In November 2010, Pastor Cedric Miller gained national attention when he ordered about 50 married staff of his church to delete their Facebook accounts or resign. The married father of six also committed to delete his own Facebook account, expressing concern that Facebook contributed to the break up of marriages.
Miller seems to be on to something. A survey of American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers shows an 81 percent increase in the use of compromising evidence from social network sites (SNS). Facebook is the clear leader with 66 percent of divorce lawyers citing it as a primary source for this type of evidence. MySpace is second at 15 percent, and Twitter comes in at 5 percent. All other social networks total 14 percent.
A Girl Scout Research Institute study reveals SNS may not be a girl’s best friend either. Three-fourths (74%) of girls say most girls use SNS to portray a “cooler” image of themselves than they really are, and 41 percent of girls admit such of their own profiles. Girls also tend to downplay some honorable characteristics in their online profiles.
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Most Frequent Words Girls Use to Portray Themselves |
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In Person |
SNS Online Profile |
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| Smart | 82% | Fun | 54% |
| Fun | 82% | Funny | 52% |
| Funny | 80% | Social | 48% |
| Kind | 76% | ||
| Good Influence | 59% | ||
| Outgoing | 55% | ||
| Cool | 55% | ||
| Social | 51% | ||
| Confident | 51% | ||
For whom are these girls creating their enhanced profiles? They may not even know. The average girl has 351 friends, and 54 percent admit they have SNS “friends” whom they have never met in person.
Bottom line, most teen girls say SNS help them feel closer and more connected to their friends. Most also say they have engaged a cause they care about through a SNS. On the other hand, 69 percent of girls say they have had a negative experience such as being bullied on a SNS, and almost half (46%) say SNS create jealousy among friends. While 91 percent of girls aged 14-17 using SNS say they use Facebook, most say they prefer face-to-face communication.
It’s difficult to give a simple answer to the question, “Are social networks a friend or foe of urban ministry?” SNS offer many new opportunities for ministry. See my article, “Social Media and Urban Ministry: From Billboards to Cafés” where I discuss how social media is changing the way we connect with one another and provide a number of practical ways urban churches can effectively use texting, Facebook, and Twitter.
Yet for all the ministry opportunities available through SNS, there are some downsides as I have indicated with the two examples above. Further, this growing world of communication offers churches the opportunity to make a number of errors. I compiled a few common mistakes churches make with social media and will post them next week. Churches will find that social networks can be a friend to their ministries if they avoid these mistakes.