Written by Chris Freeman, FEC Church Planter
Have you ever seen someone post something on the internet and think, “I can’t believe you said that?” It comes from people you know well. They’re good people. They’re your neighbors. They’re your co-workers. They’re your friends. (Maybe they’re you… yikes!) But when you see their tweet or their Facebook post, you feel like whoever wrote that isn’t the person you know. Something weird happens to us when we are online. It’s like those Snicker’s commercials when they say “You’re not you when you’re hungry.” That’s how I feel when I see some of these posts online. “You’re not you when you’re tweeting or Facebooking or commenting on someone’s blog.” I feel like we all need to take a deep breath and eat a Snickers.
Seriously though, this is a big deal. This next section is written to a very specific audience. It’s for people who call themselves Christians. If you aren’t a Christian, then you are off the hook here. You still may find this helpful, but it isn’t specifically addressed to you. If you are a Christian, then hear me out for a minute. The place where you arguably have the greatest amount of influence and the greatest amount of opportunity to demonstrate who Jesus is and why he is worth following is online. Think about it. You can interact with hundreds of people online. You can connect with people all over the world in an instant. What you post and comment on reaches more people online in a day than you may reach in a year of everyday life. This is an amazing opportunity for you to demonstrate the way of Jesus.
Yet for so many of us, we are the worst versions of ourselves online. We say post things or make comments that we would never say to someone in person. It can get so ugly which is really heartbreaking because when we do this we destroy our witness. People who aren’t Christians see what we say and how we behave online. They don’t have to be in the direct line of fire from our nasty comments in order to be affected by it. When we act like this through the week and then post about how good church was on Sunday, we reinforce the belief that we are phonies and hypocrites.
