@ Prayer

Relationships are vital for human growth, and not the romantic mushy gushy ones that you see in movies, but rather the strong deep-rooted relationships. For a Christian the most important relationship is with God, then family followed by friends and the list continues. Born in 1989 I didn’t always have e-mail, facebook or even a cell phone. I received my first cell phone when I was 16 years old and had my first facebook friend at the ripe age of only 17. Now, being 21, I love social networking. Being a communications major I enjoy it and use it often. I have accounts with facebook, twitter, hoot suite, LinkedIn, foursquare, BlogSpot and manage blogs and twitters for others aside from my own personal accounts.

As an American I value speed, accuracy and effectiveness. As Christians, however, God has called us into a body of believers, being family not just being a facebook friend or a twitter follower or linked in connection. Christians have begun to develop facebook and twitters just for themselves; you can join many Christian social networking sites. Instead of connecting with College friends or high school buddies you connect with your small-group, MOP group or pastoral staff. It seems that Christians want connection but see the efficiency and speed of connecting on-line. Sound great right, a safe place where your prayer group is just a click away, or your pastor is 149 characters from support right?
I would say be cautious, it’s not a matter of right or wrong but there is a danger in digitalizing fellowship and prayer. It’s very easy to post on someone’s facebook wall, “miss you, coffee soon?” rather than actually meeting up with someone and spending time with him or her. In college I live with 3,000 people and I am friends with 346 of them on facebook and I truly only know 20 of them. Those numbers need reconciled for me, it easy to claim 346 Messiah friends but it’s not true. I know of a girl that is at Messiah College who is battling cancer, I am on her prayer message chain on facebook. I have never talked to her in my life, and didn’t know who she was until I was invited into this facebook prayer group and my friends who knew her urged me to pray. I have been praying for her and reading the updates for months and finally saw her 3 months ago. She stopped by campus and was eating in the cafeteria to see friends and the prayer group became real to me. When she came in a buzz started about her being there and her beautiful balm scalp and milk white skin. I wanted so badly to walk up to her and hug her and introduce myself but I couldn’t. She was surrounded by her real friends and I was just a facebook follower- that experience sparked this article. I pray for Allie often and post prayers for her on twitter but at the end of the day I have no other real connections than digital and that’s hard to swallow. Social Networking can create this distance between us and the people we know, allowing us to care about them without even knowing them or allowing us to pretend that we care without actually caring.

"Experts say that in a verbal exchange, the words we use are only 7% effective; while the tone of our voice is 43% effective and non-verbal cues are 50% effective." Digital communication has to go hand in hand with face to face to truly be effective and successful. It’s our job as Christians to share the love of Jesus with one another and live in community and fellowship with other believers. Digital prayer and facebook friends are great, if they are paired with the real thing face to face and rooted in true relationship. We can’t post a prayer on facebook and call it quits we need to spend time praying to God and praying with other people. So next time, think twice about writing on someone’s facebook wall, pick up the phone- call them or set a time to speak face to face.