Myspace... good or bad...

[Christie Barnard]

Hi everyone,
I'm new posting here. I live in Casa Grande, AZ and I am a youth leader at our church. We do not have a youth pastor at this time but have at least 2 leaders, sometimes more.

Many of our preteens (jr. high school age kids) all have a myspace account. My oldest sons have one also. My 18 year old has already moved out so I can not tell him what to do anymore, he is now an adult and can make his own choices in life. However our 16 year old had on his myspace profile that he was there for dating and serious relationships... Needless to say his account has since been deleted.

I've prayed on how to get the kids away from myspace as there is so much negative there IMO. My husband found some webpages that are similiar to myspace but are a christian social web instead. Bingo! No negative stuff, if anyone posts anything bad that account will automatically get deleted. People from all over the world stop by the new members pages and adds wonderful christian graphics just to say "welcome."

www.jcfaith.com
www.hisholyspace.com

I have made two pages, one on each of the christian social web sites. To view what the profiles are like please click or copy and paste the links below. I dare you to share them with your youth groups and see if they can make the switch. We've already had two of our teens make a page on jcfaith, one being my son. Here are my pages:
http://www.jcfaith.com/Christie_az
http://www.hisholyspace.com/6814

Sign up as youth workers and youth leaders then share the pages with the teens at your church. Hope to see you soon. When you get your page made, stop by mine and click add to friends! God Bless You all.

Christie Barnard :fav16

[Mike Schutz]

Christie, Greetings!

Just passed them on to my 16 year old son, who will let me know what he thinks. He uses Zenga and other places to post his poetry and lyrics.

Social networking sites have been an issue in our youth group for a variety of reasons, yet are considered by teens in our group and throughout our district (we direct the Philadelphia District IMPACT team) to be as normative as tattoos, piercings and energy drinks (all of which are so weird to me, but I'm a 50 year old senior pastor and very much a DAD).:eek:

Thanks for the info.

Grace and peace

[Terri Knoll]

I agree that myspace can be a rough place. the whole internet actually can be. alot of references on the web use wikipedia.com which if you spend even a minute looking around that site, you would be aghast.

first off, as a mother of 5 and grandmother of 14, I realize we must be diligent about protecting our children. But as a christian, I believe we must be diligent about sharing the love of God thru His Son. That is first in my life. If all the christians in the world boycotted and left myspace, who would be there for the searching, the lost? Just something to think about.

take a look around my myspace:

www.myspace.com/jesusismyrock

and you will see thru my friends that the Gospel is being preached on myspace. Users can set their page to private where no one can view except invited friends, but I keep mine open. Responses are 90% positive.

my family spaces are on HHS, but my personal space will continue to be myspace

blessings,
Terri

ps also have a look at Jesus myspace for other insights into what kids want:
http://www.myspace.com/mark15_2

[Carla Snell]

Teri, sorry, had to check out your myspace. Nice layout, and I can see the Christian theme to it all. I also checked out your #1 friend because the last "Jesus" I added ended up being a salesman for all of the shirts and stuff. Your Jesus friend is the real thing! I enjoyed his site and think that whomever the human creator is, it was a great idea he/she put together...

Thanks Teri!

[Terri Knoll]

Teri, sorry, had to check out your myspace. Nice layout, and I can see the Christian theme to it all. I also checked out your #1 friend because the last "Jesus" I added ended up being a salesman for all of the shirts and stuff. Your Jesus friend is the real thing! I enjoyed his site and think that whomever the human creator is, it was a great idea he/she put together...

Thanks Teri!


Hi doll! good to see you! thanx for the kudos...


blessings

[Brad Mercer]

However our 16 year old had on his myspace profile that he was there for dating and serious relationships... Needless to say his account has since been deleted.

I've prayed on how to get the kids away from myspace as there is so much negative there IMO.

MySpace is morally neutral, just like the phone book. You can call good people and businesses or bad ones. My three kids all have a MySpace account, as does my wife.

Our kids are thinking and feeling what they're thinking and feeling, and they're not likely to be expressing it all to us. They're even less likely to express it if our response is to simply reject, control and suppress their thoughts and feelings.

My wife finds that our kids basically forget that they've given us their blog or myspace information at some point, and continue to talk there the way they're talking to their friends but not to us. If I stop that I no longer have a way of knowing what's going on in their lives outside the home. And I want to know. Any 16-year-old boy who doesn't want a girlfriend is not normal.

