ThreeParts

When Christians Are Copycats With Social Technology

Mar 4, 2009 Facebook, Social Media, Technology, social networking

There’s something that really gets to me, and I’ve been seeing a lot of it lately – when Christians take a ’secular’ idea, slap a new name on it, and call it their own. Specifically, I want to talk about social networks. Excuse me while I rant.

There are some very good applications for Christian social networks. I understand that parents, for instance, may want a safe social networking site for their kids to join rather than MySpace. If the network is faith-based, such as Tangle, we can assume that it will be safe and reinforce the values we hold and that we share with others on the site. There is a lot of value in something like this when it is done well. Though Tangle is basically a Christian MySpace, it executes its purpose extremely well. For this reason, I respect and support it.  It looks professional, has significant funding behind it, is very functional, and is a great place to find information and friends based on the topic of Christianity.

But you have to draw the line somewhere – and figure out where value and outright copying intersect. And when they do, stop what you are doing. Please.

I have never used Faithout.com – and I have no intention of doing so.  Sure, the developers are far more talented than I, being able to build a platform where people can connect and build community.  However, I don’t understand using those talents to put something together that – frankly – has already been done before (and done much better).  The title of the site reads “Christian Facebook Alternative”.  They have a sister site called Xians that is – you guessed it – a Faith-based MySpace.  A quick glance at the design is truly telling of how much of a copy it really is.  To the site’s credit – they don’t claim to be original.  However, that doesn’t make it right.

This raises some bigger questions from a ministry standpoint.  Are we really supposed to segregate ourselves from everyone else?  NO!  Yes, we need fellowship.  But must we commit and entire website to copying the largest social network in the world?  That seems to be one of the worst ways I can think of to represent Christians on the web.  “Look at those Chrisitans.  There they go, stealing our ideas again.  Oh well.  Guess we’ve come to expect it.”  Faithout has over 7,000 users (no telling how many are actually active).  So if you sign up for this service, and not others – just remember that there about 175 million more users on Facebook that you are missing out on connecting with.

I’m a strong believer in small groups in the literal sense.  Great churches thrive on community.  It’s how Jesus lived life with the disciples.  But Jesus didn’t go build his own ‘Chrisitan community’ to remove himself from the world.  He did however create small groups in the world that then influenced the world.  Why should social networking be any different?

I recently read/heard someone say that using social media should extend your existing business model, not change it.  This makes me think of the church – we meet a few times a week, but as the body, we go to work, go to school, go to sporting events – you name it, we do it.  Because we live in this world too.  We don’t only go to Christian sporting events because we’re scared of something we might see, or the people that might be at secular ones.  I think I’ve made my point.

Please, let’s use the heads on our shoulders to be creative.  Let’s influence.  Let’s take advantage of the HUGE networks that already exist and build community there.

I’m not saying that Christians should be doing this thing better that anyone else.  All people have gifts.  Let’s just let the people with the original idea, gifts, and enough funding be the people who do it.  Then let’s be a part of it.