I have noticed a huge back lash against Facebook from the pulpit lately. Quite a few of my friends have told me their pastors have preached against using Facebook. One of them even told their congregation members to close their accounts. Are you kidding me?
Do people use Facebook to do things they shouldn’t? Of course they do. I know people who have affairs, stalk people and waste countless hours on Facebook when they should be working. There is always going to be good and bad with something that should be seen for what it is, a tool to connect to others, but just to stop using it because it is evil is preposterous. A hammer is great when it is nailing nails, but it is evil when crushing someone skull. I promise I am not selling all of my hammers.
I have counseled people who have had affairs where they met in Sunday school class, or met at church service just as many times as I have had people have affairs on Facebook. Should we quit going to church and Sunday school? What about work? Does anybody ever do anything evil there?
I have seen couples unite that belong together from Facebook. I have watched ministries blossom from Facebook. I have seen people find Jesus through Facebook, and most importantly I have watched others express their faith more openly than they ever would in person. It is effective!
It is time we focus on the real issues of life that we are all facing: unemployment, pornography, loss of Christian values in schools, government and business, the degradation of parenting, the collapse of the principles of marriage and our complete lack of empathy for our fellow-man.
If you need some topics to preach about choose one of them. Facebook is a tool, and I am using it to spread the Gospel, and you should be too, if you don’t you just might lose the next generation.
Sorry for the soapbox today, but my feathers are ruffled!
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Great message I totally agree with you on this. There is good and bad in everything. Our children are on facebook. We can ban them from it ,but they will still use facebook. I check my childrens profiles often. By doing this, I feel like I know some of what their doing on facebook.
All good gifts come from God…there is the propensity to do evil with all good gifts. We choose. What about TV/Radio/Arts/Education/Science/Governments,etc. ? What if the church had left all that territory and the opportunity to spread ‘light’ from those gifts/areas of influence/ totally to the unbelievers..the fare we see/experience on on earth now would be far worse than it is today..what the God of Jews/Christians had no influence? Just imagine…it wouldn’t be like John Lennon sang. How many people have come to know Christ because of TV, Radio, even Facebook? We will know one day. I do know that seeing Christian ministers on TV..even when I was a heathen..even the imperfect ones..(of course they were imperfect..they are human! Just like us.) hearing the Words of Christ, even just one nugget of Truth planted in my heart…helped to get me to where I am today…walking with Christ, saved. For those who are immature in Christ, have a tendency/need to flirt or have ‘emotional’ extra-marital relationships via FB or the Internet..they do need to shut it off. That’s just wisdom. But you don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater. You don’t make freedom killing law because of ‘exceptions to the rule’. Not logical. Not Christ. If we lived in a perfect world..those who were ‘tempting’ others..wouldn’t be tempting anyone..they would be policing themselves. And those who were tempted..wouldn’t be out ‘looking’ because they wouldn’t be tempted..ha! Got all tangled up in that one..: ) The world is not perfect…sinners have the freedom to sin…sigh. We have to allow others to sin…if they won’t come to the light themselves…we warn, we protect others..as we can..we have basic laws of righteousness..and judges..that’s what the Scriptures enlightened our founders to give us via the Constitution and the Bill of Rights…that’s what we have to work with today. But if the Pastors start laying down the ‘law’, making impossible/uncrossable?borders/ we will become hermits, without our light shining in a dark world.
Oh yeah..about me being saved, but of course I’m imperfect in my own attempts to be righteous! Christ wouldn’t have had to come if I could ‘do it’… I’m hopefully letting Him have His way from the inside out..helping me to look more like my ‘Abba, Father’..on my good days! When I am not trying to take too much control..: )
Well said.
Great post. I don’t know what pastors you speak of, but this is just the same warmed over Pharisaical dictatorialism, recycled for a new generation. Satan loves these man-made rules that attempt to break the backs of people and put on them an undue burden of guilt. In previous generations, it was “throw out your TV, it is evil”. Before that it was the radio, automobile, jewelry, etc. We need to be very careful about telling people to do anything that falls outside the parameters defined clearly in the Word of God. Jesus spoke very sternly to these same such issues concerning the spiritual leaders of His day, and His statements still ring just as true – and damning – today.
“They worship me in vain; their teachings are merely human rules.” (Matt. 15:9)
“You have let go of the commands of God and are holding on to human traditions.” (Mark 7:8)
“They [Pharisees] tie up heavy, cumbersome loads and put them on other people’s shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to lift a finger to move them.” (Matt. 23:4)
“Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You shut the door of the kingdom of heaven in people’s faces. You yourselves do not enter, nor will you let those enter who are trying to.” (Matt. 23:13)
Those who lead Gods precious little ones astray for rediculous reasons like that should have a millstone tied around their neck and dropped in the sea. I hate seeing people led astray or into unkeepable laws by evil ignorant people like that, whether or not they are behind the pulpit! If you want to know whether or not to do something, seek His face, He will speak and His sheep hear His voice.
I think someone once said the heart is deceitful above all else, but I don’t plan on banning my congregation from using their heart. My greatest hope is that they can learn how to give their heart to God. If their heart belongs to God, I am pretty sure their facebook will belong to God as well.
thanks for the post.
Hi Mike, this was a fun perspective.
Thanks,
Sam
Amen and amen! Preach it brother!
Hey Mike, great blog, I totally agree
God bless
Awesome post. I am trying to minister to a 23 year old who has both tattoos and piercings. Before we both moved to the same small town, she had not been to church since she was a teenager. Attending a youth revival @ 15 y/o the pastor from the pulpit reportedly stated. All of you with tattoos and/or piercings WILL go to Hell! GRRR
Thank you for your post.
Thanks Sherrie. Come back anytime.