Facebook help

ebnyasoo3

Dear all,

My friend and I are preparing a Sunday school lesson for middle schoolers about " Facebook from a Christian point of view".
We want them to learn the advantages and the disadvantages of facebook, how to glorify God through facebook and how to use their time effectively on facebook. Does anyone have any experience with this topic.

Any ideas or resources will be much appreciated.

God bless,
Ebnyasoo3

Kirolies

Everyday I post a new verse as my status or quotes that I made up. I guess that would be a good way to use Facebook...

sherrymikhail04

A few of my friends and I who have deactivated Facebook call it "the Devil" :P

Abounasarecool

HG Bishop Youssef wrote an article about it
http://suscopts.org/resources/literature/704/face-book-fun-or-fateful/
:)

Pictavroc

I personally do not find any advantages for using facebook.  Whenever I used to sign on, I would waste so much time checking out the profiles and who wrote what...and one profile leads to the other...etc. And when I'm done, I notice that I just wasted like an hour on absolutely nothing!  Therefore, I decided to deactivate my account for good.

Yes, socializing is important (and should have its limits), but when it comes to the point where it takes so much time everyday, that's just unwise.

Sorry for not mentioning any advantages that could help you for the lesson.

ebnyasoo3

Everyday I post a new verse as my status or quotes that I made up. I guess that would be a good way to use Facebook...

Great advice thank you Kirolies.

A few of my friends and I who have deactivated Facebook call it "the Devil"

Mikhail can you please tell me some of the reasons that made you deactivate it?

HG Bishop Youssef wrote an article about it
http://suscopts.org/resources/literature/704/face-book-fun-or-fateful/

Abonasarecool, Thank you very much. I was looking for any articles and I knew that bp Youssef would be the one to write about it but I did not know where to find it.

@Pistavros
Thank you. I agree with you that the time that we spend on facebook is worthless.

Any more ideas! :)
Thank you in advance.
God bless,
Ebnyasoo3

sherrymikhail04

Okay, well the reason why I deactivated is truly unintentional and from God (lol).

I've always had the problem of wasting so much time on it, as much as I found facebook to be boring in itself, I used to close the window, and when I couldn't study I'd revisit the site... I fell in so much procrastination... and what helped the procrastination was looking at peoples photos the most... I wasted so much time looking at photos and noticing who went where, why and with who - completely non-spiritual at all. I also struggled to deactivate it throughout the year... my main excuse was "Promotional Purposes" for my service with COYA Sydney (Coptic Orthodox Youth Association), so one main advantage is reaching the youth of our diocese by bugging them with constant meeting reminders via the group and creating events. I remember in our COYA Servants meetings that we actually look at RSVPs we get to help prepare for the actual events although it wasn't too accurate because MANY people click attending on everything possible (lol) so we have to take that into consideration.

I also promote events for my church (The best Coptic church in Sydney - St. Marks). But we don't even need facebook for our church... we're a mad bunch.

So the exact reason I deactivated my facebook was because I signed into my facebook on my twins iPhone and forgot to sign out and so she wrote crap as my statuses and so I deactivated it from my laptop at the same time... I thought I would activate it again... but I guess it was DEF. Gods' will that I had it deactivated, because mannnn it was screwing me up with uni. Really, it was a miracle I haven't activated it since, even though I'm on holidays now.

It's a time waster when you have things to do, really. Moderation is only good when you are skilled in self-control, and you can see most of us aren't.

Hope that helped with advantages and disadvantages :)

Cheers

ebnyasoo3

Thank you Mikhail.

ebnyasoo3

Hello All,

A blessed member of Tasbeha sent me a pm that I would like to share with you for our benefit.

Yes, I have QUITE a bit of experience with this facebook issue loool.

