7 Practical Ways to Ensure You’re Not Using Social Media Like a Weapon

I first became aware of the problem watching my teenager. Drama surfaced in her new High School, and instead of calling or even texting one another, she read through teenagers airing their frustrations to millions, through Twitter.

I questioned it unbelieving.  Thinking, maybe I am not clear…“You mean when teens have a problem with someone in school, they tweet a sentence or two to the universe, indirectly hoping ‘the one in question’ receives it”

Call me old school, but something just seemed off.

“Ya mom.  Not only that, but whole topics and people in gossip, discuss their problems non-nonchalantly through twitter.”

I learned….a stranger might not pick up on the so-called generalizations scrolling through twitter….but most teens within the school knew what everyone was talking about.

Even worse, when two friends had a relationship problems, instead of being mature and talking in person….they resorted to ranting to each other indirectly through Twitter.

Soon after I learned, this tactic was not some secular High School drama regarding the reality and dangers of social media.  This practice takes place daily on Facebook, Twitter, and in Blogging, where people write whole articles, sharing podcasts, or one liners, attacking other people.

Even more disturbing is when the ones using words as weapons…is a Christians.  I mean, aren’t mature Christians above High School games?

I found one of these dialogues the other day.  A Christian pastor who I love and once respected, blasting another believer to climb in “follows” on social media.

At the same time…

• In Africa, Christian’s were getting slaughtered by the hundreds. Rounded up and pined like cattle, then blasted with machine guns. Hundreds died while nobody noticed. 
• A mega-pastor in Florida committed suicide.  Was he a target of this negative social media for what he had done?  
• An American Pastor was imprisoned, beaten and left for dead, behind bars in Iran. Most people failed to noticed, caring more about “follows” than any politics concerning Christian persecution.

Where did our faith go wrong? From fighting for the faith, to finding joy in dissecting and persecuting our own fellow Christians? Isn’t it hard enough to be a believer now days?  I mean, do we really need to shoot each other with our words? 

How does having a civil war within the walls of our global church family, glorify God?

I have been checking my own spirit on this subject lately…after deeply grieving what I witnessed on Twitter.  I came up with seven guardrails to ensure I am not caving to High School pettiness in the social arena:

1. Think before you post.  Most bashing, most passive-aggressiveness comes from words spilling over from a poisonous toxin within our souls…our emotions.
   Need a tip to help?  Don’t post when you are emotional.  Wait, sleep on it. Take a few days before engaging to the world your frustrations with one or any group of people.
2. Write with different eyes.  Sometimes blogging, Facebook, or Twitter can grandulize our own personas.  We can inflate ourselves, while promoting our thoughts, opinions, or ideas.
   So, what if we ask someone else to read what we wrote? Would they see our writing with a different lens?  Might they dissect the truth of what we are expressing?  Don’t we all need that accountability, that editor if you will whether we write one liners, or whole captions about our opinions?  
3. Step back.  Take a few minutes before you press “send”, thinking, “What if I was such and such a person…or a group of people?”  How would I be reading this?  What true, or even false ideas might they conjure up in their heads?  Could I be offending them?  Are my words edifying?  Do they build up, gently?  Could my words be taken as harsh, judgmental, or even self-righteous…even if I didn’t intend for them to be taken that way?
4. Do what you would want others to do to you.  How would I want others to air my flaws?  How would I want to be loved on or corrected?  Would I want millions to know my flaws?  Would I delight in the gentle rebuttal if what I was doing was wrong?  How might I grow from the words I am typing?  Doesn’t scripture tell us, if we have a problem, go to our brother or sister and address a situation privately?  If they don’t listen, bring another with you?  From what I remember, it doesn’t say….skip these steps and go straight to blasting another to millions through social media.
5. Is this iron sharpening iron….or am I unknowingly being passive aggressive?  There is a huge difference between carefully sharpening another, in love….and burning apart the iron all together with the fire of our words.  Fire was meant to soften another, and then with gentle hands, there is a bending, so that we will look like Christ wanted us to.  “Am writing for the world to see out of love?”  
6. Do I have accountability?  Am I the “ruler of my own Kingdom” or are there people my life to stop me from flaunting harsh opinions everywhere?  And although there is a movement now days, where Christians gain “follows” and “hits” and popularity due to their “offensive” behavior…I wonder if that’s what Christ would want us to look like, as people in His image?  Even we need a mirror…don’t we?  Would Christ delight in us condemning other people?
7. Pray. O.k. as I say this, I get it….usually the prayer option is the one people don’t read.  It’s like, “Of course, I know, we are supposed to pray”.  But doesn’t the Bible say, “Our hearts are deceitful above all else?”  And conveniently, we may have placed people that are more like kids in High School, than any real, healthy sounding boards around us.
   So, what if we pray and ask God to show us the true reality of our hearts?
   What if we asked God, what to post and what not to?  For even unintended, kind words can get lost in mis-interpretation if we don’t let God lead our speaking, if we are not careful to have our speech seasoned with grace, and led by His Spirit.

O.K. I am no expert on “kind words”. By nature, I am quite blunt and direct in my dialect.  But God is working on me, and I am sure….will forever be correcting me.  But I do know, I want to grow from glory to glory, ashes to beauty in this area. 

I was once in High School, and have seen the pain unleashed, like ripples on water, when we lash our tongues, and unloose words in frustration….

So why, instead of letting God use this gift of the pen to “build the church”, do we implode from within because of a lack of self-discipline, disobedience, or bloated entitlement thinking “we are the exception to the rule”.

I don’t know about you, but I always want to remember…

Like a lamb to the slaughter, He was silent at His crucifixion.  He didn’t fight back, He didn’t bash those who were persecuting him.  He didn’t call down legions of angels to defend him as He was pierced by those who once admonished him.  He let His flesh die, and in doing so, embraced the resurrected life that awaited him on the other side.

And I want to be like Christ…don’t you?  I want to shed blood if need be.  I want to love my enemies….especially when or if they persecuting me.  And I want to embrace the death of this carnal life, so new life can run through me…

So in this, how about if we weigh our words, love like Christ, and act more mature than the some High Schoolers who use words like weapons they fight with?  How about if we bow our heads, let love pour out, when those around us deserve it least?

I want to, don’t you, look to a world hurting, and instead of using weapons of words, bow my head too…saying like Christ did at His crucifixion, “Lord, forgive them, for they know not what they do”?

(Linking with Faith-filled Friday)