Facebook--A brave new world for ministry

I remember back in 2004, I was a lay minister at the ELCA's campus ministry at the University of Nebraska. Each summer, the ELCA campus ministers all gather for a conference--while I was there, one of the speakers told us how important it was for us to make sure that whichever university we worked with gave us a university email address, something that ended with a .edu. The reason, he said, was because there was this new website called "Facebook" that had started out with some California colleges, and college kids were signing up and using it to tell their friends what they were doing and to meet new people. It had just recently gone national, but in order to register, you had to have an address that ended with the .edu suffix. He said the thing had grown like wildfire and he wouldn't be surprised if soon it wasn't the primary way college kids kept in touch. 

It's less than 9 years later now. You no longer need a university email to register. Facebook is used by people of all ages, companies, non-profits, churches...in fact, if Facebook were a country, it would be the third most populous country in the world. Most of my extended family live in different parts of the country than I do, and Facebook has become our primary means of keeping in contact. Even my 85 year-old grandmother (Hi Grammy!) has a Facebook account, and loves to see pictures, videos, and stories of her grandkids and great-grandkids' daily lives.

Facebook has changed the way we do relationships. 

The church, as the body of Christ, has always been about relationships. If we've seen such a fundamental addition in our personal and business lives about how we connect, then it only makes sense that it would have an effect on our faith communities as well. How do we as a church live into this brave new world of digital connectedness? 

First of all, we need to be a part of it. We have this amazing tool at our fingertips (literally!) that allows us to create groups, allows us to instantly be in touch with a huge variety of people, allows us to quickly and easily make available pictures and ideas, and not only allows us to put these things out there for consumption, but encourages feedback and communication. It allows us to have a significant presence in the daily lives of our parishioners if we so desire. If church leaders have personal Facebook profiles and post about their daily lives, it also helps break down those invisible walls that many people have, assuming that pastors or other church people aren't "real people" like everyone else.  

Second, we need to model how to use social media well, responsibly, and spiritually. There is so much crap out there that gets passed around on Facebook and other platforms. What previously had been relegated to chain emails (or chain snail-mail) can now be instantly linked, viewed, commented on, and passed along even more efficiently. That said, there's a lot of good stuff out there too. We need to be wise in what we post and how we post it, modeling how to integrate our faith in with our lives.

Third, while social media is no replacement for in-person contact, we need to remember the power of social media to help us stay connected in times when we ordinarily wouldn't be. A very powerful example is when a congregation's high school seniors leave for college. In the past, we'd have to wait for breaks to see them again and catch up, perhaps sending a letter or a care package once in a while. Now, all it takes is a "like" on a picture they posted, and they know that someone from church is thinking about them...or jotting a quick note on their wall. Or sending a private message if they posted about breaking up with their girlfriend or bombing a test just to check in and show support. 

I have a real-life example of this sort of thing. Back in 2010, the young man who had been my congregation's seminary intern the previous year was killed in the earthquake in Haiti. Ben Larson was one of those people who was beloved by pretty much everyone who met him. At the time he was with our congregation, I was the youth director, and he and I had become good friends. We had worked together closely in a number of areas, one of which was the Confirmation program. When the earthquake happened, I was at Luther Seminary for my January on-campus intensive courses, and even in the midst of my own grief I felt horrible guilt that I wasn't back home to be there for the congregation's youth who had looked up to him so much. So I took to Facebook. I posted a message in our youth group page inviting anyone who needed to talk things through to do so, and did the same on my personal wall. I'm getting teary-eyed right now as I remember this, because thanks to Facebook I was able to have conversations with some of my church kids, and even more importantly, they were able to minister to each other. One such exchange was so powerful, in fact, that I cut and pasted it into a Word document and saved it to my computer just to keep for future reference. I'm going to post it here...all the names have been changed (except mine and Ben's). I didn't fix any of the misspellings or grammatical mistakes, either...this is the way the conversation transpired with me and 3 high school freshmen:

Jane
I don't see why this had to happen. Ben was such a great person, why did he deserve this?

Yesterday at 9:03pm ·

Jane

It's not freaking fair.

Yesterday at 9:05pm

Matt

Jane...you're right. It's not fair. It sucks, and there's no getting around that. Ben didn't deserve this. At times like this, all we can do is cling to God's promises, trusting that God loves us and is mourning alongside us, and remembering Romans 8: "For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord." That's the kind of love that Ben lived his life knowing, and spent his life showing to those around him.

Yesterday at 9:50pm

Mary

Jane, he's touched so many lives, and still is. I know he's touched mine. While I was crying in English randomly when Ms. Smith had to bring up Haiti I texted Tom and we were talking and I told him how I can't help but be angry with God. And Tom said at one of the confirmation meetings Ben said when you are at your low points in life that's when you get closer to God. I know am, and times like these are our true test of faith.

Yesterday at 10:29pm

Matt

Mary, you're so right. God doesn't give us those low points in life, but God does work through those low points, helping us remember that he's with us through it all...good and bad. And so often, it's those low points where we lean on God the most and draw closer to him.

Yesterday at 10:36pm ·

Tom

We are all going to miss him so much. And this tragedy will bring us closer to God, and be a major point in our faith stories.

12 hours ago

Matt

I'm so proud of all of you guys right now...it's important to ask these hard questions, and it's important to support one another through the pain and anger and sorrow and grief that we're all feeling. That's part of "living among God's faithful people." You are living that out.

12 hours ago ·

Mary

Thanks so much, Matt. I really do feel like we are all supporting one another and it's really great to know who's all behind us. I sometimes forget were not alone in this world. And Tom, your completely right.

11 hours ago

Mary

And Jane, sorry for flippin out at lunch today. Apparently, you and I grieve differently and I just didn't know how to handle it. I was angry when I found out then sad the next day, and I just didn't want to talk about it. Sorry.

11 hours ago

Jane

Its totally cool Mary. We all have our own way of grieveing. Mine is talking about it and just letting it go. And your right tom, this would be a big part in our faithstories. but i just didn't want to say it when i was 14. I wanted it to be when I was older and i could handle it a lot better. Matt, I just don't see why this all has to happen. He waas working for him the whole time, and he made him die while he was in the middle of serving him. It's not fair.

4 hours ago

Matt

Jane...I completely share your anger at the unfairness of all of this. But I don't think God made him die. I think God is right beside us, grieving the loss of one of his greatest servants on earth, but reminding us at the same time that he's already overcome the power of death. It's times like this where all that stuff we talk about in Confirmation actually make a difference in the real world...it's not just church talk. These horrible, awful things that we see happening, our pain at losing our friend, our knowing that there may be as many as a half million other stories in Haiti just like this one...THIS is when the cross makes a difference. THIS is when the promise of resurrection, and Jesus' promise that he will ALWAYS be with us in Matthew 28 all make a difference. It doesn't take the pain away, it doesn't make things any more fair, but it gives us hope when life seems to be at its darkest.

3 hours ago

Jane

I have always thought it was church talk. Your right. Now is the time to do all that. It's just really hard for me to deal with something like this.

3 hours ago

Matt

Jane, I don't want to give the impression that I'm calmly sitting here hugging the cross nicely with a warm fuzzy feeling. Like you (and so many others) I'm dazed, bewildered, angry, and heartbroken...and I am clutching so fiercely and tightly to the cross and God's promises because there's honestly nothing else I can hold on to in the face of all of this.

I'm glad you're able to be so open about how you feel, because I'm sure there are plenty of others who feel the same way and haven't been able to (or haven't felt like they should) put words to it.

3 hours ago