Recently I’ve been pondering how, and why, we use social media as an organisation.
What is its purpose? Why do we use it? How does it serve us and others? How does it advance the gospel? How does it serve Christ?
Truth be told, there is so much to think about, and we’ve not got it 100% figured out. What’s more as it’s a constantly evolving medium our opinion may change over time, but as we’ve pondered on these things, here are a few ideas we’ve come up with about how we want to try to use social media to be a blessing to others.
1. Don’t cause harm
I’m sure we’ve all seen them, usually on Twitter…sorry ‘X’…the heated argument that ends up with normally mild-mannered citizens casually swearing and flinging the nazi epithet at people who don’t agree with their point of view. It usually starts when someone famous makes a contentious statement which leads to floods of the public either agreeing or disagreeing with what they say, often aggressively. It’s a strange thing that what is not considered good manners or kind in public somehow becomes acceptable online.
Sadly though, too many Christians fall into this trap as well. While it may not be to quite the same extent as secular exchanges, far too often, often under the guise of trying to be ‘truthful’ I have seen normally respectable Christians fall into the trap of, if not outright insulting someone, at least being disrespectful and posting things that they probably would think twice about saying if in person.
This is a bad idea, and more often than not, makes us sound petty, childish or even offensive. What’s more, this attitude can bring the church, the gospel, and Christ into disrepute. I used to work managing the social media accounts of a Christian publication and one of the reasons I left was because I was becoming discouraged in my faith seeing how regularly Christians mistreated one another. I’m sure I’m not the only one who feels like this, and is why I firmly believe we should do no harm.
While we may disagree with what is sometimes posted, often the best thing to do is not engage at all. We may want to stand up for biblical authority or for the good name of Christ, but trying to have a nuanced discussion online is difficult at best, and in 280 characters it is, to put it politely, pointless. The Lord does not need you to defend his good name, he’s perfectly able to do that himself, but if you feel that strongly about something, save it for the DMs.
2. Try to do good (or at least not do bad)
As Christians we’re called to be like Christ, and therefore all that we do is designed to glorify God, but how can we use social media to do that? I think this is actually pretty tied into the point above.
I think at it’s simplest, we need to think about what we’re posting on social media, what purpose does it serve? Is it good? Is it helpful? Is it kind? Now, I’m not saying every post we put on social media needs to be gospel related, but I do think when we post something we want to do our best to ensure that it is more than just ‘fluff’, that what we post adds some value, no matter how small, to peoples lives.
I appreciate some will be working on the social media teams for secular companies, and so this may be more difficult, but hopefully having the mindset of doing good will help you more easily decide the content of what you post.
3. Actually be, y’know…social
This is hard, and something we as an organisation struggle with. Admittedly our social following is tiny, but where possible, we are trying to engage and build relationships with current clients, previous clients and other Christians.
The danger we all face when using social media, is that we’re so focussed on looking outward and concerned with getting clicks and likes, we forget to engage with people properly. Back in the early 2000s when Friends Reunited and MySpace was still a thing, I used to engage a lot with my friends on social media, and even in the early days of Facebook it felt like an actually useful tool for keeping in contact with friends. It felt more convenient and sometimes fun, than writing an email or even speaking on the phone, and while that’s still true for a lot of people, more often it is used as a marketing tool, and I’m not just talking about for businesses.
Often people use it to make themselves look great, and any engagement is just cursory and uninterested. There’s no wonder that kids are suffering serious mental health issues.
Now, I’m naturally an introvert, and yet I still believe that there’s no replacement for face to face social interactions, but in the absence of that possibility, there’s no reason that social media can’t be used to engage and take an interest in people we know.
As Christians, I think this could actually be a witness to the watching world. What if we created genuinely loving online communities where rather than attack or belittle each another, we took a genuine interest to help, encourage and build one another up? Where, if we saw people struggling, or failing publicly, we would seek to encourage them privately, rather than shame them publicly?
If we want to ensure our online content is as good as possible, there’s one simple question we need to ask: ‘Is Christ at the centre of this?’ This sounds trite, but is so easy to forget to do. I forget all the time!
I’m certain though that to get the most out of social media and be the best witnesses we can be, the principal of 1 Corinthians 10:31 applies here: ‘So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God.’
We must constantly be realigning our hearts to the Gospel and examining our motives for all that we do, seeking in all things to bring glory to God. If we do that, with his help, I’m certain God can do great things with everything we post online, no matter the audience.
