Billy, you are forewarned. This is a rant.
I get invitations all the time to join facebook groups about Christianity. And I would feel bad if I ignored them, but I felt ridiculous joining the “I Believe in Jesus Christ” group a couple days ago, already being a member of the “Christians” group, along with “The One Body of Christ Experiment” as well as “Jesus Christ is the Freakin’ Man.”
I would have just joined the group so as not to offend the person who sent me the invitation, and then never thought about it again. However, I got a message from the group administrator to all the members this afternoon. It said “Imagine what kind of witness this group could bring if all of us added just ONE person a week [to the group].”
Shane Claiborne once said something (I’ll find the quote when I’m not full of turkey and lazy) about people giving money to charities to insulate themselves from real charitable work, from having to be exposed to poor people themselves.
I think we invite others to these little groups on facebook and join them ourselves similarly to the useless way we put the Holy Mackerel on our bumpers, making a silent statement about our faith and thinking that’s the only way we are expected to live it out. Aside from the fact that inviting people to the “I Believe” group is only going to end in a big group of people who already believe and not be a “witness” to anybody, I think labeling and classifying ourselves with names and groups and facebook invites is just another self-serving insulation from evangelism and living out faith.
While I may or may not go on a deletion spree of my own group memberships, I hope that my faith is both more evident than my facebook participation, and evident to more than just like-minded people. As St. Francis of Assisi said, I want to “Preach the gospel at all times. If necessary, use words.” Or facebook.