MySpace, YourSpace–ultimately it’s all HisSpace

By all means join the culture as it lives life online, just remember that your virtual identity belongs to Christ just as much as your ‘brick and mortal’ identity. Conduct yourself with gentleness and respect.

By Jason Wendorf

As with all opportunities for redemptive mission, online interaction presents unique problems that should be taken into account. Much like the Christian who must follow his conscience when enjoying drinks at a bar, there are points of tension that believers must consider when visiting a blog, bulletin board, myspace, wiki, or whatever virtual third place fits for your chosen methods of online conversation:

• Let your conscience be your guide
  For some the internet is synonymous with porn, so if you are a struggling sex addict then MySpace probably isn’t your missional calling. Likewise, if you have a tendency to waste time, especially when on the clock at your job, think twice about MySpace; it can be a huge time waster for those unable to manage their clock. It’s hard to be missional when you are wasting your boss’s time, or worse, wasting time that could be spent finding a job.

• If you’re a Christian, you represent Christ
  If you blog, have a MySpace account, or any other digital fingerprint of yourself, please be wise with your behavior. All of the same rules of behavior that are expected of Christians offline applies online as well: humility, respect, slow to anger, graciousness, etc. Ultimately, “Love all 8,000 of your MySpace friends as you love yourself.”

• If you go to Mars Hill, you represent Mars Hill
  We encourage you to use your digital profiles to virally spread the Mars Hill sermons, videos, and blogs. People should know that you are a Christian when you are online, just remember that Mars Hill’s name and Christ’s reputation is one click away as you curse out another blogger for having a differing opinion about issue X, Y, or Z.

• You don’t have to respond
  Resist the temptation to fire off quick comments or responses especially when people criticize Mars Hill, Pastor Mark, Jesus, Christianity, or anything else close to your heart. It’s easy to get sucked in to petty arguments and meaningless discussions that at best waste time, at worst actually prove detrimental to our role as ambassadors of the Gospel.

• Communicate with the leadership
  If you are thinking about starting a Mars Hill group, wiki, website, podcast, blog, social networking profile, etc., please communicate with the Mars Hill staff (start with jason@marshillchurch.org). We may already be working on your idea, or if not, we can work with you to realize the idea in a way that best benefits the church and the gospel. As a unified body we need to strive towards showing our unity when we are online.

• Be wise with the opportunity for anonymity
  By fronting an anonymous profile when online, you may think you are avoiding the need to follow the earlier guidelines. The real issue behind all of these caveats is that God knows your heart and nothing can be hidden from Him. Though you might be able to violate your conscience or hide behind anonymity without bringing attention to yourself amongst your brothers and sisters in Christ, ultimately everything exists within God’s knowledge and will be brought into the light, either through repentance in this life or in judgement in the next.

Of course there are other dangers inherent to being online: identity theft, spam, viruses, Nigerian email scams (they can’t all be fake, can they?), evites, etc. Just watch the local news to keep a running list of what you should fear this week. The internet is not going away, however, and will continue to make inroads to our lives and shape the culture we live in. By God’s sovereignty you have been chosen to live in this time and place, so wisely use the internet to further His glorious plans of redemption for yourself, Mars Hill, and the internet.