MySpace and JCFaith
I have posted for a while a link to the MySpace page I created some months back. It was initially an exercise to see what the technical capabilities were and how people were using these pages. I also signed up for a Christian alternative to MySpace called JCFaith. The first question to answer is why bother leaving the MySpace page live?
” 9 When I wrote to you before, I told you not to associate with people who indulge in sexual sin. 10 But I wasn’t talking about unbelievers who indulge in sexual sin, or are greedy, or cheat people, or worship idols. You would have to leave this world to avoid people like that.” 1 Corinthians 5:9-10
After reading this again recently I remembered a post back in September done by Jay Atkins titled “Why MySpace?” Jay’s post gives a pretty good example of why we as Christians should not be afraid to have a presence on MySpace or any other social networking site. There is nothing wrong with being in this world as long as we do not become conformed to this world and its standards. I continue to leave my page up on MySpace with a copy of the feeds from this blog and Caden’s Page in particular. I feel that my blogs have become much more inspirational and serve as a small ministry tool. I continue to receive emails from people who are encouraged by our family’s attitudes and actions in response to the tricks of the devil.
The secular social networking scene on the Internet can make you sick if you really get a close look at what is going on in that realm. Social networking is basically an electronic form of the things I remember from the average high school weekend hangout from my teen years. My teen years were way more typical and did not reflect a devotion to serving or following Jesus Christ. I try to keep focused on what I am trying to accomplish on sites like MySpace and not do any browsing around. I treat MySpace much like the folks at XXXChurch treats a porn convention. I go in and set up my both (page) to shine a little of God’s light in a largely dark place on the Internet. A very small majority of secular social networking site members are sharing their desire to serve God. You don’t find much in the way of good Christian influence when you go to searching MySpace for God or Jesus.
So, what if you are not really wanting to shine light into dark corners of the Internet? What if you just want to have some health Christian conversations and share stories with some folks and rejoice with each other when God blesses you? Maybe you are looking for encouragement from online friends to continue to grow your relationship with Jesus Christ. Is there a place where you can go to set up a free social networking page that is Christian? Is there a Christian alternative to MySpace? There are several that I have found, but only one that stands out so far. JCFaith has proven to me to be a great place for people get the same type of features that secular social networking sites offer without the filthy ads and requests from half naked friends. I have been much more of a spectator than a participant JCFaith, but I can say that I have not yet run into a single profile that I would consider questionable. Here is what JCFaith has to say about themselves:
Co-founders of JCFaith.com (www.JCFaith.com), saw a glaring omission in this emerging new trend. “I feel young Christians are searching for an online community where they can grow their faith by interacting with other Christians in a social networking environment. Unfortunately there are not many options for Christians that completely filled this gap, so a few of us got together and created one. Co-founders banned together to create a user experience that was uniquely Christian, yet completely social. “We wanted to create a Christian experience for users but maintain all the top aspects of the popular social networking sites. (www.JCFaith.com.)” Source
Regardless of how “Christian”, clean, pure and innocent a social networking site may seem, there are still opportunities for inappropriate relationships and communications to occur. I want to leave you with a few basic rules for all online activity.
- All online activity should be performed in a public place in your home.
- All passwords to email accounts, social networking sites, and other personal communication systems should be shared between the husband and wife.
- All passwords for children’s email, chat/IM, social networking sites should be known by the parents. And parents should regularly review the content of these accounts while logged in with the child’s user id and password.
- Browser history files should never be cleared by anyone other than the parents.
These basic rules will help create an environment of openness and trust between all of the members of your family. It may be more difficult to implement rules like these if some members of the family have been allowed a certain degree of privacy in some of these areas. These rules also assume a certain degree of respect and trust between husband and wife. If your spouse is not your best friend then voluntarily sharing your user ids and passwords to email, IM, and social networking sites is a good step towards building that relationship. If you don’t know your children’s user ids and passwords to email, instant messaging, and social networking sites, then you should. There are a ton of ways that kids can get around the above rules, but they are a good first step in protecting your children online.