I didn't jump on the blog-wagon until I figured out how to have complete control over the design and feel of my blog. I don't know why that is so important to me, but I need to like the feel of my personal space before I interact with someone else in it.

I guess the main reason I haven't gotten involved in MySpace and other platforms and communities is because I don't like the fact that it is limited in design features and so bloated like you said. I go to a myspace page and immediately sigh becuase there is so much clutter. I hate clutter.

So, I guess that totally doesn't relate to the post but it is my take on this whole thing.

...besides, I work hard enough trying to achieve community off the web that I don't have any desire to waste needed resources by applying my time on the web. hmmmm...

I agree with your bottom line: Myspace is another tool that the church can use. We can either avoid it altogether or look for ways to use it for good.

People (mainly students) are becoming comfortable with Myspace, and it is becoming an integral part of their daily lives.

Now I wonder how we should use Myspace to accomplish our mission, and should we reevaluate church websites in light of Myspace's popularity?

Oh yay Christian versions of myspace. Now I can keep living in my Christian bubble and never have any involvement or influence in the outside world. Woopee.

I completely agree, s. zeilenga. I didn't get MySpace at first either. I still don't really get it. But I do know that the kids in my youth group do get it. I don't think they see a difference between community created online and community created offline.

Sometimes it's not about us.

When talking to people about myspace - I warn them that there is innapropriate content there, but I believe it is another opportunity for us to be a light in a dark place.

I use it to interact with many of the kids from the multiple youth groups and campus groups I am involved with. I have one for myself, my band, and my youth group.

I have had many great conversations with youth. I have been able to interact with them about their problems through their blogs. Plus I get "cool points" for being on myspace.

On a personal level, I have regained contact with multiple friends from high school and even one of my best friends who because of "issues" would not talk to me for three years.

I have had a lot of good come out of my myspace usage.

As for the christian alternatives, they don't compare. I have a mypraize account and haven't checked it for over a month. (reminds me that I should)

We are going to start marketing the church through myspace very soon - it works well with 20somethings crowd.

Thanks for posting an honest, hype-less article on myspace.

Just a suggestion that freewebs is another good place for churches to connect. There are something like 100k churches signed up on the service, which also provides social networking tools.

I got a myspace account first to see if my teenager was on, and to see what all the hype was about.

Next I started thinking about how to use it. Start posting snippets of my church renewal book (in progress). Start interacting with sites of others saying interesting things.

But I think you've already stated the most important factor - if you're going to catch any "fish" you've got to go where they are and throw out some bait. Witnessing to the saved ain't gonna win the world.

Perhaps even more important than people connecting with the church itself (i.e., having the church's profile on the friends list and maybe interacting with a member of the staff) is the fact that others from the church are connecting with each other.

From the church's standpoint it's not easy. Maintaining virtual communities, be it through MySpace or online bulletin boards, requires a great deal of time and patience - especially in the early phases when few people are part of that community. Because relationships are the currency of community it's no surprise a great deal of effort must be made to build an active member base.

You make a good point, Cameron. At least for me I think it's worked best at connecting people within the church. Perhaps a church profile would just help link members of the church, but the community really develops when the individuals connect amongst themselves, not just the church and an individual.

I was a youth pastor for about 14 years before we planted this church (not always as an "official pastor").

Anyway...

I've gotten onto MySpace to reconnect with all my old "youth kids" who are on there. (They range from the ages of still being in High School to Mid-late 20's.)

It's been a really cool way to reconnect with them!

I also use it as a way to encourage those who aren't a part of a church right now to hang with us.

I almost always "post a bulletin" to my friends when I upload the most recent sermon online.

I also use it as a way to enter their network of friends by posting comments and I always leave my name with a tag line/link "The Power Of Yes & No", which leads to a sermon they can read.

MySpace definitely has a lot of junk on there and you do have to guard yourself from where you go and what you see, but I'll keep using it to try and reconnect and gather more people to be with our church.

You can see my plain, ugly MySpace here

Here's one way "big church" is catching up. There are probably thousands of youth ministry pages on myspace. If you want to reach teens, then what better way?

There is new Christian site just like myspace that I rather be in,I rather be in a Christian Enviroment.It just opened in match, yourchristianspace.It has diff faiths so its still a good way to witness but in a way better enviroment than myspace.And in all honesty,I think our pastors would rather know we were in a better place.

MySpace is not a place for churches or it's members. I would recommend a new service that allows you to create private networks with complete control and interaction at: http://onmycity.com

I like the YourChristianSpace.com that Paul said, i visited the site and i have to say that i will stay in an enviroment full of christians and not in MySpace that is full of pornographi....THank
Take a look
www.yourchristianspace.com

I use MySpace. I agree with this article. MySpace is Cluttered and it took effort to reduce the clutter on my page there.

MySpace is an awsome witnessing ground. We are in the world just not of the world. make a difference in the world without becoming a part of it. Way of the Master understands this concept and is among the many ministries found on MySpace.

There are pornographic images on MySpace but I am beginning to file complaints against them. I am not sure how this will work out but pornographic and offencive material is against MySpace terms of use policy. We can clean it up.

make your voice heard.

If you’re not looking for a MySpace but instead a community tool to add to your web site – look into www.redtoucan.com - recently launched they offer private communities and is clean and un-cluttered. They have a white label offering http://whitelabel.rectoucan.com to make it look like your own site among other features.

I just dont't get how people can think that we can change the world without having our hands in it. Ministering, building bridges, being all that Christ has called us to be.

