A few weeks ago Helen and I were at the Jordan Creek Mall and we stopped in the Apple Store. Now that is not a fruit stand, but the Apple computer store. They had several tables full of their newest gadget the i-pad. I wanted to check it out. Basically it is like a computer that you can hold in your hands. It does not close like a laptop, but just has a touch screen for everything you need. Anyone here have one?
So Helen and I go in and we are looking at it and a guy comes over to give us the demonstration. Helen tells him we need the full presentation. The guy is an older gentleman; he told us he was 62. And to get a reference of how much he would have to teach me he said well, have you used an i-pod touch? Which I think is a smaller version of the i-pad mainly used for music and videos with some other applications. I said, no I have not used one. He said, okay, well what about an i-phone? That is a cell phone which I assume you can use the internet on and I think you can do music and video on it too. Again, no I have not used one.
The guy then began to make fun of me. He was 62 and in his mind he was more technologically advanced than me, a kid half his age. I showed him my cell phone that makes phone calls and can text. Just recently we started to be able to send and receive pictures from it. I also teased him because Helen and I just got internet at home in June. Before that we either used internet here in the office or wireless from other places.
Overall, I think the i-pad looks fun, and I think I want one, but I am going to wait until Christmas at least because the guy ruined his chance to sell one by telling me they are coming out with a new operating system in November. That means the main program, like Windows for most computers, will be changing. One thing my grandpa taught me was to never buy the newest technology right away because there are always bugs that need to be worked out. Get the bugs work out and then buy it.
I share this story with you to let you know that I enjoy the latest and greatest technology, but I am not one that thinks just because something is new that this means it is better or the greatest thing ever. I think technology has given us some great things, but it also at times has done more harm than good.
This is all to say as we begin a message series based on facebook, a website, that this message series is not meant to be an advertisement for facebook. It is not my attempt to say everyone needs to be on facebook or even use it. I simply see that facebook is a piece of our culture and it is something that we can use to learn relevant lessons about our faith and even use it as a tool of our faith.
I want to do the best I can to stay away from getting too technical and make sure these messages communicate to those who use facebook everyday and those who will never use it. I can’t say I will do that perfectly, but I ask for your grace as I try. Today’s message may be more facebook than you want to know about, but the rest of the message will not be as facebook heavy. We just need a solid foundation to build on.
First, how many of you are on facebook? How many know what it is, but are not on it? How many know very little about it?
Facebook is a website that was launched in February of 2004. It was created by some college students led by a young man named Mark Zuckerburg. Basically it was meant to be a directory for Harvard students. The name comes from the schools annual printed directory. It had everyone’s picture from the school and it was unofficially called “the face book.” It had head shots of everyone and it helped people to put a name with a face.
However, it did not just stay at the school. In just over 6 years it has exploded. If the members on facebook were its own country it would be third in the world behind China and India. There are over 400 million members of facebook. Compare that to just over 300 million people total in this country.
The stated purpose of facebook is to share and connect with the people in your life. The idea is that you can create your own personal webpage. And you can control who sees it and who doesn’t. You can put things on there for other people to see. Let’s just quickly look at my facebook page. You would have to be my friend to view my page. And if anyone wants to be my friend just ask me. I do not often friend request members of the church, I let you request me because I don’t want you to feel like you have to be my friend. If you feel your pastor is getting too close to you that way I understand.
You can see my general info on the left, I am married to Helen Thornton Parks. My birthday date, current city. If you go down the side you can see I have 451 friends currently and some other information. The main piece is called your wall. That is where you can write comments or others can write comments. You can post videos and those kind of things you like.
You can click on the info tab and see more information than you probably wanted to know about me. My schooling and those kinds of things.
Next is the photo tab, which is my favorite. I can put up pictures here and my friends all over the world can see them. I can show off my beautiful wife and my cute kids.
There are a few more tabs and you can add more tabs with different things. There is more you can do, but I think that is enough. As you can see, my facebook page is basically a website where I can share about myself. Then I can also go to other people’s facebook and see what they want to share with me. I can check in on my in-laws in Tennessee. I can see what my high school or college classmates are doing today.
I enjoy being able to keep in contact with people. Even if I do not see them face to face for years I still can be connected to them and see their virtual face on facebook.
This website being my virtual face is what connected facebook to our faith for me. In the passage I read from 2 Corinthians 3 and 4 there are two faces mentioned. At the end of the passage we are reminded that we see the face of God in the face of Christ. When we look at the life of Jesus Christ we see how God lived as a human. Jesus was our example of what our life should look like to reflect God’s presence in our life. Whenever we wonder what God would want us to do in a given situation we can look at the face of Christ. We can think about how Jesus lived his life. Then we can move in the direction we think Jesus would have moved.
In Jesus’ time he traveled from city to city sharing his message of God’s love and grace. He shared with people face to face. That was the cultural norm of his time. Other teachers did the same thing. Other teachers had disciples they taught as well. Jesus used the traditions of their day to reach and teach people.
If Jesus had lived in the time of radio, I believe he would have used radio. If he had lived with television, he would have used television. Now with the internet, Jesus would use the internet to spread his message. As I say that, remember the tool being used is not the important thing, spreading the message is the important thing. It does not matter if you use new and improved methods or media. The important thing is the message is shared.
Since the goal of facebook is to share and connect with the people in our lives, it is the perfect place to share and connect people to Jesus. However, again, you do not have to share and connect through facebook. We just need to remember however we share and connect, whether that is on the phone, through letters, face to face, however we share and connect we need to share the message of God’s love and grace.
Back to the scripture, the first verse I read talked about us having unveiled faces that reflect the Lord’s glory. So think about a veiled face. What does a veiled face look like? Well, we do not really know what the face looks like. If a face is veiled, it is covered. The purpose of a veil is to protect or cover the face. If a face is unveiled you can see the face clearly.
See I think we can be people who veil our faces often. We put on a good face. We want people to think we have it together. When we are sad we hide the hurt or the pain. We do not want to show weakness. Or we want to be liked, so we pretend to enjoy doing what others do just to fit in. We worry about being open and unveiled.
Facebook can be an easy place to put on a good face. It is an easy place because it is disconnected from us. We only put out there what we want. We can choose what face will be put on facebook. So we could easily put on that false face.
Or we could decide to unveil our faces. We can be real with one another, but more importantly we can be real and transform our face into the likeness of Christ. We can be aware of the face others will see and decide it will be a face that reflects God’s love and grace instead of face that complains or mocks people or is selfish. We all put on those faces from time to time, but God wants us to put on the face of Christ.
Over these next several weeks we will focus in on how to put the face of Christ before us. We will use facebook to remind us our face, whether our real face or our virtual face, needs to reflect the Lord’s glory. We can use new and improved technology, but that is not the real point. The real point is a new and improved you. It is your face that needs to reflect the Lord’s glory for all the world to see.