Ok, so initially, Facebook was just a small way to keep in contact with school friends and see what everyone was up to, but when it started opening up and getting out of hand (especially with the ads and groups and blah blah blah) it
seemingly turned into a monster. Here goes:
1. PICTURES - I found myself spending A LOT of time looking at pictures (because I really like pictures). But there were several issues with that for me:
  a. Too much time was spent looking at pictures
  b. Without fail, there would always be pictures that I would come across that I easily judged for whatever reason (whether it be the people in the picture, the place they were at, the clothes they were wearing, etc. the list goes on...).
  c. I also found myself taking pictures and thinking "I need to take pics of this so I can put it on Facebook"... I didn't like that very much.
But it's not just about ME, whenever a servant posts pics of events (birthday surprise parties, get togethers, cookout, bowling nights..etc) on facebook, they don't realize this, but they are actually making the little kids stumble. We have a lot of less fortunate kids in my church who don't get the advantage of having bday party or who don't get invited cookouts, get togethers, parties and such, YET they are watching it all on facebook. Just last week this girl from church (who recently moved to America a year ago) was crying bc not one person remembered her bday, and she didn't think it was fair that other girls her age get huuuge celebrations. I'm not saying we shouldn't have bday parties for this reason, but why expose it online?
Theres a verse that says " Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in Me to stumble, it would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck, and he were thrown into the sea" (Mark 9:47).
How many kids stumble from our pictures?

2. PEOPLE - Facebook was supposed to be for communication and it was only that way for a short amount of time. Even though it was supposed to help with communication, I think it's depreciated the value of face to face communication immensely. Guys and girls are saying things on facebook that they would NEVER have the guts to say in person and that's telling of something, I think. All these things that are "improving" communication are actually breeding a generation of non-confrontational youth that are losing the ability to speak to people in person and not allowing them to get know themselves and accept who they are, imperfections and all.

3. PRIDE - I speak for myself when I say that facebook was not a very good thing for my pride. It turned into self-advertisement. Again, I was taking/posting pictures that I wanted people to see (obviously, they had to be good ones of me). The info section was just an opportunity for me to impress people and get people's attention. And even the number of friends I had became a thing I would be self-conscious of... I thought that was pathetic of me. All in all, I think it steals too much of everything from everyone. It steals time, communication skills, silence (mentally)... it steals protecting the sins of our brothers and sisters, it steals glory from God sometimes and it steals Love, too. I could be wrong, and I'm sure most people would think that I'm blowing this out of proportion, but I just don't think it's edifying. I tried at one point to send spiritual messages out from the Christian group I created but the benefits didn't outweigh the risks for me.

Hope this helps.

servant33

HG Bishop Youssef said we could all get facebooks for the Kohl's donation thing  :P

marym2

Thanks for sharing your friend's opinion ebnyasoo3, it brought up some very important points.

I would just add that fb can be dangerous especially for younger people who think they are invisible to the world of "bad" people. I say this out of experience. I don't think parents monitor their kid's access to these sorts of sites which is also very dangerous since these young people don't realize that there are people who can use any little bit of info posted (although most ppl post WAAAAAY too much info) to cause harm. For example, some people post that they are going on vacation..well isn't that good to know if you are a burglar who can use clues from pictures and such to locate your house! Also, some things that are posted, i.e. pictures might look.. well not the best.. and these pictures last FOREVER if they are on the internet, this is something young people might not realize the magnitude of.

If i were you I would express a negative opinion about fb but if you are going to talk to them about it, I would suggest ways of minimizing daily usage and ways of making sure they are safe and not posting things that may harm them in any way. I find that when talking to teens, you have to work really hard to penetrate that idea they have that nothing bad will happen to them.

Great topic to talk to teens about, God bless your service.

mary

ebnyasoo3

@ Servant33.  :D :D :D :D


@Mary
Thank you for the very nice points.

God bless
Ebnyasoo3

ilovesaintmark

Don't do it.

sherrymikhail04

[quote author=ilovesaintmark link=topic=10150.msg124263#msg124263 date=1292007260]
Don't do it.



Do what? Activate it?... I won't, don't worry... unless I wanna stalk someone.. lol

geomike

Honestly, facebook is the biggest waste of time ever, are you too lazy to pick up the phone? Don't waste your time on these kind of website because there is a lot of bad things coming from them.