Joe, you kind of have an opinion on this one don't you!?! ;^) 

Completely and wholeheartedly agree. MyChurch is different.  As it evolves it should continue to be a light that shines differently than all the rest.

Totally with you, Joe !

Unfortunately 'labels' are something of 'a necessary evil', so to speak.  They're convenient handles to help people grasp a concept easily... so we use known labels... like MySpace... because people know what that is.

But your (our) problem is no different than any church's problem... 'church' is the label... but it's not a clear indicator of whether in fact it's REALLY 'the Church'... or not.

It appears to me that the difference between a Christian ghetto and MyChurch...  is the difference between 'Cheers' and a lockerroom.

Either the Church is a replicating team on a mission... the Great Commission... or it's not the Church.

Maybe add a tagline like... "MyChurch = MySpace on a Mission"

Joe, I don't think we will ever do anything for the Lord and not have spiritual warfare to some degree.  Or to put it another way, there is no way you are all going to be able to please all the people 100% of the time.  But as for the rest of us (ie: the majority :)  we love what you guys (and gals) are doing!  We think your the best!  I said last night "Whatever I was doing before MyChurch wasn't anywhere near as fun!"  Keep up the great work!  God be praise!

Here's a great blog on this top...focus on the 90%

http://www.mychurch.org/blog/11938/10

Joe,

Just had to comment. I enjoy mychurch very much and the one thing I like is that I am getting to meet and fellowship brothers and sisters all over the place that I didnt know about. I may have never met them any other way. Yes we need to be salt and light to this world but we also need each other. 

Joe,

I love this site !!! I don;t even want to be compared to MySpace!!! talk about a ghetto! I only go there to know how to pray for my kids!

Anyway!!! I love this place !!!

Dennis

Sue, Do you think there is a youth pastor who doesn't know that? Please, step away from the large reptile!

I have never spent anytime on there except to look at Chris Tomlin's site. As Joe educates me on social networking, I really enjoy this site.

What a unique ministry that the MyChurch team has. God bless and I pray He keeps His hand on you all...

YPC, it was just a joke to twist the title to put MyChurch on top :)  I hope you were just kidding??

May I ask how the name came about?  I recently ranted on labels (and actually used the phrase Christian mySpace), but I have to say I thought the idea was to clone what was successful.  I have spent very little time on mySpace, but from what I have seen there are a bunch of similarities in functionality with myChurch.  And the name is a very unfortunate choice if you are not trying to appear as a clone.

Don't take this as saying that a clone is a bad thing, but I'm not sure I understand how there is surprise in the comparisons. 

Joe,

I think that MyChurch.org is the best Christian site that has ever been developed.  Not only does it link Christians together, but it allows us the opportunity to show who we are through our blogs, our pictures, etc.  It also allows us to speak what is on our hearts.  Some may joke around on blogs and some may write the deepest thoughts of thier existence; either way God can use it to change lives and to encourage one another.  Isn't that what being a Christian is about?  To go out and to change the world by sharing the love of Christ?  To go out and to be an encouragement to a fellow brother or sister in Christ?  What you are doing here is capturing the aspect of today's generation and putting the essence of Christ in it.  I respect that and I support that.  Remember that no matter what people say...God's opinion should be the only one that matters.  

Keep up the good fight.  That goes for everyone out there.

~Jeremy~ 

I love the concept of MyChurch, that's why I brought my church here! We are a church on the move, literally--in the throws of radical and wonderful  change. As our building disappears, MyChurch is a place that will help us continue to be the cohesive family that we are now while we are replanted to a new location. 

The unexpected benefit of course, has been some of the wonderful people that hang out here and the great blogging! This definitely is very different from MySpace, and I love it!

After rereading the links I need to follow up on this.

As I say, I don't mySpace.  I don't have time.  I view this site as a tool (and one I appreciate enough to visit mostly every day).  Whether this is a mySpace clone or not I don't care (other than to feel it's silly to argue it's not).  This is where my church family comes.  Sometimes I do think we try to get a little too cute and we create our own seperation from the world.  But I think sometimes we need it as well.  Way too often people think they can go out in the world day after day and not be susceptible to anything.

Hbr 10:25

Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some [is]; but exhorting [one another]: and so much the more, as ye see the day approaching.

Sue,

You havent heard of "Christina ghetto"?.

Joe

It doesn't matter what they call us. They also called Jesus a friend of sinners. You must be doing something right to have people in such an uproar.

I love your evite example Pastor Pete :)  I remember you told me about it when we first chatted a few months ago.

We'll have to be a little careful here too with ads though.  We cannot preview all the ads that get shown unfortunately.  And while we put in filters and insist that the ad networks give us family-friendly content, we may get a couple bad apples that sneak through.

