Should the Church Address Facebook?
Apparently it took God until the 21st Century to release an updated version of the seventh commandment. According to one pastor, “Thou shalt not commit adultery” should now read, “Thou shalt not Facebook.” After counseling roughly 20 couples with Facebook-related marriage issues, Reverend Cedric Miller has had enough. Rev. Miller issued an ultimatum to the married pastors, staff and leaders at Living Word Christian Fellowship: Remove your Facebook accounts or remove yourselves from leadership!
Is banning Facebook a pastor’s best defense to the emerging trend of Facebook-related marriage problems? We totally understand how frustrated Rev. Miller must be with seeing a similar scenario and set of choices play out again and again. Many counselors and pastors have told us that they too are experiencing a surge in counseling loads due to online activities. (Could this have something to do with the drastic increase in half a billion people joining Facebook in the last few years?)
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Banning people from Facebook seems to be more of a knee-jerk reaction than a long-term solution. Here are five alternative ways pastors and churches can help couples survive and thrive on Facebook.
1) Teach couples how to protect their marriages online – For most people over the age of 30, Facebook is their first online social community experience. Many are innocently and ignorantly learning Facebook on the go. Tell married Facebookers what the potential marriage threats are. Add links to your church’s website, share links through the newsletter, hand out copies of the article at a service. Whatever you do, do something that helps couples take proactive steps to protect their marriage.
2) Preach on healthy boundaries – This is a relevant topic for every one regardless of age and it’s helpful for both their online and real time relationships. Our church recently did a sermon series on “Guard Rails” and two of the sermons focused on social media. The problems arising from people’s Facebook experiences are mostly due three things:
- not balancing technology and relationships;
- not setting boundaries;
- not using common sense when online.
Equip your congregation to set and live by healthy boundaries for all of their relationships – whether they’re on Facebook or face-to-face.
3) Teach adults and teens how to use Facebook safely – There are many ways bad things can happen on Facebook: stolen passwords, identity theft, cyber-bullying, emotional affairs, exposure to pornography, and more. But there are so many great things that can happen on Facebook when people are aware of safeguards and learn to make smart choices. Raise awareness on personal safety, privacy issues, and common sense choices for the Facebookers who call your church home and you’ll see the counseling load for Facebook-related issues radically drop.
4) Create social media guidelines for the congregation – The military has done it. Corporations and companies are doing it too. Everyone recognizes that social media is not going away, so rather than ignoring it, denying it or fighting it, they’re figuring out how to co-exist with it. Creating a set of social media guidelines or principles for your congregation’s members makes a lot of sense. Get the leadership together and brainstorm some ideas on how to set your flock up for success when they’re online. People are empowered to live a blessed life when they’re taught what they can do rather than just being told what they can’t.
5) Help marriages overcome infidelity and betrayal – People do make poor choices and bad things do happen to good people. Pastors need to be prepared to handle emotional and physical affairs. The path to recovery is slow and long, but doable. If this is beyond your abilities, outsource these couples to professionals and ministries who are gifted to walk these fragile couples through “the valley of the shadow of death.” By helping those who have crossed the line of infidelity and betrayal, these fractured and hurting couples can have a resurrection-like story in their relationship, marriage and family.
Rev. Miller says the anti-Facebook mandate is his attempt to “save marriages and families.” But what about other social networks like Twitter? Looking at the surging numbers of people joining online social communities, there’s no sign of these sites going away anytime soon.
Pastors who empower people how to survive and thrive with social media will actually save more marriages and families in the long run. The more church members know how to safely use online communities, the less likely they are to make the mistakes and bad choices that destroy marriages and break families apart. We’re pretty sure that is something God would “Like,” don’t you?
9 Responses to “Should the Church Address Facebook?”
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That is a great verse Lloyd. Have you seen people’s FB page that reveal the fruit of Christ in them?
people should understand who they are and what God expects from them.if you are truly loyal to your heavenly father you wont need anyone to ban you from facebook.Matt7:20 ”BY THEIR FRUIT YOU WILL RECOGNIZE THEM”.DOES CHRIST living in you allow you to post funny stuff on face book or any internet site? food for thought.