Instead of eliminating a place where they feel safe being open and honest, we just quietly read, ignore the little things that aren't genuinely dangerous and try to help them in those areas that are, without saying we're responding to something they wrote. We know how to pray. We know the areas in which they need reassurance and affirmation. We look for some excuse in the context of their conversations with us to advise on issues that we know from their writings need to be discussed.

We do the same things with their IM chat logs.

The internet creates wonderful opportunities for parents to see the inner workings of their kids' minds and deal with those issues discretely and sensitively.

The problem with Christian websites that I've seen is that they frequently feature an awful lot of hateful Christian argument and only Christians frequent them. Not all of our kids' friends are Christian, nor should they be. They want that social networking with their school friends. It's never too early to start learning to be salt and light in the world and to value people because God values them and not just because they value God.

I don't yet know how well my approach is succeeding, but I've tried to teach my kids that God is love and that love always plays offense, never defense. I don't want them to think of faith as a fragile thing that must be protected against infection by the world. I want them to think of faith as the contagion to which the world is susceptible.

Brad

[Rob Barnard]

We each have our opinion or impression on things. My wifes definition of "negative" consists of a place thats too self oriented and not enough God oriented. Its a place where a teen can go and feed the flesh.

When I go on myspace, I see ads like this:

1. online dating services
2. "are you a good flirt" quizes
3. "snap a pic of the chic" interactive ad (girl in bikini on the beach)
4. #1 site for college girls, 1000's of sexy new profiles everyday, click here-its free. (of course there is a web cam going of a college girl blowing kisses into the camera)
5. National Lampoons "Dorm Daze 2". Did your college girlfriend look this hot? (sexy pose of a gal in a bikini on a locker room bench.) "See exclusive clips from the upcoming movie."

I have seen many profiles of people sporting wacked out hairdoos, gothic dress, middle finger sticking up in their pictures, pierced tongues, etc. Our boys are allowed to express themselves, as long as its who they are in Christ and not the "common of the masses" kind of thing. Peer pressure has a tendency to tell them they need to be in one of these groups. (verses a true individual expression)

I consider the site to be too sexually oriented as well being too much of a self oriented site. Me, me, me is the predominant attitude taken to the extreme. Yes, its natural to want to socialize, but why allow them to do it in this kind of arena? They get enough of this kind of exposure in the public school environment and they need more opportunity to socialize with believers. Figure that teens in the public school system spend more time there than with their parents. (seeing the examples of their parents) There is also more exposure time at school than social/fellowship time with peer Christians. We dont think a constant bombardment of non Christian values or lifestyles is what they need at this point. Yes, our kids are thinking and feeling what they are thinking and feeling and their environment/exposure strongly dictates what those things might be. I think the mind is like a computer, it will put out whats put in, and we have all heard the saying, "Gargage in, garbage out". Gods Word in has been the saving point thus far.

Our boys have started to learn to be the salt and light in the world and we believe they will continue with Gods help as well as being exposed to a lesser degree of the world. Perhaps when a more solid walk with God is established within them, the "exposure ratio" can change. A certain amount of drift can occur if the balance of your time is spent in unedifying company, especially if your are not well grounded in God's love and grace.

[Carla Snell]

I would also like to support my sister on her stand against MySpace for teens. I have seen first hand how a Christian raised teen taken out of their Christian based environment can change into a person that is unrecognizable to the person they were, and this can occur in a very short time.

Unfortunately, I did not offer the stricter family Christian values, believing that if I showed by example to not lie, cheat, steal and to be honest and trust-worthy, giving respect and responsibility that wasn't earned, that I would be rewarded with a Christian teen.

I did not select the environment from the start to be a Christian and wholesome environment. I wanted to be "cool" and allow the "cultural experiences" of my area to touch this teen. I wanted him to learn how much life has to offer, but I did not think that things would go the way they did.

The teen I loved as my own son became a teen who was more interested in things that he didn't realize existed before. He had the freedom to make choices that weren't Christ-based decisions, he had the freedom to make them on his own without consulting anyone of experience. He became addicted to his new lifestyle and brought more and more of it home with him. Finally, the day came when my wanting to be respected was brought up against his wanting to be free, and he moved out without a second look, a second thought or any contact since.

I know in his mind I was at fault. In my mind he gave me no choice, as I probably gave him no choice. I was wrong to bring him out of his environment and to encourage him to gain a more worldly knowledge without keeping him in a Christian environment.

