Correcting internet... immorality?

The situation is more complex for us. We have a number of young adults who have been attending our church and a Bible study for awhile. I am convinced several do not know Christ. Their occasional obscenities and hints as to their sex lives or drunkeness occasionally appear on Facebook.

Of course, these issues are taught in our church and in the Bible study from time to time. These are as yet non-believers who feel drawn toward our church and perhaps toward Christ for reasons we must assume involve the work of the Spirit (we have little else to offer, except friendship). We do not wish to quench the work of the Spirit by over-reacting. We recognize the opportunity to confront sin and thus speak of Christ. But I know it's distressing to some in the congregation to have this kind of stuff show up on their Facebook page because they are friends (in the Facebook sense I mean here).

But, this is part of ministry. It puts us in contact with the world.

I might add that we are not seeker-sensitive, nor one of the hoopla churches that would draw them in, but they're here. So much for the "Your church can't reach people unless you do X" crowd.

Susan,

Thanks for your question. I am surprised at how many topics I am trying to resolve in my own mind before they happen under my direction at my new church. I do believe that we must treat unbelievers like unbelievers, and not require them to "put on" Christian principles. In that aspect I agree with Mike's post above. I also agree that when we work with the world we will get our hands dirty. I head a guy once say, "Instead of being isolated from the World, we need to become insulated with the Word." (See my post under Leadership, as I would be interested in your response to my question.)

However, I believe that you enter a different level when you are speaking about those in leadership. We are held to a higher standard, as much as some of us don't like it. I believe that once these things become public (ie Facebook, twitter, youtube, blogs, etc), they should be dealt with. Yet, I guess I would deal with them in differing ways. For instance, if you are speaking about a youth sponsor, than the Pastor and/or Youth Pastor should sit down with the couple and confront them on why they felt it was "okay" to allow teens within the church to view a movies that contained any form of nudity. Obviously they would need to be confronted about the fact that such viewing is sin, and depending upon their response, a course of action would need to be established....

• If they responded positively, then I think a meeting between the P / YP and the Youth Sponsor and the Parents and Teens of those involved should be held, with the Youth Sponsors explaining that they made a mistake, and seeking the parents/teen forgiveness.
• If they respond negatively, then they should be removed from leadership, and the meeting should take place without them to explain to the parents/teens what happened.
• If it is a Pastor who is doing this, then an Elder/Deacon needs to be contacted, and you and the Elder/Deacon need to go and talk to the Pastor to confirm the details. If it is proven true, the Pastor would need to repent and make public confession to the church.

Those are my inexperienced, and maybe idealistic thoughts on the matter.

That is a good point Mike. I also think Susan makes some good points.
The only caveat that I would put on this discussion is that I, as a pastor, cannot control what my FB friends post. I have many unsaved and unchurched people on my friends list. Like Pastor Wesh said we cannot expect the world to act like the saved. I had one friend suggest to me that I shouldnt be friends with so many lost people. The problem is I don't see how I am going to build redemptive relationships without it. Like someone said, dealing with lost people does get messy.

Susan,
We have our daughter on FB. How we have handled it is that we have her password, we check her content, etc. In fact, all of us have each others password and can go to each others FB at anytime. There is still room for abuse but she has a good heart and has been using it the same way that we have. The biggest suprise danger has been getting "friend requests" from people we none of us have any connection with. None of us accept those. So in that sense, she has to ask if she can send a request or receive one.

I like the quote pastorwesh gave "Instead of being isolated from the World, we need to become insulated with the Word." I also have some "friends" that are not Christian, but I often inflect God's word on a situation they may be in. When Christian friends look at the status comments of some of my unchurched "friends" they may be offended, but I continue to have them as "friends" so I have a chance to share the message any way I can. It may just take a little seed of the Word to change someone for life.

For instance, I have a great-nephew who is a former drug user. I often share passages of scripture that will help him get through another day. One of his status comments indicated that he felt God could never forgive him for all that he has done. I wrote back the story of the prodigal son, stating at the end that the Father is just waiting for him to take ONE step in His direction and he will come running to meet him more than halfway.

If I had "unfriended" him to isolate my Christian friends from his sometimes rude language, I would not have had the chance discuss who God really is with him.

As far as Church leadership speaking or acting offensively on Facebook, I think they should be held accountable. For example, it would be wrong for a youth leader to rave about something that could lead some of his students down the wrong path. The leader should be asked directly about the offense for the sake of the youth.