Ultimately if a person lives a Christ centered life their will not be temptation to post photos or comments that are questionable. The FB gives us as Christians an opportunity to share Christ with others who many never go to Church.
I don’t necessarily agree that Facebook only reveals problems already there. It is an entirely new set of temptations. Christian women who may have never thought of posting a flirty photo (immodest) or emailing an old boyfriend from high school are suddenly confronted with the peer pressure to be attractive physically in your online image and comparing yourself with the many others who are flaunting themselves. Secondly, the temptation to cross boundaries are new and unique to social media. There has never before been a setting quite like it where disloyalty to a spouse can take on so many forms, subtle and not so subtle. Even though I’ve worked in Christian media for 2 decades, it took me almost 3 years to get a handle on Facebook and how to use it properly as a Christian believer. I still struggle with issues like time-wasting, reading gossip and not feeling like I should weigh in with an opinion when I shouldn’t. So good teaching on this is invaluable. The sin issues are the same, but the venue is new and requires guidance.
Well said Francine! FB isn’t the problem it only reveals the problems in marriages that already have problems.
It can be used for many positive things as you said Elaine, a place to raise up prayer support and encourage one another.
And Tracy I absolutely agree with what you said as well, that we need to be wise with where we put ourselves. We need to be careful where we go, whether on FB or in person. You put it so very well when you said, ‘In my opinion ,its never oka good idea become emotionally tied to someone of the opposite sex when you are in a relationship.We need to learn not to let people into our lives so quickly. Ministry is one thing – but it seems with FB,, we will in some cases let strangers into our lives because we dont want to offend people or so that we look super popular with over a thousand friends. Remember,many of the people we are friends with on FB we may not ever have connected with if FB didn’t exist…that is both good and bad. People need to have boundries!!! You are not rude to decline a friend request from some opposite sex co-worker that you don’t really know. We need to be wise and care more the relationships we are in,than offending people we don’t know.’
Tracy,
Well said ;-D !
First i want to say that I agree party with the first two comments. I agree that it greatly depends on the condition of the heart of the person ,as well as their moral convictions to determine the intentions and motives of that person. Assuming each person starts out with pure motives, its wise to remember that when you sign up to FB you are totally putting yourself OUT there!!!! Opportunities just present themselves, like “x’s”, opposite sex aquaintences,people that are interested in you … all sending friend requests! Most people that I have talk with about this don’t think this is a not big deal… I think THATS the problem. If you want to keep your marriage or dating relationships secure,both you and your partner need to agree on some very strict boundries!!! Just accepting a friend request from the opposite sex when you are in a committed relationship can cause disasterous problems! In my opinion ,its never oka good idea become emotionally tied to someone of the opposite sex when you are in a relationship.We need to learn not to let people into our lives so quickly. Ministry is one thing – but it seems with FB,, we will in some cases let strangers into our lives because we dont want to offend people or so that we look super popular with over a thousand friends. Remember,many of the people we are friends with on FB we may not ever have connected with if FB didn’t exist…that is both good and bad. People need to have boundries!!! You are not rude to decline a friend request from some opposite sex co-worker that you don’t really know. We need to be wise and care more the relationships we are in,than offending people we don’t know.
If a person’s heart is in the right place (with God) he/she will not be looking for anything/anyone on FB or any other social network. Many of my Christian friends are on FB and I get many requests for prayer and support from them as well as from non-Christian friends. I keep in touch with family and friends who live far away. It’s a great way to teach about the Lord and be friendly to others. The problem is not with FB but with the person pushing the buttons.
If your married and you are already having marital issues I believe FB accounts don’t help a marriage. If you have on your profile that your married what is the problem. I think if you don’t trust yourself then don’t FB. Social media has its good and bad points but it’s not FB that breaks up marriages it’s people who mess up their marriages, FB is just another way to fool around for people who don’t value marriage. I for one am not one of those, God has made me the wife He wants me to be and that’s enough for me.