy to say whatever you want, be in whatever group you want, talk however you want, and put whatever pictures up you want because it seems real but at the same time it isn’t.

2. Facebook is a very tempting way to create a pseudo-identity.
You can literally fill in what you want people to know about you. You can hand-select information that others will use to find you, friend you, learn about you. The tempting part of this is we can create on on-line persona that is very different from our REAL persona. This is very much related to our last point.

3. Facebook is all about “doing” but not “being”.
This is some of my cultural commentary. Our culture really exalts people who KNOW stuff. Who was that guy who won all that money on Jeapordy (Ken Jennings)? What did he do but just know a bunch of junk? What does that really matter? There is a big difference in DOING but not BEING. Jesus was very concerned not just with DOING but with BEING- the condition of the heart. Pastor Michael talked about this in his sermon this morning. We’ve talked about this 2 summers ago… The list of things on your profile are things you do, it’s not who you are. But we’ve become so distorted into thinking that’s what makes us who we are. If you like jet-skiing, that’s cool. But that doesn’t make you adventurous. Being yourself makes you adventurous. Jesus again, was VERY concerned with the condition of the heart. Some of his harshest words were for religious people that talked and even acted one way, but didn’t truly live it because of their hearts. Get back in your groups and each group take one of these:

Matthew 5: 27-28,