Saddington’s Heroes at 8bit have done it. Someone with a voice in the modern Christian community finally stepped up to the line. Finally, someone with some pull has called out the pink elephant standing in the room for years.

Don't be a Social Media Troll.

Finally, someone has called BS on the Church using Spiritual Social Media, defaming the name of Jesus in the name of being hip, or by creating “Christian-safe alternatives”. Read it here.

Social Media is all about connecting to each other, not a pseudo-identity behind a corporate (or nonprofit) name. There is something inherently wrong about jumping on board with a concept just because it is the newest fad. When a company or nonprofit (or worse yet, church) uses their Social Media presence to simply market themselves in a new way instead of as connecting point, it’s BS. If you take the social part out of Social Media, it’s simply media.

Here’s a great example of Social Media like it should be. A couple weeks ago,

Here is an interesting bend in the conversation of online ministry: techno-hypocrisy. While that may in fact be an unheard of adjective at this point, let me introduce it. So what is techno-hypocrisy? Let’s break it down.

(Credit: Evan Courtney, CreativeMYK)

Techno: Having to do with, or pertaining to technology. In modern colloquial vernacular, we can assume it specifically pertains to modern technological developments.

Hypocrisy: The act of outwardly proclaiming or speaking out against a perspective, stance or action; while inwardly or covertly holding that same perspective or action. In the words of the great theologian, Phil Collins, “do as I say, don’t do as I do.”

Let’s put it all together now,

I have been saying for a while that the Church is seriously lacking men’s groups. So I was really happy to see that others feel the same!^[1] I think there are many reasons men have a difficult time connecting into groups, some great ones are mentioned in this post at my friend’s site. Here are some great excerpts from that post.

(Credit: Jacob Abshire, CreativeMYK)

Christine said, [her] “husband attended a men’s small group and in order to participate he needed to leave our home at 5:30am to get there by 6:00. The time was inconvenient for him so he stopped going.”^[2] I’m not an early riser, and a 6 AM group will convince me

1. A very special shout out to my friend Richard, the McProdigal! His original post put a lot of things I have been brooding and praying about for months into words, and was the basis for this post. Thanks McP! [↩]
2. Christine Smith, comment on “What I Hate About Men’s Groups,” the Prodigal Returns! Blog, comment posted September 15, 2010, http://mcprodigal.prodigalreturns.com/what-i-hate-about-mens-group/ (accessed September 17, 2010). [↩]

In an interesting turn of events, it appears that the people growing up in “Generation @” actually prefer to not be online.

(Credit: summerpierre.com)

Does this mean that, at any moment, Chicken Little will come screaming, “The sky is falling, the sky is falling!” causing a great alarm? Of course not! (But, if the news media finds itself with a slow news day, don’t be surprised if they start yelling it!) What this really means is something we’ve known for a long, long time (like 10 years now): some people are online a bunch, some are not.

Let me point out some things that may not sound profound, but will get you thinking. In the 90s and early 2000s, the techno-crazes were: