Social Media In The Real World | Pastor Paul McGee & Bro. Alex Mason

For his eternal goodness, Lord Jesus, we thank you for today.

Oh, your forever lovely God, Amen.

Forever lovely Hallelujah. You can return to your seats

tonight. Amen.

Just a little of the next few Wednesdays.

And actually next Wednesday, brother Mason will be here and

he will be speaking to this congregation on that Wednesday

and the Wednesday after that is for the Zach Amen will be here

and speaking on that Wednesday as well.

And also of course, this coming Sunday is Father's Day Sunday

after that, you'll what we just kiddingly call Mason Sunday with

brother Mason, Jerry Mason in the morning, Alex Mason in the

evening. And so we'll have that too going

on. And also in this month, the the

last Friday of this month is a game night and followed by a

Sunday school picnic. Then on that Sunday as well, one

service on that Sunday, Pastor Merrill Weir will be here from

Terre Haute IN which is the secretary of the Indiana

District right now serving in that capacity.

And so he'll be here ministering the word of the Lord on that on

that Sunday morning. And we'll just have one service.

And it's also graduate Sunday for those who are changing

milestones of of education for that Sunday as well.

Amen. And so we are here tonight.

This is a little different format a few months ago or it's

yeah, it's probably been maybe months by now.

That did an interview with my wife on the art of personal

engagement. And then so for tonight, we

chose another topic and with brother Alex Mason, and that is

social media. Social media in the real world,

just by show of hands, how many people are at some level

involved with social media? Keep them up.

Keep them up. I see everybody's hands up

except maybe children. That would not be of age to be

able to be that or do that yet. So we want to talk about social

media in the real world tonight. And I, I asked for the Alex to

come alongside me here this evening.

And I don't know his exact degree.

He has a bachelor's degree and I think it was in the wheelhouse

of social media marketing. And so asked him to come.

And he's not only just been degreed in that, but over the

years he is also managed or helped others in the arena of

social media, even in our district social media, so on and

so forth. And so since just even by the

raising of hands tonight, we've seen just within this small

sector society that everybody to some level has involved.

Anybody remember Myspace days? Yeah.

And so then Myspace, you know, graduated into every space.

There's so many different venues out there of, of social media

that you can just gorge yourself, gorge yourself if if

you downloaded every app there was on social media and try to

keep up and all those, you don't have a life, all right?

You don't have a life. And so with all that being said,

there's influence with that. Here's the fact of the matter

that I know this is not some little niche and it's going

away. It's here to stay.

It's here to stay. It's a part of the warp and the

woof, the fabric now of humanity.

And so with that, as with any new thing that has come

throughout history, we got to learn how to interact with it

and we got to learn how to interact with it on a Christian

standard as well. And so with that being said, I,

I did some searching and, and maybe just as a disclaimer,

Brother Alex and I have not sat down.

This is just a total raw conversation.

All I've seen him is questions I'm going to ask him.

We have not discussed this. We've not sat down like this.

This is totally just from the heel of our, our, our feet.

All right. And so with that being said, I

did a little research. Over 5.07 billion people use

social media worldwide as of 2024.

So that's over 62% of the global population.

Just let that settle in for a moment, folks.

That's that's the the how prevailing.

I guess I should say that this is.

And so since that is the case, and since it is everywhere and

most people do use it and it's just a common aspect for us, the

question that I asked them without tonight is from a

marketing perspective, no doubt social media is a very powerful

tool of influence, but both positively and negatively, what

what makes it so powerful? Why, why, why is there so much

power that's been given to it, whether that be for good or for

bad in in today's. Culture.

I think the biggest thing with today's culture that social

media has such a hold is because it allows people to create a

perception. It perception is very powerful.

First hand impressions when you when you meet someone for the

first time is very powerful. When someone sees you on the

Internet for the first time, you get to gauge what they first see

of you. What do they see when they look

at your feed? I think you know so many

billions of of hours that have been spent on social media.

The reason that it is everyone's space, the reason it is not a

fad anymore is because people like to be able to do depict

something. Most often.

Not everyone in this room maybe, but I'm saying most often people

like to depict something that they want.