But the community has been awesome in pointing out questionable content immediately.

Keith,

First off, welcome to MyChurch.org.   Glad to see that you syndicated your Wordpress feed onto your MyChurch profile.

What I question is that non-Christians are going to come in large numbers to sites that obviously are geared to a Christian audience. It’s the same reason, the unsaved aren’t standing in line at the doors of our churches like they do at the mall at 5:00 a.m. on "Black Friday." We have to "go into all the world" with gospel, because it’s unlikely they will come to us to hear the truth.

I don't disagree with you.  MyChurch.org is not primarily a site for outreach.  Converting non-believers is not our primary objective.

I stand behind my analogy of a church building.  Do you avoid going to church on Sunday morning since the unsaved are at the malls at 5am?  (Ironically, I've written about this mall-church analogy before)

The concern is completely valid - living missionally means meeting the unsaved on their turf.  No intelligent person can argue against that.  But I disagree passionately if that concern is spun into a strawman to discount the value of a church community itself.  Whether that church is online or offline is irrelevant to me (and the online versus offline distinction will get more and more blurry to us all)

We didn't have this issue 5 years ago - there was no such thing as a web church community.  Moving forward, the question becomes increasingly relevant.  Is an online church community defocusing our Christian calls to lead missional lives? 

As a technologist, I happen to view this question through the same lens as I would view a brick-and-mortar church.  I would argue that church community is needed to empower its members to be missional and evangelical in the first place.

Let me stop there for now.  I strongly believe that Web 2.0 exponentially empowers this scenario - the good news can travel faster and farther than it ever has in history.  But to make that argument, I need to affirm my position that a "base" is needed.  

I also want to make 2 assumptions moving forward:

1) The walled garden is dead.  Independent websites that didn't talk to anyone else may have worked in Web 1.0.  They are dying in Web 2.0.  And they will be extinct in Web 3.0.  Widgets, RSS, API's are killing walled gardens

2) People will be on more than one social networking site.  Stats of 18-21 year olds already show this.  And the trend will continue. 

Joe,

Thanks for the link, though I'm not sure if you meant to link to our blog with the text "Christian Ghetto," as that was a phrase Keith used in his post and not one I used in mine.  However, I don't really mind.  

I have created a MyChurch profile so that I may participate in this discussion, which I think is as fascinating as it is important.  

Our blog is for our youth group as a whole.  I'm a volunteer, and I teach the Senior High Sunday School class (facilitate, really, as it's more discussion than lecture).  We threw out the curriculum months ago in favor of what we call The Quadrilateral Class.  We purposely confront "grey area" issues...tough issues where Christians can be found on either side of the debate... and then we just discuss.  Using Wesley's advice, we take our experience, tradition, reason, and Scripture and analyze the topic from those perspectives.

Hopefully we're encouraging critical thinking--at least, that's the goal.  I hope you could tell from my post that I was neither bashing MyChurch nor supporting it...but rather merely pointing it out as something that not all Christians agree on.  I have to try very hard to keep my own opinions on issues in check, so that I can help foster an atmosphere that allows the youth to make up their own minds.

However, that being said, I do have some strong opinions on this topic (both in regard to MyChurch specifically, and in regard to "Christianizing secular trends" in general).  I'm not out to stir up conflict or controversey.  Instead, much like our Sunday School class does, I'm merely sharing my opinions and participating in discussion in the hopes of learning and growing more as a Christian.  

-I think clearly you guys here are filling a need for many people, and I see a lot of benefits to the members of this site...for sure.  

-However, why does a Christian network need to be on a completely separate website from MySpace or Facebook?  I mean, I understand what everyone here is saying about refueling and fellowship and support... I totally understand why Christian networks are important... but I don't understand why an existing social network doesn't work.  The only thing I can think of is content…that maybe Christians want a social network free of offensive content.  And while I understand that sentiment…it’s unrealistic.  How does one universally define “offensive?”  Sometimes it seems that we Christians are really way too worried about being offended by the world we’re supposed to be reaching.  The world is a scary, yucky, often-very-awful place…which is exactly why it could use a little more Jesus. 

-I don’t have issues with MyChurch nearly as much as I do with other sites like GodTube (blatant rip-off of user interface, concept, tag line, logo, etc.).  I do wonder why you guys chose “my” as part of the name.  Seems obvious that MyChurch was hoping to capitalize on the similarities in name to MySpace. 

