To start things off, I wanted to look at Christianity as a whole and it's use of Facebook. The first thing I did in order to see how Facebook was able to do this was type the word "Christians" in the search bar. Not only did it present me with all of the people, whether I know them or not, who identify with the Christian Religion, but it also gave me a page entitled "Christian" that I could like in order to find and interact with more people like myself who identify as "Christian".
The page gave me a definition of what being a Christian is as well as supplied me with several different groups, people, as well as other related pages that would help me find other people that I could potentially interact with. On top of this, when I like the page entitled "Christian", I enable this page to add several things that affiliated with the christian religion to my news feed. Through this, I was able to find a great resource to find different Christians in my area as well as a place to interact with others who have the same views as me. If I had been a Christian in a new place without the use of Facebook, I guarantee you it would have been a lot more difficult for me to find not only a good church or other place to worship, but it would have also been difficult me to find people in this new place that share the same views and practices that I do.
Although this is a great resource for finding other Christians in the area, it, of course, has some limitations to it. One of the elements of the Christian church that I have always personally enjoyed is the social element. It is always nice to walk into church Sunday morning and see all of your friends their ready to join in worship with you. While this form of communication does identify and bring different people together under one page, there is not much of a social element to it (which is ironic considering it is a social media site). You don't know the people personally, you just know that they are a Christian just like you. This page takes away the ability to build relationships and worship together with others. It is more for those who choose to worship individually.
After viewing this, I have decided to narrow my study on particular churches and how they are playing a part in the Emerging Church Movement. I want to focus on how social media is used to bring its members together as well as inform them on the many different things to expect from the Riverpointe Church. My first church of focus would be the church I attend back home, River Pointe Church of Richmond, Texas.
Something very interesting that they do is they include not only the take away message from the previous sermon, but they also include a podcast so that members are able to tune in a listen to what they have missed.
What's unique about this is that it provides members the opportunity to listen to the service even if they aren't able to go to church that morning. This effects how religion is communicated in the fact that it provides members of the church the opportunity to not go to church that Sunday. Most christian churches say that Sunday is the day for worship, and that includes waking up, dressing nice, and going to the sanctuary for worship with the rest of the christian community. This affects this in that members are not only able to stay in there pajamas and listen to the sermon and worship from home, but they are also able to do so on other days besides Sunday. The christian religion emphasizes putting God and Jesus Christ as their first priority, especially on Sundays, but by providing this podcast on Facebook, members are given the opportunity to put him second to their own needs. While members are still able to capture the take away from the sermon, which I personally think is most important, this form of communicating religion does go against what the bible and traditional practices of Christianity have taught.
Another thing that I have found from looking at the Riverpointe Church Facebook Page was that they provide different quotes, scriptures, and questions for members to reflect on before they go to church on Sunday.
Through this members are able to really reflect on their own lives for a bit before they listen to the full sermon. The limitations to this, though, are that most conventional churches believe you should do as the bible say. What you believe about your own life doesn't matter as much as what God whats for your life. Even so, I think that this provides a way for members to both reflect on how they are living their own life as well as integrate what God and Jesus Christ wants for them. This gives the member the opportunity to accept or not accept God into their life, whereas traditional religions preach that you shouldn't have a choice, and that to get into heaven you must live your life the way God intends. In fact, the word "Sex" would not even be brought up in traditional Christian churches.
