This is a guest post written by Todd Lemieux. Todd has been involved in youth ministry for over ten years. Recently, he founded The Sainthood Project and The Sainthood Challenge as a way for people to come together to change the world. He and and his wife Dominique have been married for six years and currently live on Long Island with their daughters Gianna and Gabriella.
Why New Media Will Make You Holier
For all of the attention New Media is getting, I don’t see very many articles that are espousing the virtues of things like Facebook, Tumblr, and Twitter.
What I see a lot of is how they are going to corrupt the world. How we will have too much access to each other and with that type of transparency and access, it is only going to lead to a gravitational pull downwards as we lose our grip on morality.
Hogwash.
I’m here to say that the internet has actually led me closer to Jesus. This is why:
- Someone is watching. One of the biggest problems with sin is we think we can get away with it, that no one is watching. You seldom see people do things when others are watching unless they want the other people to see what they are doing. I have had multiple incidents in the last year where someone has written me or challenged me that my behavior may not be moving me towards sainthood. Voila! Ingrained accountability! Of course, this assumes that you are moving from bad to good to better to best when it comes to the spiritual life and moral virtue. If you have not made a statement that you wish to do so, then your scandalous behavior that you exhibit is only a cheap thrill for others who may laugh at you. So be better. Someone is watching.
- Exposure to information. I have never seen a time when I have less of an excuse to know what is going on in the Church or what the Church teaches as revealed by God. Readings for the day? The Catechism? The Conference of Bishops? The Vatican? Catholic news? Moral teaching? Prayers? We are nearing a point when a degree is almost pointless since most anyone can get any piece of information that they want within seconds ON THEIR PHONE! Think about the statement you just read. 2000 years of Church history and documents on your phone. We no longer have the excuse to say “I didn’t know!”
- Prayer. Prayer intentions are passed around at an amazingly fast rate. I saw this with my kidney donation. The power of prayer is exponentially increased by the access to prayer intentions. That being said, please pray for a young child under the age of two who was beaten and is in a coma.
- The Darkness meets the Light. If someone is struggling, I haven’t seen a more supportive group of people then the ones on social media. They don’t even have to be Catholic. Or Christian. I posted a while back that I was struggling. The outpouring of support was tremendous.
- Questions get answered. Have a question that you need answered about the faith? I don’t think you could have that question on Twitter for more than one minute without an answer. That’s impressive to me.
- I know what’s going on. News. Events. The plain and simple fact is that I know what is going on. I work for a parish part time and they are going to be getting a dose of new media in the coming year. Every event in the parish on Facebook and Twitter. You are literally able to reach your entire “flock” in seconds. Emergency announcements, the entire deal. If there is a Bible study… I’ll find it.
The point, in the end, is this. The choice to have a better prayer life, the choice to turn our will to God is up to us. The choice to have a better experience on the internet with new media is up to us as well. We can either decide to lie to others, be crass, and in general bring down the quality of the relationships we have via new media, or we can use it to build each other up.
It is the same decision we have to make in our everyday life.
If you are involved in ministry and you are not engaging the media to bring Christ to those around you, then not only are you missing out, but so are the people you serve.
Make the choice today to be better than yesterday. Not just in your life, but in your digital life as well.
