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Cal's Pastoral Epistles
"Is God On Your Facebook?"
October 2, 2008
I discovered the world of Facebook late last summer and have been
enjoying it ever since. If you aren't familiar with it, Facebook is a social
networking site that college kids have known about for a while. It's pretty
cool actually. You get a home page, an area to write about yourself, the
ability to share pictures and a place to connect with friends in high school,
college and in the professional world.
Since early August I have been sending out "friend invites" to those who
were already on the network. I set up my page back then and included a
few family photos, some of my favorite things and then added a photo
album of pictures from various events at church.
I joined Facebook with the idea of bringing together three different
networks I belong to. I had just attended my high school reunion and ran
into some friends from around the country. This sparked me to start
looking for my high school classmates and friends on the site. Then I began
to see how this could enhance my ministry. So I started looking for folks
from church. I found several and guess what? Most of them were under
forty years old. Finally, since two of my kids are scattered around the
world, I decided it would be cool to have a network to reach out to family
and family friends.
As I was putting this together it made me think about the many worlds that
all of us live in. In the olden days we used to talk about wearing many hats.
Today it has expanded to worlds. The truth is that we try to separate them
so we can manage them. We put up imaginary partitions so one world
doesn't interfere with the next. In each world we might even be known a
little differently. That is not a problem unless our worlds begin to collide.
I think this is why so many of us experience a disconnect between our faith
and the rest of our life. Instead of God being part of the fabric of our lives,
he becomes isolated in just one compartment. We try to keep that part of
who we in God, separate from work, friendships and even our family. As a
result we are not quite sure who we are in any of our worlds.
The solution is to bring all our worlds together and let our faith be front and
center. That doesn't mean pushing our religion on others. It simply means
letting God shine through us. It means letting people know that attending
worship is something we do. It means that when we make a choice, we
allow our faith to influence us. It means sharing our story with our friends
when it is appropriate.
There is a risk to living like this. Some people may not invite us to become
part of their network. It has happened a few times with me on Facebook.
That's OK. The truth is that it may not be a bad thing. You may find that
you have better, more loving and faithful friends among those who give you
access to their lives. So send God a friend invite. Then look me up on
Facebook and we can chat too.
God bless! See you in Church. Cal
October 2, 2008
I discovered the world of Facebook late last summer and have been
enjoying it ever since. If you aren't familiar with it, Facebook is a social
networking site that college kids have known about for a while. It's pretty
cool actually. You get a home page, an area to write about yourself, the
ability to share pictures and a place to connect with friends in high school,
college and in the professional world.
Since early August I have been sending out "friend invites" to those who
were already on the network. I set up my page back then and included a
few family photos, some of my favorite things and then added a photo
album of pictures from various events at church.
I joined Facebook with the idea of bringing together three different
networks I belong to. I had just attended my high school reunion and ran
into some friends from around the country. This sparked me to start
looking for my high school classmates and friends on the site. Then I began
to see how this could enhance my ministry. So I started looking for folks
from church. I found several and guess what? Most of them were under
forty years old. Finally, since two of my kids are scattered around the
world, I decided it would be cool to have a network to reach out to family
and family friends.
As I was putting this together it made me think about the many worlds that
all of us live in. In the olden days we used to talk about wearing many hats.
Today it has expanded to worlds. The truth is that we try to separate them
so we can manage them. We put up imaginary partitions so one world
doesn't interfere with the next. In each world we might even be known a
little differently. That is not a problem unless our worlds begin to collide.
I think this is why so many of us experience a disconnect between our faith
and the rest of our life. Instead of God being part of the fabric of our lives,
he becomes isolated in just one compartment. We try to keep that part of
who we in God, separate from work, friendships and even our family. As a
result we are not quite sure who we are in any of our worlds.
The solution is to bring all our worlds together and let our faith be front and
center. That doesn't mean pushing our religion on others. It simply means
letting God shine through us. It means letting people know that attending
worship is something we do. It means that when we make a choice, we
allow our faith to influence us. It means sharing our story with our friends
when it is appropriate.
There is a risk to living like this. Some people may not invite us to become
part of their network. It has happened a few times with me on Facebook.
That's OK. The truth is that it may not be a bad thing. You may find that
you have better, more loving and faithful friends among those who give you
access to their lives. So send God a friend invite. Then look me up on
Facebook and we can chat too.
God bless! See you in Church. Cal
Pastor Cal Lord writes these weekly epistles to
help us see God in every day things.
help us see God in every day things.
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