Maybe it's not necessarily that what they have.

So many times there have been peoples that, that have been

caught, people that have been influencers that have been

caught red handed out and about or something, not living the

luxurious life that they portray, right?

It's all about perception and they get caught and then they

have to answer for themselves because, you know, they did all

these fancy things because they decided to rent an Airbnb for

like 2 hours, do a bunch of videos, and then then leave the

Airbnb and go back to their, you know, their little hole in the

wall. And so it's, it's something that

I think it is so important in today's culture positively is

because we are able to have such a reach because people are

there, they're present that I always when people talk to me

about social media, there is the world that we presently live in

and there is the virtual world. We have to start looking at it

that way, the all of the different pages, landing pages,

social media platforms, everything.

It is a literal world within itself.

And so we can't, we can't just decide that that's just for the

young kids and everything like that.

And it really, really isn't when you when you go down the line of

so many different people at all age demographics use social

media. And so I think the positivity of

that is that we have a huge reach and and there are great

things. There are people that want to do

good in, in today's culture, but what is it that that the the old

saying is, is that bad news travels faster.

The bad things always travel faster, right?

And and that's just how it goes. That's that's what I think.

It's perspective. Perspective, perspective.

So some, some of what I'm hearing you say is then that

it's very possible for those two worlds that you speak of then

not necessarily be in harmony that that in some respects they

are two different worlds. Yeah, two different worlds.

But the same time you're telling me that that because there is

that other world on a positive side, that if we only live in

this world right here, that, that there may be a segment of

society, even those that may live in that world more than in

this world. I I think that could be a

possibility. Then then we're missing, missing

the opportunity to to connect, to to have a voice, to have an

influence in that life that doesn't necessarily necessarily

maybe interact as much as in the real world.

I don't know what's called the real world, which, which what's

real anymore, but nonetheless the real world and then then the

digital world, at least that's what I'm hearing.

And so when we look at this again, I've got some lead

insurance and stats and most of my things will be leading from

stats here tonight. But the average user, everyone

say average, right? That means there's highs and

there's lows that get to this number, correct?

So the average user scrolls through about 300 feet of

content per day, and that's about the height of the Statue

of Liberty. Now, to put that in perspective,

I thought about this today, brother Fred.

To put that in perspective, I got a small phone compared to

most. This is a iPhone 13 mini.

From bottom to top is 5 inches. That would mean in order for me

to meet the average of of 300 feet a day of scrolling, I will

have taken my thumb from the bottom of my screen to the top

of my screen 720 times within a day.

That's just the average. Somebody's beaten that,

somebody's beaten that. And so if all that said, how can

churches, how can churches, how can believers?

There's so much being communicated in social media,

true, false, whatever, so much being communicated, our world

saturated with it really are in the information age.

We are saturated with information.

So with all of that noise of saturation of information and

such and the constant scrolling, how, how can the church, how can

us believers have a message that will somehow get reach, catch

the attention of 520 swipes on a phone?

I think the important thing we have to realize is. 720 on the

stated yes sorry I missed 2. My phone's not that small.

That would have been a flip phone, sorry.

When we have this opportunity, but it is there is so much

saturation it you're not hurting to get something on the

algorithm. You're not hurting to when you

open your, your, you know, Facebook, Instagram, whatever.

If you open it, the algorithm's not like I got to find something

new for I can configure. That map.

There is loads of new for you. I have a statistic now.

This is a year ago but I had a statistic talking about I think

it was on Instagram. Instagram in particular, 66,000

photos are shared to Instagram every minute.

And that's why you can't find a photo album at all, right?

Now, that's right, but to take that in there, there is no lack

of content. So we have to take it with

clarity and creativity and decide what is First off, what's

important and then also how can we respectively, how can we not

be boring, right? This is this was back when I was

in in college. Now this was in 2019.

Statistics stated that you have to have content that can get can

hold the attention span of a goldfish, which is like 3

seconds. Now that was 2019 that that is

drastically changed I'm certain to where it is probably 2 point

whatever, one point whatever because it has to be

instantaneous. It can't be boring.

So when people are scrolling, how is it not boring?

