Being intentional about our online lives

As part of my preparation for my book on strategic online ministry, I am working my way through some of the latest books and other materials on the topic. As I review these for myself, I will also share my thoughts about them on this blog.

When I first started reading The Church of Facebook by Jesse Rice, I was a bit cynical. The title seemed a bit corny and so many people have said so many things about Facebook already that there couldn’t be anything new to say. Besides, any book written about a specific technology is going to be outdated a year after it was published, and since this was published in 2009, I figured it was already going to be out of date. But, as I began working my way through the book, I was pleasantly surprised in many ways by this book and would recommended for reasons having nothing to do with finding out about Facebook or online ministry.

The book begins with a quick history on the rise of Facebook, in which the author compares the impact that Facebook has had to other technological breakthroughs in modern history. I did find it a bit hard to buy the comparison of Facebook’s impact to that of air conditioning or London’s Millennium Bridge. The discussions of how quickly Facebook’s popularity rose and the founder’s plans for the future can be found in many places. But for the uninitiated, it provides a good background on the popular social networking tool.

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Tags: church of facebook, facebook, jesse rice