Church of Facebook

My latest read, Church of Facebook by Jesse Rice was filled with lot of thought provoking concepts and information. I picked up this book at the local Christian bookstore and after I read the back cover, my curiosity got the best of me.

I am a computer nut, not so much in the technology field but for gathering information, resources and shopping. I love to research books, authors, follow blogs, ministries and more. I started out by being a closet blog reader (never leaving comments or being a public follower) I wasn’t ready to make myself public to the world or a broader base of people. That is why I didn’t jump on the facebook bandwagon after it came out. But about one year ago, I took the plunge and joined facebook and I have been hooked every since.

I am a person that thrives on my friendships and being around people. I love to talk to people face to face and over this past year as I have become more and more addicted to my facebook account, I started having a desire to figure out why this social network has such an appeal to me and to the other millions of people using it. So this leads me to this book….

Jesse did a great job of writing this book with illustrations of historical events that help us understand how certain things in history have changed our world. But I want to highlight in brief what stood out to me. His initial concept was the fact that people like facebook because they have the control of what people read and see about them. We have the ability to only post the BEST pictures of us and our status can be stated in a way that we trigger comments from friends that will encourage us and make us feel good. This is not a negative thing unless we are not being REAL in what we are trying to show our friends. He has many great stories and points but he concluded by stating that facebook is a new revolution that is changing the way community is lived, but that we need to display three key elements as we post on facebook and they are: be intentional – Jesus was intentional in the way he thought, spoke and acted in his personal life as well as his public life. So we need to live intentionally (with purpose) being aware of our thoughts, feelings and actions. Second element: show humility, Rice quoted Bruna Martinuzzi ; “something interesting happens, too, when we approach situations from a perspective of humility; it opens us up to possibilities, as we choose open-mindedness and curiosity over protecting our point of view. We spend more time in that wonderful space of the beginner’s mind, willing to learn from what others have to offer. We move away from pushing to allowing, from insecure to secure, from seeking approval to seeking enlightenment.” Rice speaks to this in the way we make judgments about people by what they post on their status or what pictures they post. We also do this by making comparisons to our facebook friend’s life experiences. The third element is authenticity. Authenticity as defined in Merriam-Webster is “not false or imitation.” One issue on facebook that has gotten much press on is the concern how people are misrepresenting themselves on their profiles.

So as Rice concluded in his book and my challenge to you is to BE REAL on facebook as you would with your face to face relationships and connections. That is my desire and that is what I plan to do as soon as I finish this. I NEED to go check my facebook page!!!