Well, nowadays, because you, you think, oh, I'm going to be hip

with the kids, right? I'm going to do all this fancy

stuff. We're going to get the

microphone, We're going to get a, a big camera.

Well, actually, the more you look into it, the best reach you

get, the best things that you can get viewers on is actually

going to be something that is maybe, maybe pastors just

sitting there with a selfie on his on his phone talking it it,

it, it blows my mind because I love to do the the stuff that

looks really nice, everything like that.

But when it's real, when it's real, they notice.

And that is, and it's further down the line.

But that is why it's important to understand that that's going

to become even more of a thing when AI takes more.

If you know me, I'm a believer in IAI.

I love AI, but that is what's going to happen is it's going to

become more real. Content is going to be the thing

that's pushed the most. And so, you know, that was

already a trend before AI even came on because we went through

this stage, you know, some people older than me and, and

partially me, there were that stage on, on Instagram and

Facebook where everything needed to be produced and really,

really look nice and everything. And then you have, you know, I

some of the best things I get on, on the district social

media, especially on the youth pages, everything like it's just

memes. I can crank memes out all day,

but then I spend, you know, a few, a few 30 minutes here, 30

minutes there on a graphic, everything like that.

And it gets like half the views. I'm like, well, I'm glad I

worked really hard. Yeah.

And so. The meme was pixelated and

everything. It was pixelated and everything.

And they're like, this is the stuff right here, right?

And so it, you don't need to be flashy, you don't need to be

fake, but it's just, it's just being real to the core.

Whatever that looks like, it doesn't mean it can't look nice.

Whatever you're doing in order to get a message across,

especially a church or someone that's trying to be be

intentional about spreading the gospel.

But there is just, there is a good thing about just simplicity

because people catch it and they're like, oh, that's, that's

new, that's different. Got a bunch of stuff rolling

through my head from all of that just now.

And it may not tongue in groove totally with that, but as you're

talking about that, that, that scrolling aspect, like in a in a

millisecond, right, you're deciding whether or not that's

interesting to you or not interested to you.

If it's not, you know, there's something else right behind it.

And you go, you go, you go. And and I don't know if this

there's probably there's problem here out there.

I don't have stats with me here on this right now.

But, and I just tell you my personal belief that I think

that's conditioned us for the three second or less attention

span of the goatfish, not only whenever it comes to matters

like that, when it comes to any matters of life, when it comes

to church, being here in the service, we're sitting there,

the preacher's talking, but you're scrolling.

You're scrolling if it's not entering enough.

And here's the other fact of that.

Let's say you have the whatever, you know, amount of video it is,

it's still relatively short compared to a full service.

And you're getting snippets of Scripture, snippets of

information when we need the whole counsel of God and

people's building thoughts and feelings on the snippet rather

than the complete whole. And we're doing ourselves a

disservice. And we're causing our

Christianity to be built on here and there averse rather than the

full competium of the word of God.

And as a result of that, that's where a lot of people have

gotten in danger anyway. They've built doctrines off a

verse rather than building it off from Genesis to Revelation.

And so with that, we got to, that's the culture thing, but we

got to keep culture to a certain degree.

I understand there's some meshing and overlaying of

culture and church culture, but we also, there's got to be a

little bit of a separation between the two.

At the same there is a submersion, but there's also got

to be a notable separation of the two at the same time.

And so speaking about some common mistakes, let's just look

at this here for a moment. 74% of people say they have searched

for a church online before ever visiting in person.

It's it's modern statistics, 74% of the people.

And the reason why this is so mind blowing because years ago

Bishop it was curb appeal where the church sat, how the lawn was

kept it it was how the restrooms were when they came in, it was

the host, our Hostess that greeted them as they come in.

But now the face of the church is backed all the way up from

1121 Cedar St. to the Facebook happenings, the Instagram

happenings and those that say that they go to that church,

their social happenings, right? Because the church, the church

isn't a building, church isn't walls and fabric drywall.

Church is the people. And so it's not just what is on

the church sites, it's what's on the sites of those that are

connected to that church. And so, with all that being

said, what are some of the common mistakes Christians, or

ministries, even in church for that matter, make on social

media that hurt their witness and reduce their impact in their

community, their world, and as broad as that circle can go?