And, do you know where he went for this worldly knowledge? MySpace. His new friends all had accounts, his former friends that he wasn't allowed contact with had accounts, heck, he even talked me into having an account. We decked our accounts out, looking great, but without the Christian themes to them.

I do not blame MySpace for being around. It is serving its purpose. I think that parents need to keep the control over their children and to limit worldly exposures. I agree with Rob in that kids spend more time with their worldly exposures than they do with their Christian exposures, and that includes my kid.

Unfortunately, it's too late with my nephew, but it's not with my daughter. I have brought her back to church, we read our Bibles every night (she's actually enjoying her Bible reading!!) and we pray twice a day before meals, plus she prays before and after her reading, but I leave that up to her. My daughter is a sponge for whatever I'm doing. If I spend all my time (around her) on the computer flirting or having secular computer time, then that's what she's going to want to do. I cancelled all secular pages that I have and only go on POGO for the games (and fellowship) and use the internet more for a source of information than for a venue of worldly exposures...

And, that's me talking too much.

Carla

edited to add: The values and time usage I am teaching my daughter NOW are what Christie and Rob have been doing with their sons for a long time now. Wish I thought it was a smart idea before now!

[Mark Doble]

Brad, you and I must be broken from the same mold!
At present I am writing an article that I hope will be published in the In Touch or Parenting magazine. In it I discuss how we as Parents, and Youth Leaders can use MSN chat, MySpace and others, not to cheque up on our kids, but to use them to identify issues that can be discussed within an open forum such as youth group. Also we can learn what our kids are all about and how they feel, cause most of the time they do not share with us. So far it is working great! It is really funny to bring up a topic and use the lingo they use to discuss it. It catches them off guard. Some of the conversations are really productive too. Then cheque back in a month or so and some of them have actually changed their thinking and talk different of it. Praise God for MySpace and Facebook.com






MySpace is morally neutral, just like the phone book. You can call good people and businesses or bad ones. My three kids all have a MySpace account, as does my wife.

Our kids are thinking and feeling what they're thinking and feeling, and they're not likely to be expressing it all to us. They're even less likely to express it if our response is to simply reject, control and suppress their thoughts and feelings.

My wife finds that our kids basically forget that they've given us their blog or myspace information at some point, and continue to talk there the way they're talking to their friends but not to us. If I stop that I no longer have a way of knowing what's going on in their lives outside the home. And I want to know. Any 16-year-old boy who doesn't want a girlfriend is not normal.

Instead of eliminating a place where they feel safe being open and honest, we just quietly read, ignore the little things that aren't genuinely dangerous and try to help them in those areas that are, without saying we're responding to something they wrote. We know how to pray. We know the areas in which they need reassurance and affirmation. We look for some excuse in the context of their conversations with us to advise on issues that we know from their writings need to be discussed.

We do the same things with their IM chat logs.

The internet creates wonderful opportunities for parents to see the inner workings of their kids' minds and deal with those issues discretely and sensitively.

The problem with Christian websites that I've seen is that they frequently feature an awful lot of hateful Christian argument and only Christians frequent them. Not all of our kids' friends are Christian, nor should they be. They want that social networking with their school friends. It's never too early to start learning to be salt and light in the world and to value people because God values them and not just because they value God.

I don't yet know how well my approach is succeeding, but I've tried to teach my kids that God is love and that love always plays offense, never defense. I don't want them to think of faith as a fragile thing that must be protected against infection by the world. I want them to think of faith as the contagion to which the world is susceptible.

Brad

[Scott Hilton]

Our youth ministry has a page, both of our youth pastors have a page and a lot of people from the church have pages as well. I have a page, you can link it from my sig below.

One of our youth leaders who has a page, is also a teacher in a public school. He uses the page as a way to communicate with both the church kids and the school kids. He hopes to be their light in a dark place and his myspace page is one place that they may run into something to make them think about their creator.

I have a daughter who also has a page, we however keep a very close eye on her page. I have the log in information and she knows it. She also knows I get on and check things. Unfortunatley for me, the worst "friends" she has are our family members who have pages. However, I talked with her and we discussed how we may be the only ones they hear about Jesus from by just conversing with them on myspace.

I do have a problem with the adds, but then I am sure Jesus had to see some things that were less than Holy when he was talking with the prostitutes and tax collectors.

I can understand wanting a page on an all Christian network, however you never know if the reception to your theology will be any more welcomed than your faith in Christ would be on a secular page on myspace. Your chances of placing a seed in someones life also increases. Of course, it is also quite easy to have a page on both networks nowadays :basic05

God bless
Scott