Paul CastelliLead where you’re gifted, serve where you’re needed.

Several times a week someone asks me why I am not on Facebook. I always tell them that I don’t want to be and they look at me like I am crazy.

But lately Facebook or shall I say how others use it is really getting on my nerves. I think Facebook can be a useful tool for connecting with friends and family and sharing updates on life. But it can also be a very dangerous unsafe place.

It really depends on the maturity and conviction of the user.

People who use Facebook to say publicly what they don’t have the courage or wisdom to say privately are one of the reason I dislike Facebook. God’s Word is very clear on how we should respond to problems and people in Matthew 18 and how we watch what we say in Ephesians 4 and James 1. I think the ease of posting often gets the best of people. They post before they think, they post before they pray, they post before they go to the person. This leads to more problems instead of leading to resolution, restoration and reconciliation.

OK, enough of the “p” and “r” words.

Secondly Facebook is a place for community and relationships, but cannot be a substitute for face to face daily interaction. It is great to keep people in the loop of your life, but not at the expense of actually doing life with other people. We were wired for relationships and real relationships are a lot more work then status updates and poking.

The last thing about my personal struggles with Facebook is the need to be so connected. I’ll be honest, the people I care about and the people that care about me have managed to stay connected long before Facebook. And for me I just don’t want to be that connected to people that I will not have a real mutually beneficial relationship with and give off some false sense of connection.

So if this post made you angry or upset it is not geared to anyone person, in fact it is posting days after I actually wrote it. Maybe what you are feeling is conviction and you should stop and pray, then go and talk to whoever you are upset with.

If this post makes you think I am afraid to embrace new technology, not true I love twitter, my blackberry, and cell phones

Closing thought: Facebook like anything else can be an effective tool to enhance your life, but it is and will always be just that. Never use it to say or do anything you would not do face to face or to do or say anything that is contradictory to what God would want you to do.