So what I will say is social media is addictive.

It was designed to be social. It has become a dopamine hit.

Oh, absolutely. The the reward pathways of likes

and comments and seeing your blow, your phone blow up and

everything like that, your attention deficit and memory and

everything like that. Cognitive load, right is focused

and hyper fixated on on social media.

I say that to say we, we treat because I see people treat

social media as a megaphone instead of a conversation and

they take it. They take it and they're, I'm

going to say whatever I want to. This is a free country and

freedom of speech, freedom of speech.

I'm going to go here. I'm going to say what I say.

And if someone doesn't like it and they get in my comments,

then I'll just argue back with them.

It is, it is a mess. And, and you are, you are

broadcasting the wrong witness when you do so People, I see

people and, and they misconstrue it.

I see people talk about, well, if Paul, if Paul had social

media in his day, he wouldn't be quiet and blah, blah, blah.

I'm like, well, OK, but you're misconstruing it because you're,

you're basing it off of the, the pistols, which were toward

Beavers, right? These people on social media,

not all of them are believers. And so.

Yes. And so when we take that gauge

and say, well, Paul would have done this, well, we probably

wouldn't have unless it was a group, It was a it was a

Facebook group and it was social media Facebook group.

And then he was like, you know, whip him in the shape.

But in that in that case, that is not what this is.

And so when we decide we're going to get on our high horse

or anything like that, it is sending the wrong message.

Do you believe that? Because there's that you can do

that in literal isolation, right?

What you put up, you can do in literal isolation.

You're by yourself. Nobody's around you and your

phone, you and your computer, that sometimes there is a

forgetting that this isn't just you and whoever you want it to

be intended for. This is you and any follower

that you're connected to that have access, that you've given

access to your thing, the thing that they would be great

important. Fred, if I can't tell you that

without those other thousand people sitting in the same room

with me and you and this stool right across from me, then

there's no reason for me to say it there, right?

That is right, 100 percent, 100%.

And I might have. I think, I think one thing that

we have to take note of in general, not even not even the

controversial stuff, is that respectfully, not everyone needs

to know your business 24/7. I had tuna today, it was Hickory

smoked. Yeah, I mean.

The back of chips. Back in the Myspace and and and

early Facebook days, people were were posting about how, hey,

just sitting on the toilet just chilling.

I'm like, no one needs to know. No one needs to know.

I say that to say that you can become a little oversharing and

then you become a little too transparent and then again you

misrepresent the church or you misrepresent God.

Maybe you're just being honest about a situation that you had

today or and you know you had you had a moment, right That

momentary time of moment that you decide to click send is it

lives forever in the Internet. Whereas if you you know, there

are times that I have things that I want to say.

And if you look at my social media, most of the times it's

not me posting unless it's my story.

You do not see me posting. It's normally sharing stuff from

places that I post on pages and, and those, those type of things

when you, when you have something that you just feel

like you got to get out whatever it is.

Now, if you can keep a bathroom log, whatever.

But with that, I say I'm joking. But with that, I say, get your

notes app out, type out what you want to type out, get it out of

your system and be done with it. Be done with it.

Too many people are too transparent on the Internet.

And then whether well intended or not, right?

If it's well intended, then they have to backtrack and they have

to apologize. I didn't mean this or I didn't

mean that blah, blah, blah. Or if if they didn't mean it

that way, then when when people are saying blah blah blah, then

they have to buckle down and then it becomes a whole argument

once again. Yeah, because to the point even

of of brother Jerry Mason and leadership training stuff

people's been in around here, you know, he stole some more on

occasion. You can't detect tone.

You can't detect by body language.

Those things are absent to a great degree through the written

word. It's subject to interpretation

many times. And sometimes that

interpretation is based upon where you are right in that

moment. And the last thing I would say

as far as killing credibility and trying to you know mistakes

is not every trend is worth writing, not not every hot take

needs your input and it is OK influence with discernment when

when it comes to what you are doing, what you are posting,

anything like that. Think about the consequences,

positive or negative. What are the consequences if I

post XY and Z, especially if it is supposed to be a hot take or

anything like that. And you, you're doing, you're

taking to the Internet and you're taking charge with this,

this group discussion, so to speak.

