Facebook- the new "marketplace"

In the New Testament times, and in fact right through until modern times, if you wanted to get some ideas going, or meet some mates for the equivalent of a cup of coffee, the way to do it was to go to the market place. There you could not only buy fresh food (there wasn't any other kind), you could meet people and shout out your message to all who would hear.

The market place was the focal point for a community.

In our increasingly scattered society, there aren't too many focal points any more. People pursue their own activities, their own interests, preferably in the comfort of home. Yes, people do go shopping and the main street is still a great place to catch friends. But increasingly the main street is somewhere you go to get your stuff on the way to getting the next job done, rather than a place where you go with an expectation of spending time just talking to people.

A few weeks ago I started a facebook page just for a vague idea that it might be useful, but not with any great intention. I must confess that a lot of it at first seemed very odd, even surreal- especially when I started getting messages that people were buying and selling me and that I was now owned by someone I had never even heard of.

Then this week I received from another list a link to an ebook called "Facebook For Pastors." Download it here. In this short (31 pages) Chris Forbes opens your eyes to the potential of this medium to allow people to connect and interact in all sorts of ways.

The beauty of Facebook is that it's a closed community, making it "safe", but also incredibly open. For example, you can put an enormous amount of information up there and only people you designate as friends are able to see it. But on the other hand facebook provides a huge number of tools for people to connect with each other. For example, you can list your school, interests, activities, favourite bokos and music. You can then connect to other people with the same interests or from your school. You can ask those people to be your friend and start communicating with each other.

Facebook also puts up names of people who are friends of your friends, in the reasonable expectation that you might have friends in common or share interests, so you can contact people this way. You can upload your entire email address book and facebook will sort through which of those email addresses are already on facebook and ask if you want to contact those people.

You can also do silly things like sending cupcakes or hugs to people, or quizzes to match you up to a Disney character or dance style.

And on it goes!

As an example of the power of this medium, today I was contacted by two women I knew at school. One is a christian and goes to Hillsong Church and the other seems to be into the new age stuff. So I've renewed some old friendships, talked aobut church styles and have a possibility of sharing some love into a hurting life.

I've also joined some special interest groups, including a couple of Narrabri groups.

What a brilliant opportunity this all affords for sharing the gospel! You don't have to be obnoxious about it. You don't have to sell the message. But it's just another way of developing relationships with people who wouldn't normally come to church- just like so many of the other things I do!

Now I have to go and help Margaret re-organise her pram storage so we can put away our "baby shop" and turn it into a church!