Dear Facebook Friends; I think it is time we have a conversation about a delicate matter. Almost all of my many "Facebook Friends" are people I have never met personally, but they were all friends of friends and we are all Christians. I use Facebook not so much to chat with friends as a way of communicating with fellow Christians. These are Christians in all lands. For us in North America we are delighted to be able to share things such as prayer requests and Scriptures with our brothers and sisters in Christ throughout the world, but we are a little uncomfortable when asked directly for money from people we have never met. All of us here have structures for doing this kind of mission work. We also have long relationships with organizations like Compassion International, World Vision and other groups. We understand that there is nothing wrong with being asked for help but we also know when it gets to be a problem. A dozen requests a day becomes to be a problem. Please read this: “I was talking with a pastor today and when I asked him if how much he used Facebook his reply was ‘About 15 seconds. After that I begin to get a barrage of people from other countries asking me how I am doing.’ I told him that I learned long ago to turn my chat off and one does not get nearly so many earnest enquiries about one’s health. Lately there seems to be even more urgency and it seems all it takes to be a popular speaker in many countries is to be an American pastor on Facebook. This silliness needs to be addressed. Christian workers in developing countries need to know that we respect all the hard work they are doing, we are eager to join you in prayer, but you do everyone a disservice if you think coming on Facebook and sending friend requests in order to solicit funds is actually a good thing to do. In the end you will do more harm than good. Carry on as you would, write and post things, but you will only turn people off by only asking for things and that is all that we see, request followed by a similar request. And stop the ‘mighty man of God thing.’ We are all, in the U.S. or in Bagladesh, supposed to be servants. Thank you.” My suggestion for people, wherever you are is to do as I do, write stories, put them on blogs and websites, insert your promotion of interesting bits between the other things you post, and do not rely on the Facebook chat box and personal message function. Some people see this as a form of spam when it comes from people they do not know. We all must learn how to use social media socially. What are your thoughts?
Posted on: Wed, 05 Jun 2013 21:01:48 +0000
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