Think about what the consequence could be because it may not be a

good one. All right.

Continuing on here, then, in marketing, effective messaging

is built around knowing your audience, an idea that was

echoed in First Corinthians 922. The apostle Paul said, I made

all things to all men, that by all means I might save some.

And I believe it's important to understand Paul was not

endorsing, compromising, but establishing lines of of

commonality to perhaps start a conversation or to launch from.

With that in mind, what principles?

When I say principles, I'm talking about values, attitudes,

opinions, so and so forth. What principles from your

marketing background do you think are especially helpful for

believers engaging on social media?

Be be true to who if it's a if it's church based, be true to

who your church is, right? Don't don't go and, you know,

share things or do things on social media that are not

reflecting of your church. Yeah, that contradict that

contradict. As as a person when when you are

trying to reach and land your message, it's not going to land

if you don't understand who you are dealing with.

Again, majority of the people that you are probably connected

to are more than likely, unless you have a very, very small

friends list, more than likely the majority of them are going

to not be going to church or not be truth church.

And so how is it going to land? Is it going to float in the

feed? Because it wasn't interesting.

It was offensive right off the bat.

It didn't come off lovingly. You know, we need to think about

things when it comes to that, you know, principles, so to

speak, especially when you connect the, the marketing

aspect to church. Is it, is it love?

Is it, is it Jesus? You know, is it, is it Jesus to

somebody? Because all things to all men.

That's not compromise, but that is strategy.

And to lean on also the impossible, he said.

I, I've come not to, not to know anything among you save Jesus

Christ and him crucified. That's what he said.

Now that's a very narrow focus, but it's the best focus.

That's right. And, and when, when you have

that focus, you know, we, we can spend tons of time crafting the

right voice and making sure that we come across the right way and

the visuals and the messaging. But when it comes to online, you

have just a few seconds to connect.

So what is your purpose here? What is your purpose here?

If you're, if you're wanting to talk about God's love today,

then you, you need to start because I've seen this is a,

this is something that's a, that's a trend for, for

influencers. But I think it's important, even

it, it's, it's partially not burying the lead.

What I mean by that is they will start a video and then it will

be like a portion of a like a really, really good part and

it'll cut right to the beginning of it.

And then you, you're interested. What were they talking about,

right? You could do that in your

message, your text too. You could, you could say blah,

blah, blah, blah, blah dot dot dot dot.

And then you could go into the beginning of it.

And that's actually in the meat of it.

So, so thinking about how am I going to engage even if it's a

difficult topic? I think, I think even if it's

especially a difficult topic, if it's a difficult topic, but

you're approaching it with love, put just a little teensy bit of

the controversial side of it in there and then what do you have?

You have love, love, love, love, controversy, love, love, love,

love, love, right? And so at first it piques their

interest on what what's going on, but then they read it, they

read it more and then they realize, oh, OK, that's really

nice. That's you know, I love the way

they said that. And so, you know, even just how

are you going about this? You know, it doesn't even have

to be steer clear of XYZ topic, but how am I going about this

again? Is it love?

Is it Jesus? Is it, is it compassion?

Is it, is it are you being passionate?

There's nothing wrong with that, but are you being passionate in

the right way where you're you're nudging and not pushing?

Right, the scripture says, I think it's a New Testament.

If not, it may be in the old says to speak the truth and love

and the reason being is truth by itself can be so poignant

sometime just by itself unscathed.

It's just it's just totally or out of the out of the the

swords, you know thing. It is just poignant and so it's

got to be bathed in love sometimes just because it by

itself can be quite like in your face.

It's truth. Yes, brother Boyd just always

said you've probably heard me say before you can show someone

the point of the sword without plunging them through with it.

And so true sometimes got to be spoken in love.

Speaking of the the controversial things that leads

me into the next thing posts that posts that spark outrage,

humor or controversy statistically generate up to 70%

more engagement. So there you had it.

