Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear. Ephesians 4:29

Networking gone wild!

Sometime in June 2010, the social networking giant Facebook (FB) expects its membership to swell to 500 million users worldwide, cementing its place as the largest internet service in the world. Not bad for an idea hatched in 2003 by a college student, Mark Zuckerberg, so he and his Harvard friends could better stay in touch.

Since 2006, anyone with a valid email address who is 13 or older can create a FB account. While college and high school students initially made up the majority of its users, the demographics are changing. According to a recent Pew Research Center study, 47% of current FB users are over the age of 40, and the percentage of mature adults using FB is growing. Many find it, as I do, a fast and easy way to communicate with people we care about: it’s simply easier to send out a short message to hundreds of friends at one time, then to send it out one email at a time.

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The growth has not come without controversy, especially regarding privacy issues. Since FB is a free service, the company makes money selling targeted advertisements: the ads running down the right side of the user’s home page are prompted by what the user posts. If a user, for instance, tells her friends that she’s going scuba diving, then ads for scuba gear and scuba vacations will appear on her page. Or if a user hits the “like” button about a political message posted by another friend, then he will start seeing ads for various political candidates. As a FB user, I personally don’t mind this type of targeted advertisement; and I accepted long ago that simply going online in any capacity reduces my privacy to some degree. While I have my FB privacy controls set on the highest level possible, I know that being online makes me visible to people I don’t know. Since I choose to stay online, I simply accept the risk.

Facebook can also be a time-vampire: its free games and its endless stream of messages – often innocuous, sometimes indecorous – are a temptation to the ever-present procrastinator lurking inside the human breast. Unlike the privacy issues, these problems, however, are easily solved by a little self-discipline and common sense.

Christian Uses of Facebook

Since I am a Christian, I first and foremost look at Facebook as a tool Christians can use to “encourage one another and build one another up” (1 Thessalonians 5:11). It is, after all, about staying in touch with friends; and since most of my FB friends are Christians, I try to edify them by what I post. It may be something as simple as a Bible verse, a quote from a Christian writer who has inspired me, a link to an online devotional, a praise for answered prayer, or a chance to reassure my friends that I’m thinking and praying for them specifically that morning.

However, I’m most often the one blessed by the posts of my Christian friends, especially when they let me know how they are living out their faith. For instance, one friend recently posted a link to an interview he had done with the Emerging Scholars Blog talking about how he brings his faith to bear on his medical and scientific studies. [1] Another posted a link to the webpage for her ministry which creates videos for YouTube to promote Christianity in a post-Christian world. [2] And two other friends posted information about mission trips they are about to embark on – a good way to remind me, as well as their other friends and family members, to pray.

It’s always encouraging to see how God is moving in the hearts and lives of His people. Yet in the middle of our busy lives, we don’t always have the time to sit down and write separate notes to all our friends telling them what God is doing. FB simply makes the task easier.

Second, I look at Facebook as a witnessing tool for my non-Christian friends. Years ago, I had a pastor who liked to quote a little poem about how we may be the only Bible other people read. For that reason, I try to be scrupulous about applying the principle of Ephesians 4:29: Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear. I want to make certain that my posts are true, honorable, loving, and gracious. I want to make certain that my words and my links are “winsome” rather than “offensive” to my non-Christian friends who are often on the other side of various social, political, spiritual and moral issues. It’s good for us to proclaim the truth, but we must do so in a way that is loving and reasoned. After all, how can they believe if they don’t hear, and how can they hear if I don’t proclaim God’s truth – even if it’s just with a status update or favorite link?

Like any piece of technology, Facebook is neutral – neither good nor evil. Its moral value will be decided by how we intentionally employ it. So, for Christians, what’s true for our behavior on Facebook is true for all of life: everything we do should be done to the glory of God (1 Corinthians 10:31).

For additional insight to this subject, get the book, Virtual Integrity, by Daniel J. Lohrmann, from our online store. Or read the article, “A View from the Keyboard,” by Thomas S. Buchanan.

[1] You can read the interview at http://blog.emergingscholars.org/2010/05/interview-jimmy-lin-medical-and-scientific-doxologist/

[2] Visit Framework Productions at http://www.frameworkproductions.com/