Myspace is where they are at and Christians should be there to influence.

Our church is there, still developing its myspace but still there.

www.myspace.com/lifecitychurch

Personally I do not have any problems with myspace. I have been on there since almost the day it started a few years ago and have not had any problems. It is like the rest of the internet, you get what you are looking for. I just designed a social networking site similar to myspace for my church and we are starting to test it out. It is not a replacement for myspace but a separate place for people involved with our church to have more interaction regardless of time or space. All to often there isn’t enough time on Sunday morning to talk and share with everyone you would like. That is why we started http://www.comunityw.com
Just my thoughts,
-davey

I agree with Guille, however, I still feel some Christians do not feel comfortable with the contents on site like mySpace, Friendster etc. That is why my husband and I launch 2 Christians sites: one for teens and another for adults:

Please check them out:

www.coolteens4Christ.com
and
www.ChristianSpace360.com

Please let us know what you think. May the Lord bless you.

I use a great christian networking site to promote my website http://www.alwaysrememberyou.com It is a site to honor a loved one with FREE Online Memorial Websites. You may upload pictures, suggest memorial music, share memories, and establish a memorial donation center. This website is personally moderated to avoid the problems of many other web 2.0 websites. Virtual memorials are totally free from AlwaysRememberYou.com!

I agree that a church should use EVERY option to minister. I think increasing the power within is important too and making sure the 'team' is working together. One cool feature of the OCC.

http://demo.oikosconsole.com

another tool in the list.....

I don't agree with this article for many reasons. First, this article uses bad logic and contradicts itself in the first paragraph. What is the main problem men face today? A problem with pornography. Myspace.com is full of those types of images and ads. The church should be a safe place, a place to refresh, support and encourage you. The church should not be a portal to temptation. Connecting the church to Myspace.com is offering a way for those who are struggling, with the problem of pornography, to stumble. There should never be a link from the church's website to a site such as Myspace.com. The goal is to bring people in, not lead them out. Should we reach people where they are? Yes, of course. But there are other ways to do that. Jesus said go and make disciples, Not wait for someone to come by your site/house and try to connect with them. If you want to use this site singly, then that is your choice. I am not saying that nobody should use this site to try to bring people to Christ, even though I don't think that is what He intended. I am saying that the church should not be connected. I know what you are going to say. "Be the salt and the light and try to fix myspace.com reach them where they are online." That is actually a pretty good argument. The only problem is that writing over the internet is very impersonal and can cause many misunderstandings. Another problem is that the church as a whole should not be moved around the country to different peoples computers and what not. We should. We are God's tools and we are relying on the internet to do the work. Only the internet is taking down more of us than we are getting from it. Meaning more people are falling/stumbling because of the internet than people that come to Christ. While I don't have any numbers or proof like we all wish, I do know that ~90% of males in church have a problem with pornography and the internet is one of the leading tools for Satan to cause us to stumble. If 90% of half of our population at the church is falling, than the church should be working on building them up. When we are not getting built up we should be the salt and the light and go and make disciples.
If you have any questions or statements please e-mail me at meriktheblerick@yahoo.com
Thank you.

This is a great alternative to myspace. www.24hrchristianspace.com

This is a great alternative to myspace. www.24hrchristianspace.com

Myspace is a gate. It is a point of entry int a city called - our Generation. 40% of myspace users are young adults (18-35). Politivcians are connecting with them, hollywood is connecting with them, pornography is connecting with them. WHERE is the KINGDOM of God.

I believe we need to stop hiding from the world and begin to take an offensive approach to reach our generation. We are IN the world but not OF the world because we were made to CONQUER the world. We are CHILDREN of God and therefore we must establish the kingdom of our heavenly father.

Myspace is perhaps one of the most accessible platforms for evangelism and discipleship. It is such a powerful tool if we are align to the kingdom and our relationship is right with God , believeme, we can reach everyone of those 80,000,000 young adults.

70% of the pastoral care we give at our church is done through myspace... We've gotten all our young adults involved (all 500 of them), since we began using myspace we have witnessed consistent growth in our services, and the results, the testimonies we are getting from people are incredible.

A couple of weeks ago a girl on the virge of committing suicide was contacted by our pastor through myspace, (He didn't know what she was going through) but sent her a word fromg God now that girl is serving as one of our home group leaders.

I just want to encourage you to go forth and conquer our generation on myspace because if we don't do it somebody else will.

GBU

I think it's good to have a presence anywhere you can. But it also depends on what your church is wanting to do. Do they want to world wide or just keep it local? There's really no reason to try and do a social networking page if the church is concentrating on just local ministry.

That is a very interesting fact, but it is all true.

Don't even try signing up for Christianster. That site is full of people who are so full of themselves. Don't even bother arguing with them because they're nothing but close-minded, controlling freaks. That site should be called Devilster.

I was on myspace for quite some time, and personally I think it was more or less a distraction from the real world. Not to mention that it brought alot of unwanted drama my way. It may not be the same for everyone, but I felt like Myspace got in the way of my real life...took up way too much time, and got kind of addicting. Ok very addicting. I think it can be a tool for good, especially for musicians, but personally I stay away. I would like the Christian sites if they were easier to use and had all the cool stuff my space had. Witnessing is important, but sometimes I just want to mingle with like minded people and get away from the world...But thats just me.

yes, nehemiah is right. Christianter is a huge mess. the people there are amazingly horrible and extremists. they'yre hopeless fools.