You know the snafu even when they're here's the catch, even

when they're inauthentic, even when it's false.

So I a scripture that came my mind today as I reread this lead

in that I was going to use and I I read Romans 14 one and this is

from the amplified Bible. It says, As for the one whose

faith is weak, accept him into your fellowship, but not for the

purpose of quarreling over his opinions.

And the King James, that's doubtful disputations.

So with that, I say the question is, how can Christians stay

visible and relevant online without compromising

authenticity or resorting just to click bait, Right?

Whatever, Whatever is just going to bait.

And yeah, got those numbers going up.

The bait and switch is very tempting, right?

The idea of doing something controversial to get that maybe

it's just that dopamine hit, you know, in your brain or just to

get the, the view and the, the repertoire of people.

People are, you know, looking at my stuff, right?

It's tempting, but we have to lead with value, not with

vanity, right? We, we can, we can be bold and

creative without, without being fake, without doing something.

Because what eventually, especially if it's inauthentic

content, if it's inauthentic substance, eventually people

will catch on. You will get called out for

whatever it is, just like I talked about with the people

and, and thinking that people thinking that they live this

luxurious, you will get called out.

It will happen. So the question is, is, is it

worth, is the temptation of chasing the, the dopamine hit

and the likes and the shares and the follows and everything like,

is that worth the eventual downfall of, of I mean, really

of your, your public image? Because that's really what

social media is. We don't think of it that way,

but it's it's a public image and it's tailored like we talked

about, but it is your public image.

And so if it's costing your witness, is it worth doing it

just for the temptation of that that dopamine hit all?

Right. So we have already talked a

little bit. You made earlier mention about

videos getting a lot of traction in the social media world and

video posts, especially short form Reels or Tik Toks can earn

up to 12 times more shares than text or photo post only.

And I'm just outsider looking in on this and I'm thinking, well,

video of course, is engaging more than one sense.

They can see, they can hear, you know, those and perhaps start

feeling, you know, as a result of those things.

It's not just reading the post. So another other sensors are

being plus it's a little bit more effortless mindlessly

watching something than engaging my brain to read something, so

and so forth. So how can someone create

content that's both spiritually faithful and genuinely engaging

in today's fast moving digital culture since based upon those

type of things? If if you're planning on doing

that and using video form content and it start with truth

and wrap it up in story, right, People like a good story.

So I've seen some people talk about it and they, they depict,

maybe you're depicting a, a, a Bible story.

And so you, you decide to wrap it up in, in a very, very story

esque way. Maybe some people, maybe they

like to do animation and so they'll do it in an animated way

and it's telling, telling the Bible, but it's via video form

content or or maybe it is a message, right, a sermon, but

they decide to to reallocate it to a story form and talk about

it in, in in an application standpoint.

You know, some sometimes that's no more towards the end of the

message or you know, kind of the come to Jesus moment at the end

of the message. But maybe it's maybe you it's

reformed in more of a wrap up session, so to speak, because I

would dare say on average, the the average video is going to be

between 30 to 60 seconds. That's.

What I was going to ask, what's too long?

What's 30 to 60 seconds? The videos that Pastor makes,

they're too long. I appreciate that.

So what I would say about that is if you're planning on

building an audience, you need both.

You need the short, the really short form, maybe 30 seconds or

less, 60 seconds and then have the longer form.

There's gonna be different audiences.

There's. Different audiences and when you

get people and somebody like I kind of like this person, they

don't care. And then they're like, I'm gonna

go see what else they have. And then they're watching, you

know, people watch hours of videos of, of someone doing

something because they saw a shorter form of it.

And so maybe just a mixture of that, you know, it's not

necessarily that, you know, stay away from, you know, a minute or

longer video or anything like that.

It's you need a little bit of this and you need a little bit

of that and, and mix it all together because then you'll

have people have people come in for both and, and it's, it's,

it's something about showing, showing, you know, don't just

say that Jesus changes live. Show it, you know, bring just

just as someone would minister the gospel in a sermon and talk

about miracles. Maybe they, they decide to tie

in miracles that they've seen or present, present a story or

something that they have researched about a, a notable

miracle or something like that. Other than just the Bible that

we have to, to glean from, you know, don't just say it, show

it. How can, how can you show it?

