Outreach 2.0...

by Bill Seaver

MySpace or Not?

A few months ago, I had a great conversation about MySpace.com with a church staff member. He told me the youth pastor at his church has his own page on MySpace so he can "be where his kids are." 

For this pastor, MySpace is an excellent way to stay in touch with his students and, more interestingly, creates an opportunity for him to see who and what his kids are into. In fact, the pastor’s time on MySpace spurred some important conversations, both individually and in the youth group setting, as he discovered topics he needed to address—topics he wouldn't have known about otherwise.

I first got to know MySpace last spring as an online community that many bands were joining to promote their music. Over the next few months, the national mainstream media caught wind of the massive numbers of teenagers and young adults on MySpace, resulting in a storm of press about the new phenomenon. The site made news again last summer when Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. bought them out, and in the fall I began to read stories about the "evils" of MySpace, including provocative photos and the threat posed by online predators. This year, I noticed the sentiment was really beginning to take root and become a very simple equation in people's minds: MySpace = bad.

The fact of the matter is, MySpace is neither bad nor good, just like the Internet is neither bad nor good. MySpace is, however, new, very popular and adopted by millions of teens and young adults—the primary demographic is 16-34 years old.  At last count, there were nearly 60 million MySpace profiles, growing at a rate of over 200,000 people a day.

I’m concerned, however, that it’s all too easy for pastors and churches to fall into the trap of thinking MySpace = bad, rather than spend some time on it like the youth pastor I described above, and go where the kids are. I was saddened to hear of one large Christian ministry organization that allegedly decided not to promote a national youth outreach event on MySpace because of its “bad” reputation. When the option was brought up, the organization quickly decided that “going where the kids are” was not worth the potential uproar it might incur by creating an event promotion page on MySpace. 

I can't help but wonder what kind of outreach opportunity was lost here. The very kids this ministry says they hope to reach are the ones on MySpace 10 times a day ... and now these kids may never find out about this potentially life-changing event. MySpace is a perfectly viral medium, but just like this organization, many churches will miss a major ministry opportunity if they are afraid of the medium. I believe MySpace is an evangelistic window that today’s churches simply cannot afford to miss.

As a pastor or church leader, consider the good that can be accomplished on Myspace.com if you’re willing to create a presence there.  I challenge you to consider a new equation if necessary.  Instead of “MySpace = bad,” why don’t you consider “MySpace = neutral.”  I suspect it won’t be long before you recognize that MySpace = good outreach opportunity.

-Outreach magazine, "Web Exclusives," November/December 2006

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