Unoriginality tends to bother me.  Flat-out copyright infringement bothers me even more (again, not talking about MyChurch with this as much as the other sites).  It just feels like so much of Christian culture takes its cues from the secular world.  Music, movies, games, websites, t-shirts, etc….we tend to wait for the world to tell us what’s cool before then adopting it and making it about God.  Where are the Christian innovators?  Where are the Christian creatives and inventors? 

Do we not realize that the world sees this?  Do we not realize that our reputation as Christians is not completely positive?  Just read the comments on the Techcrunch post about GodTube to see what “the world” has to say about our originality. 

-On the whole, I have no problem with Christian social networks.  I just don’t know why we have to separate ourselves so much from the very people we’re supposed to be actively loving. 

-But the greater topic of Christians mimicking what has proven to work or be popular in the secular landscape is really troubling to me on the whole.  It shows a lack of creativity.  It shows a lack of excellence, I think, in our efforts.  It’s like we’re Weird Al Yankovich or something.  Our best material is derivative of something someone else did first.  Makes me sad.  I think God’s people are capable of innovating new ideas and concepts…leading the way. 

-I respect what you guys are trying to do, even while I continue to learn more about it.  Seems to clearly be helping a lot of people, and that’s probably the bottom line.  But the fact that there seem to be hundreds of “Christian MySpace” clones out there is strange to me.  How deep do we drill on the niches of social networks?  Is denomination-specific social networking next (catholicspace.com? unitedmethodistspace.com?)?  Or how about districts or regions within a denomination?  Or individual churches?  At what point have we drilled down into the niche so far that we’re just back to everyone having their own websites again?  Social networks would seem to be better off when we allow discussion/dialogue/interaction with opposing and new points of view. 

But I’m joining the debate late in the game.  Am happy enough just to see that the discussion is going on in many places.  Thanks for the invitation to participate. 

-Jeremy

Dennis-Yeah, I hear you.  I don't mean to say that MyChurch (and others like it) have no business existing.  They certainly do.  They serve a purpose and fill a need.  I'm not trying to say that MyChurch should shut down and all its users should go back to MySpace and deal with the garbage. 

Trying to boil down my issues with "Christian versions of MySpace" leaves me with these points:

1.They're not terribly necessary.  There are tons of them, so the "Christian MySpace" market is flooded.  They network Christians with other Christians, when MySpace and Facebook do that just fine.  I think it's naive to think that just because MyChurch is a Christian site that everyone on it is pure and honest and has the best intentions. 

This is not a spiritual issue, but just one of logic.  I can find other Christians pretty easily on MySpace, and can do so without running into sketchy content. 

Same with GodTube.  I haven't seen any YouTube videos containing questionable content that I did not purposely click to watch.  Having a Christian video site does not prevent young Christians from going to YouTube for the questionable content.   Nor does it guarantee that there will never be bad content on GodTube (it has to be moderated and flagged before being removed, last I checked).

Neither YouTube nor MySpace are content providers.  They are merely tools.  They are what their users make them.  And anyone can sign up for a MyChurch or GodTube account and then post objectionable material.  Sure, we'll flag them and have it removed (as YouTube and MySpace do in many cases), but we're not really any safer from the bad content just because our site is religious. 

-They're not terribly original.  Some of these sites use wording or graphics or web design that is just short of a robbery, a copy of something else, and I hardly see that as an action that honors God (again, not specifically targeting MyChurch in this line of attack, though the name of MyChurch is clearly designed to play off of MySpace.  MyChurch's logo, user interface, and layout all differ greatly from MySpace). 

-I think Christians have a real image problem in the world today, and I think it's really dangerous to simply say "well, Jesus was hated too," and use that as our justification.  The world notices every time we take an idea and copy it or parrot it.  Why do we want to do anything that encourages this notion? 

It feels, in many respects, like we are just creating yet another exclusive club for us to hang out in where none of the bad people will spoil it for us.  I think the world sees Christians as having an attitude that we're better than non-believers (whether that's fair or not) and I don't think it aids that perception to basically say "your video-sharing site is too sinful for us...so we're going to go create our own." 

My misgivings are not that sites like this exist.  I applaud them.  They're trying to create something positive.  I'm speaking more to the overall themes...the attitudes...the big picture.  I don't have a problem with any one site or any one instance of some secular thing being Christianized.  What I have an issue with is how prevalent this is... how widespread this is... the overall global attitude of Christians that seem to think we need our own version of anything and everything out there. 

I could be entirely wrong here.  It's just my opinion.  I don't "get it."  I wish no ill will toward those who "get it" and love it.  

I can understand the copying argument, however the rest of the argument falls flat.