How can you depict it? Maybe it's just with your words.

Maybe, maybe you're able to wordsmith it just right to where

you know someone can see it, just like someone's reading a

book and they're, they're seeing the, the tapestry, the tapestry

in their head and everything. But don't just say it, just also

show it. Because I'd much rather use

words personally. When we first started doing

videos around here and I'm looking over here about the

cameras over there and dropped my eyes everywhere because I

felt intimidated by the camera, like I was looking in somebody's

eyes. And I was so nonetheless.

Yeah, So with, with all that and said and speaking about pastors

and the ministries of churches and it's reached on so forth.

Many pastors now churches even let's throw in there, have more

followers online than they do members in their congregation,

making their digital presence a real extension of the building

or a real extension of the pulpit.

Case in point, this is just me personally.

I have two forms of social media I I participate on and that at a

very, very limited level. If anybody follows me, you know

that. But anyway, that is like

Facebook. I have 1058 friends on Facebook

and 556 friend requests that are waiting on me to say something

to them. Some of those probably go years

back bless their hearts. I have 721 followers on XI have

had people reach out to me that I don't know from Adam's house

cat due to how do you give pastors ministry the churches

right, because we're online here, even the Night Live

stream. See here we are social media

Facebook. What what kind of what kind of

advice do you give them in trying to get their social media

to effectively be used right personally and as a church wise,

but also without it becoming then a sideline distraction in

personalized right because we can get so it's a tool, right.

It's all how you use the tool. And So what I would say with

that and, and, and you're right, it doesn't matter where where

people see you, they see you. Oh, I'm going to add them as

every time, every time. Evangelist Michael Maupin or for

the Josh Wilson goes out of the country.

I think I get like 20 friend requests.

Because you're connected. Because because I'm connected.

To the part of the network. Part of the network.

Someone from Siberia. That's right.

So, but but with that for pastors and, and people, people

in ministry and and church ministries, I think the, the,

the important thing is for, for pastors is post to pastor.

Don't. Don't post to perform right?

Everybody has a pulpit. Everybody has a pulpit.

In today's world, everybody has a pulpit.

It's very good. It's very good.

And just as a side note, and everybody's pulpit is a Holy

Ghost filled everybody's pulpit. And yet we're purporting

unsanctioned verbiage has no prayer life behind it, no fast

life behind it. Right, right.

Be know what well you're drawing from.

Right. That's right.

Know what? Well, you're drawing from.

Yeah, because I think we have to be, we have to be, you said

becoming without it becoming a distraction.

We have to be practical. Pastors only have so much time

on what, what am I doing? You know, if it's, if it's

personal content, but it's a pastor, then then you know,

it's, it's what, what is today's purpose?

Or maybe it's a batch of, of content.

It's a batch of videos. People do that and then they get

it all and they schedule, fill it out, but stay, stay

accountable. Know when to log off, know when

to set it to the side. Don't do it.

Don't do it for views. Don't do it for anything except

for the fact. Again, this is down to the

personal level. If you're if you're doing it for

the the spreading of the gospel, then keep it specific to that.

Don't focus on, oh, I got this video is blowing up everything.

No, no, the gospel is blowing up.

Can we speak on common terms even about this?

Yeah, go ahead. Right, that that is interrupting

important aspects of our personal life, attention shown

to our children. Or we want a digital connection

to the church rather than a personal connection with the

church. Then there's aspects of that.

Or we might need to find the slide bar to to pull and rein

that back in. It's been this social media,

like OTFT you say is a old hag in a new dress.

What I'm saying is things have come across technologically and

not even beyond that into our world that we've always had to

approach with senses of moderation.

Yeah, television, the Internet, social in the next decade, all

these things are great and wonderful tools when used in the

proper manner, but they can also be our shortfall if we allow

them to master us. That's.

Right, that is. Right, right.

And so I, I think finding the harmony, whether pastor, church

or whatever it, it can become a distraction.

If, if, if, I mean, if our phones got to go to the we can't

do the restroom without the phone.

