Social Media - not about preaching . . .

Not about posting Bible passages on Twitter!

Not about preaching from a one-sided pulpit.

For me, one of the greatest benefits of the social media, twittersphere, blogging world is not that we take for ourselves a platform that makes us known but that in it we find a means to make ourselves more accessible, better understood and, most importantly, accountable.

Posting on Facebook on any of the other social media sites is not about being 'down with the kids' or evangelising. In fact if the only reason you post on a social media site is to 'win' people then might I most respectfully* suggest that you stop it and go buy yourself a sandwich board and at least have some integrity.

We don't win people to Christ by posting trite stuff, nor do we do it by posting contextually isolated (and often confusing) passages in cyberspace**; we win people to Christ by making ourselves open, honest and transparent.

I post here because, as I have said many times, it is a place of reflection and internal dialogue with the added benefit of inviting others to offer correctives where they might be required and to enter into the dialogue that I might better understand, be better understood and perhaps (for those reading and especially for me) shine a light on the world of faith that is Christianity.

God became man and was found among the people He came to save. This is what blogging, twitter and social media offers us - an opportunity to be part of the people around us and to learn of their needs and to make ourselves known in the hope that the same Spirit that raised jesus from the dead, that IS in fact Jesus, who is present in us, might just shine out, like a diamond in the darkness of a mine, in the darkness of our lives.

So - a Plea - to all who engage in making themselves known across the many facets of the internet.

Do it with integrity

Think about who the focus is in your scribbles

Remember that once posted it is there for ever - even if you delete it!

Remember that Jesus and His bride, the Church, might well be judged by what you write and think before you post.

Pax

* Well, with as much respect as I can honestly garner that is!

** And to then render it in the King James version is double-folly and compounds your first silly act into something of gigantic proportions in my book!

When social media becomes antisocial

I see a number of Police Forces around the country have posted something like this:

We would urge people to consider the very real impact of their online comments in relation to this matter.

We have received a number of reports from local members of the public about tweets and Facebook comments that could potentially incite racial hatred and violence.

These are currently being investigated. If such communications are reported to us and they do breach the law, those messages may be monitored; captured and robust police action will be considered.

(This version comes from the Lincolnshire Police force)

It seems to me that immediacy of the electronic communications world can lead us into many potentially dodgy places and open us up to criticism and more besides (as Emma Way found after tweeting about knocking a cyclist of his bike!).

I find myself dealing with situations where people have posted stuff as a kneejerk and found themselves starting WWIII as a result and it is not just terrible things like the Woolwich murder that has raised the passion - communication is great but not always beneficial!

So it's farewell Ray Harryhausen

Another of my heroes, Ray Harryhausen, has died. Harryhausen was the man whose stop-motion genius both scared and enticed me with Medusa and 'Jason and the Argonauts' fighting skeletons  (to name but two of his triumphs) and continued right up until his last work, 'Clash of the Titans' in 1981.

Model-maker, visionary and technical genius, this is a man who along with Gerry Andersen who we sadly lost in December 2012, who caught my imagination and made me the geeky nerd that I am today.

A sad loss indeed:

Desperate (or switched on) clergy?

I chanced across an advert' for a church service this week.

Well actually I chanced across eight from the same person (on the same day) all of which were almost pleading with the reader to come to their church services. Then, quite by coincidence, I found them on Twitter and, Facebook? Yes you've probably guessed, the same services were advertised there too! So this got me wondering and so I trotted over to some of the other social media sites and found that they were quite prolific.

Now I think there is great merit to be found in social media sites with regard to disseminating information, dialoguing with people and being grounded but there was something in what I had stumbled across that caused me to think that what I was reading was bordering on the desperate and tacky rather than merely seeking to engage. It was all a bit like those conversations where you know the other person isn't going to come to Back to Church Sunday' or perhaps those where you struggle to make excuses for the fact that you won't be popping round to enjoy 'an evening with . . . .'

One of our church members recently recounted an encounter where they asked someone to a church event. Before they were halfway through the invitation the other person said, "We're busy on that day!"  "But I haven't told you the date yet," protested our evangelistic hero. "Oh, we're busy every ___day," came the reply. The sad thing is that this is a repeat of last year's encounter with the same person and probably the year before that as well - and I get to the stage where I don't think it's worth throwing 'good money after bad' and that the time comes when we shake the dust off of our shoes and leave them to their own designs, even if there was once a relationship. The door is always open and the welcome is always there for those who wish to come - even after a number of year's absence - but the time comes when you decide to use your energy where it is valued and effective (and yes, I know about the persistent woman and the magistrate!).

As one of my favourite sayings puts it,

'If you lend someone a tenner and never see them again, it was probably worth it!'

This applies equally well to some who have come and gone in that their departure can sometimes release us to be effective elsewhere.

But, as is often the case, I digress and so let us return to the desperation stakes minister.

The more I read the posts the more I felt saddened rather than uplifted and so I decided to give them a call to find out what they were doing and why (and how I might support them in prayer and any other ways). It transpired that they, like so many of us, were in the middle of an exercise to reduce clergy numbers and the events, services and other attractions on offer were part of an attempt to attract more people and get them known in the area so that people (especially pointyheaded people) would see how much they were doing and find their sacrificial sheep elsewhere.

I tried to tell them that reducing clergy numbers is about doing church more effectively and efficiently and is not (well it shouldn't be) a popularity contest! The idea that by throwing loads of services at the wall some of them will stick and a successful church will emerge from the shadows to help deflect the axeman's blow is folly and, in my humble (and brain-limited) opinion, will only cause more clergy depression and desperation. The potential for some to act like dancing bears to attract the crowds or start writing in the local paper about everything the church is doing in the hope that the community will be impressed is doing the wrong stuff for the wrong reasons.

So I write this saddened and concerned - we prayed on the telephone and I think I have found a potential friend in the social media minister. But the wounds, pressure and desire to perform to appease those above and continue to support those around them is neither healthy (for minister, congregation or Church) nor God-honouring.

Church - how do you do yours?

(and God: How should we be doing it? Give us a clue!)

ps. Think He has if we read our Bibles ;-)