How long have bulletin boards been around?  Do you have a problem with bulletin boards directed at a specific group?  A targeted tool is hardly a bad thing.  Many times I've been told why don't you go away on other boards (too much salt or too little tact, I'm not going to argue which).   I do tend to be a bit quieter there, because typically discussing these items where I'm so far away from what others believe doesn't allow for great conversation.

And no it doesn't mean that objectionable content will never be shown and what is objectionable may be argued (just like everywhere else).  But at least we all have the same basis for Truth to make our decisions.  You seem to agree in your second to last paragraph

Pastor Andy,

Welcome!  And thanks for joining the conversation.  I wanted to link to your blog, but now I can't find your post for some reason (Technorati and Google blog search have been a littly flaky recently).  I was going to also invite you to add your RSS feed to your profile so that you can mirror your writing over here if you'd like.

Anyway, back on-topic... I certainly did not view your post as an insult.  I found it funny.  And if I can't laugh at it, then I can only conclude that my ego or a business plan is driving this project.  

Your church gathering at an internet coffee shop sounds awesome.  Your reasoning for pursuing the road less travelled makes complete sense to me.  Coming from Berkeley, Ca, the "unusual duck" of a church service is actually what the rest of the country would consider traditional and stale.  I highly respect purposeful acts of missional living.  And I know this does not mean missionary work in the traditional evangelical sense.  Nor does it mean standing on the street corner shouting out Bible verses...

I recently met Mark Scanrette and heard about his "Jesus Dojo" - now that is some creative thinking/living! :)  There is a desperate need in this world to engage God where He is, not where we want Him to be. - very well said... I don't disagree.

So I understand the skepticism and cynicism that folks might have with our name or our concept.  But I invite the critics to look and judge beyond the book cover. 

Our goal is not to "attract" Christians away from Myspace or Facebook.  In fact, we are working with the new Facebook platform to provide content to Facebook users (example).  I would be doing a disservice to the Kingdom if we took folks away from the mission field... Instead, we want to empower them.  Strengthen their base.  Get them more engaged with their church community.  Then enable them to go out and make disciples of all nations websites

The "My" in MyChurch is an interesting (and valid?) criticism.  What's most interesting to me is that our name wasn't questioned before "GodTube" came along.  Then people starting lumping MyChurch and GodTube in the same bucket as copycats.  To give some additional background, I contacted the owner of church.org in 2005 - he wanted a 5-digit figure for the domain name.  I couldn't afford it and moved on to my next choice of MyChurch.org (for which I paid 4-digits for the domain name).

BTW - we've spent less money developing MyChurch.org to date than what the domain squatter of Church.org wanted just for his URL.  So I am very happy with my decision to go with "second choice" 

Breathing deeply,
joe

Good Blog Joe, I agree wholeheartedly and I wasn't even aware of the mySpace alternatives out there from the list you posted. I do want to check them out but agree as to the nature of myChurch as a community.

It is good to have a home like this on the internet. I had a very early facebook account way before it was on the radar and came late to mySpace. I came to mySpace out of curiosity and have never "gotten" it but maintain a presence. I've never seen myChurch as a mySpace alternative because I instantly like myChurch and have never really gotten what the hooplah is on mySpace. To me it is just so cluttery and busy and pushy.

Again, my hopes on myChurch are that it can stay uncluttered, still allowed for dissidents such as myself, and stay family-friendly.

I've really enjoyed the blogs the last few days on the use of technology for the spread of the gospel and for community. 

(most of the commenters above seem very social networking literate...I only have experience w/MyChurch, and Facebook to a much lesser extent...so I feel fairly ignorant on this topic!)

Yes, so I still profess ignorance concerning MySpace, but it seems to me (from what little I've experienced of it) it is a site where individuals establish a homebase (profile) and from there, meet other individuals w/like interests (hobbies, bands, professions, etc.). My own personal experience w/MyChurch is that it can function very effectively in a similar way, even if it wasn't intended to! The blogging, commenting, messaging, friend request, and prayer functions facilitate community very well here. Recently, of course, some of the tools have changed or gone away that were previously used very effectively to further Christian community online, but new users with different expectations still come and find that same wonderful community feeling.

Joe, you said in your blog, "And MyChurch is trying to foster that community to "be church" online and throughout the week." I've heard other users claim that this site is their "church", since they don't have a local church at all. That sounds a lot like what you are saying in this sentence -- though I suspect you might actually mean something like this: folks within a local church can fellowship and interact w/other folks from their own church throughout the week. (Isn't this the intent of a "tool for churches"?)  Am I understanding you correctly?

Either way, though I believe MyChurch is still a fantastic tool for local churches, I continue to be excited about its potential to foster and facilitate the Church (big "C") as well, which basically translates to a Christian MySpace, with a few extra "Christian" bells and whistles lol.