[CS-FSLUG] Online Communities Healthy? [Was: Is Dittytalk.com Down?]

[edoc7]

> 	Veering way off course here, I'm still trying to figure out the  
> useful benefit of these types of sites. I've visited MySpace a few  
> times -- I think following a link from a recording artist's site, or  
> some such -- but it just didn't look very intriguing to me.
> 
> 	Then again, I'm starting to feel like a crotchety old guy when it  
> comes to Internet stuff. All this new fangeled stuff....
> 
> 	-Tim

A young man, recent college grad, is now a volunteer
member of our youth ministry leadership.  He is also
very troubled by much of the online world.

I dislike the clutter and other visual noise of these
sites but it is what the "Prince of this World" has
led our young people to accept as normative.

Quite frankly it mirrors most of their family life
and other life experiences and all of that clutter
and noise covers his nefarious deceptions.

It is generally a shallow and minimally accountable
context where people may behave badly without consequence.
It does sometimes lead to destructive consequences when
individual members decide to literally act out their
online fantasies.

We need to have a presence as it is a major point of
contact, we need to try to move them off to Dittytalk
or something similar, then to get them connected to
an in-person church-based ministry.

I agree with my young friend that the online world
tends to be socially unhealthy, I do believe that we
would be irresponsible if we fail to bring salt and
light into that dark place.

doc