YouTube has much more than just bad lip syncing and piano playing cats...

Like it or not, social media venues have become a very powerful force in our society...

As a blogger, I'm not going to 'preach to the choir' with my post today. If you're reading this, then to you, I've already stated the obvious. What may not be so palpable, however, is exactly the extent to which social media tools have saturated our daily lives.

Who doesn't have an email address these days? Telling someone you don't have an email address is comparable to someone 30 years ago saying they didn't have a telephone number. Immediately you're labeled a troglodyte who's unattached to the very world where you live. Fair? Hey...I don't make the rules of acceptable social behavior. I have a hard enough time following them myself!

It's not just basic internet-based communications like email either. Facebook alone now has over 750 million active members. That's more people than live on five of the world's seven continents. So is Facebook a cyber-continent? Sorry Europe...that would move you to fourth now by population. Hope Facebook doesn't go your route and try to create their own collective currency, since...you know...that's working so well for you guys.

So as a Christian, where am I suppose to be in all of social media craze? Thou shall not Twitter didn't make the Big Ten back in the Book of Exodus...so that doesn't really help calibrate my moral compass on the issue. Jesus clearing up all those thou shalts and thou shalt nots by breaking it down to two basic directives(love God, love neighbor) doesn't really fit here either. Still, the Bible is the Living Word and can be applied to any and all aspects of my life. So...exactly where does social media fit in matters of faith?

Truth is...I think we over think way too much.


Did Peter break open his KJV Bible and start preaching to the folks in Rome in the early church? Of course not. Peter spread the Goods News based on what he had personally been taught and seen in the ministry of Jesus by the spoken word. Letters were rare..and books were even more so in Peter's day. Unfortunately for Peter, hearsay was admissible in the court of Nero...

Did Martin Luther deliver The Ninety-Five Theses to the Castle Church in Wittenberg, Germany by certified mail? I don't think so. Something that important should pretty much be delivered in person... with a hammer and nail for accentuating purposes. Drives the point home plus you can beat back angry clerics as you make a quick exit.

So why are Christians so polarized about the issue of social media use? Isn't it just the latest advance in means of communicating with each other?

I live in the South, and the phrase keep it old timey is as cliche here as my peeps up North might hear freeze your ____ off ....well...you know... they do use a lot more colorful language than us. But what does keep it old timey mean? Aside from timey not even being an actual word, I think people get hung up on the traditional means of their day and become fixated on the old way being tried and true, therefore, it must be the right way...the only way.

I'm sure if the Apostles of the early church could have looked forward to the year 1454 and seen the Gutenberg press churning out numerous copies of the very words of Jesus, there would have been a great deal of anxiety on their parts. What if something were misquoted? Misrepresented? What if the Great Deceiver himself corrupted the printings?!  But look at how the printing press has brought millions to know and accept the Good News.

The phenom known as social media is no different. Sure, there are many dangerous agents that look to spread evil verses good, but God knew this from the very beginning. Also, Jesus spoke specifically to the perils of tradition with the Pharisees in Mark chapter 7- Stop living in the past dudes...well that's a paraphrase...of course.

Now I don't believe neither time nor any innovation can replace the importance of sharing the Good News with someone face-to-face. Living an exemplary life, loving others and showing compassion will never go out of style, but let's not be too hasty as Christians to write off social media tools as an instrument of evil only. As a matter of fact, I personally know a husband and wife who just six years ago lived in Iran as Muslims but were searching for truth. Through social media sources like blogs and chat rooms they connected with Christians. Today, they are both born-again Believers who escaped the repression and now worship and learn freely among other Christians due in part to those very social media sources.

Did I mention they are also bloggers and my Facebook friends? 

You can't teach an old dog new tricks...if he just refuses to play.

Okay...I'm not THAT old!


I consider myself quasi tech-savvy. Since the PC became commonplace in American homes, I've been through my fair share of desktops and laptops. Now that the smartphone has become the wave to catch in the geekster waterways, I'm on board there too...well...sort of.

Smartphones are a phenomenal piece of technology and really a misnomer. Instead of a phone that can do other things, they are essentially a portable computer that you can just happen to make calls on too. They're the Swiss Army Knife of multimedia tools. From a small box, you can watch TV, send messages a number of ways, browse the internet, and find an application program (app) for virtually everything to make life easier...and many you could certainly do without (i.e. that cursed Angry Birds app).

I first jumped in with a Blackberry several years ago and was quickly sold on how the mobile device made my work life easier. In my job, I deal with military bases literally all over the world, so somewhere someone is in their office at any given hour of my 24 hour day. Instead of checking my laptop several times a night when not at the office or waiting until the start of my next work day to address a plethora of accumulated issues, the smartphone allowed me to instantly respond to a customer's needs taking just a minute of my time. Almost immediately, I started receiving comments from customers in East Asia wondering if I ever slept! There was an issue with Mrs. Tony C at first, but she pretty much knew what she was signing up for from the start with me, and she also knew that the smartphone made my work day a lot less stressful...or at least a concentrated stress. You know...the kind that kills you.

I loved my Blackberry. Loved it. For over two years, I carried the exact same phone with virtually no problems. A small little box that just simply sneered at the once coup de grace of all communication device fantasies, Captain Kirk's communicator (duh), had made me master of my domain. I was king of the world (a la Leonardo DiCaprio/Titanic).

Apple just couldn't appreciate my euphoria.

Along comes the iPhone (said mockingly, I assure you). Every one's got to have an iPhone. iPhones are so cool. iPhones are so much better. An iPhone saved my brother's life. Well, I bravely resisted the spontaneity of standing in line for seven days to be the first to lay hands on an iPhone. Really, how much better could they be? I was king of the world and feeling unbeatable at my game. However, Mrs. Tony C was a much different story. She dumped the 'gotta have' Blackberry...excuse me...the fifth different Blackberry device she was using to join the sheep...I mean masses.

Boy is that phone a lot of fun.

Still, I stood firm to the technology at hand...I mean in hand...and kept on doing what I was doing. Don't fix something that isn't broken I was always told. My customers were happy, my boss was happy and I was completely comfortable not being on the leading edge. It all boiled down to me being, well, stubborn actually.

April 30, 2011 is the day my Blackberry died. I still get a little choked up about it and even keep the darkened shell in my desk drawer as a reminder of where I've been and how far I've come. Literally years (okay two) of mastering my domain...dead. What was I too do? That's where the antagonist of this story comes to play. No, not Steve Jobs. Not Mrs. Tony C, Keith S or even iPhone poster child Josh R. The culprit and controller of all things technical in my little world (at least at work) is our IT Department Head, and he said just four words...you need Droid. Okay. It should have been four words, but his English has definitely improved since coming here from China several years ago.

The die was casted. No, not an iPhone, but might just as well been. After a little research, I decided on a Droid Pro. At the very least I could keep my chubby little fingers busy still on a Qwerty keyboard. Has there been some adjustments? Absolutely. Aside from 'oops wrong move' erasures of emails and contacts, missing the heck out of BB messenger, and also now gone rolling over at 2 am to see the 'new message' red light blinking, I'm a lot more conscience about sticking my finger in my nose or ear and winding up with what's known in the geek arena as touch screen residue.  

I'm sure there's an app that deals with that...but it probably cost an arm and leg...or at least a finger.