Pastor Mike, I know the situation that you are talking about and I would have to agree with the church leadership on that one. Although we do not know who is saved and who is not, our actions speak louder than words. If someone is blatantly speaking out against God and trumpeting admiration for Satan, he most likely is not saved and should not be put on a pedestal, even after his death. Yes, it is possible that he got saved in the last few seconds of his life, but it is highly unlikely. And even if he did, his life should not be admired because it was more Satanic than Godly.

Facebook can be a tool to be used for God if we take care to use it properly. Even when discussing God and His word we have to be careful not to act high and mighty about it. We don't want to act like we are better than the unchurched because in essence we are all sinners in need of a savior. The only difference between us and them is that we have accepted Christ's death on the cross as payment for our sins and the unchurched have yet to accept Him. Hopefully, through careful discussions, we can add more to the kingdom of God.

In His Grip,
Sandy A

I've read all the replies to this post and a small voice within me cautions about addressing symptoms when truly burdened nearby Christians ought to be able to call sin “sin”. You see, much of what's done on Facebook etc. are warned against and consequences both mental and spiritual are taught... in scripture, at least to my satisfaction, anyhow. I would ask if our shaking a finger with “shame...shame” ought to be upgraded to sense the younger generation coming up and how they will act.
Remember that EVIL communication is the next step past IDLE communication.
I have been a corporate programmer since before there were hard drives and I know well what quicksand technology can become. But our churches (selfishly, I think) apply their budgets and desires toward technology for administrative purposes and never WARN about the ways that Satan uses it. How about your folks having their own church social network they can then use to reach out to the unsaved?

I have a thought... how do you think it would work to have some short skits for your youth that would show the 'end of the road' of those youth that dishonor the technology gift God has given to us?

But you see, that's the problem. Many fundamental church leaders are really uncomfortable with (if not downright hostile to) the idea of "letting people work out the specifics themselves," because then they might make choices that go against the personal conviction of the preacher/teacher, or the party line of the church/organization, even if the choices made clearly meet scriptural requirements/standards.

The problem appears on both sides though. From what I have seen of fundamental believers, there are often those that don't want to have to understand enough to make hard decisions, and want those decisions made for them, vs. those who really want to search the scriptures, study and understand the principles, and then consequently want to use their maturity to make the right decisions.

Unfortunately, it seems there is no shortage of preachers who like having the congregation depend on them for every decision, and practically discourage any serious study on one's own (and that applies double to group study that might not include a church leader) apart from personal devotions.

Susan,

Maybe so. I haven't really had enough time to really think this through completely. Clearly we are ultimately accountable only to God ("against thee and thee only have I sinned" -- and that was written about a very public sin), but there is certainly a sense of accountability in the here and now. We do have some accountability to church leaders ("obey them that have the rule over you"), but some pastors take the Hebrews passage too far without considering I Peter 5 ("not domineering over those in your charge, but being examples to the flock").

A lot of this might come about because of the general ignorance of how to apply scripture correctly. I see many Christians use Romans 14 to justify pretty much any behavior, but I have also seen preaching on Romans 14 that claims it's not applicable beyond the examples in the text, or that "we now have liberty to follow restrictions willingly," with about any restrictions by leadership to be considered reasonable for the members to give up in their "liberty."

I find it really interesting that in some fundamental churches, although they would disclaim it vehemently, what arises is similar to what is declared openly in the RC church -- members aren't considered capable of understanding and applying scripture for themselves. That is only for the pastor to do, and everyone else to obey.

And I agree with you about implying or saying to someone "Thus sayeth the Lord ..." when the Lord hath not so said. Too many come awfully close to "teaching for doctrines the commandments of men," if not doing so knowingly.

Getting back to fb itself. I just want to offer a word of warning about jumping to conclusions about people's actions/motives/intensions. On fb you get brief snippets of life that are usually predicated on events that happened in the real world. So if you are outside of the loop of friends that regularly interacts with the person its extremely easy to misread things.

To use the R-rated movie example. Let's assume its rated R for sex and language.
There are dvd players that can take out 95% of the language.
If you go to kids-in-mind.com or commonsensemedia.org you can find every instance of sex/nudity, violence, language, and substance abuse. If you just hit the skip button when the sex scene is coming up you miss it entirely. And most DVDs set the next chapter to be right after the sex scene so that parents can skip them.
All of a sudden that R-rated movie has almost no language and no sex scenes. (Whether this is a wise decision to watch these movies is an entirely different topic.)

Now let's assume there are a couple of upstanding church families who watch these movies but take all the right precautions to sanitize them. They are talking about them on fb to each other; they "like" the movie's page; etc. You see this and don't understand. You can imagine the fallout.

I just want to say that we should be careful and we should take the time to understand.