We can't eat a meal without the phone.

We can't drive down the road without also on the phone,

right? That's right.

Take a pulse. Take a pulse because something,

something has you, something has your attention.

And so we got to be conscious about that.

I'm going to skip one question. I'm going to go to another one.

According to surveys, 54% of Gen.

Z, how many Gen. Z's?

That's from like 1997 to around 2012 birth years.

Got some Gen. Z's around there.

You know I got some Gen. Z's.

According to survey, 54% of Gen. Z's aspire to become social

media influencers. And I almost throw up in my

mouth when I say that the only reason why there is just

something about the aspect of a influencer that there are some

that is pride, egotism. Oh, yeah.

Because think about it. You have influence because

you've made something to a certain degree about you.

And then you can shove it off on product and so on and so forth.

Oh, yeah. OK Oh, my God, help me anyway.

And so the question is, what would you say to young

Christians who want to become influencers but want to do it

with integrity and perfect? Here's the reason why I say that

because when I was a kid growing up, the old timers told us some

proverbs that a man's gift will make room for him and bring him

before great men. You didn't toot your own whore.

You didn't tell how good you were and how much you knew and

all this stuff. It just happened because God's

hand of favor was upon you. And it happened just by default

through natural organic progression.

Nobody was going around saying I know this and I know that and

I'm better than that person. That's.

Right. But now it's great that you're a

star and it's a great that you figured life out when other

people have it and they're going to come groveling into your

presence to sit at your feet of wisdom.

And so that's the reason why I get bad taste in my mouth.

But anyway, so how do we do this than with integrity, if there's

going to be maybe that label's been put on you, you have put

that label on yourself. How's that done with Biblical

integrity I. Think.

Yes, the minefield has just been set.

You're welcome. Does whatever you're doing cuz,

cuz on average we could take those 54% and if it's, if it's

Christian content, it's going to be a much smaller percentage.

But whatever you're doing, is it representing Jesus well, first

and foremost is it, are you representing Jesus well?

The next thing is keeping your character in check.

You need people that in your life, not your family, you

unless, unless you're just very, very able to be very transparent

with them and they're able to be very transparent with you.

You need people in your life that can tell you you need cool

down, you get a little prideful, you, you need to stop.

You need a break, whatever, whatever that is.

You need people in your life that can bring, bring the reins

in on you and tell you when enough is enough, right?

Again, again, it is it. No one intends to become

addicted to to anything, but especially for social media, no

one intends for that. It's just when when it starts to

grow and it starts to build and you're just like, Oh my

goodness, you know, the excitement is understandable.

Sure. But overall, then after a little

while, are you chasing it? And then it becomes again that

addictive measure. The motive.

The motive of it is important, yes.

And it's easy, it's a slide from what started out as good motive

and get snafu D by what you said, then the increase of this

or that, whatever is happening, there's a switch then a motive

and you can tell when it happens.

You can tell when that occurs. Don't chase trends that will

compromise something, right? There are plenty of trends out

there. There are plenty of things out

there that people do and people laugh at and it gets a lot of

views just because it's connected to, connected to a

filter, it's connected to an audio, anything like that.

Don't do it just because this is the popular thing, because it

may compromise something. Don't do it because it

compromises. And that really is, you know,

leading to our next question concerning trends about trends,

because there's things that come about all the time, whether it's

an audio, whether it's some type of theme or something.

And it may not align with with biblical values.

Not only that it may be very trickery that maybe what's said

seems to the ears something good, but where it came from is

vulgar and profane. And and the stuff that's

attached to that, when you repost it, if someone digs just

one more in, it's like, I can't believe they follow that page.

You know, their little thing out there sounded so wholesome and

innocent, you know, to begin with.

And then you see what they stand for, what they represent or

common, what it is. And, and, and so how, how do we

where do we draw the line then between, you know, engaging

that, not engaging that or how do we prevent because some of

the I've seen people innocently, innocently do it and then later,

you know, apologize. Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't realize.

How do we keep from that trap, you know, of, of endorsing or

getting on the bandwagon that we find out this has a broken

wheels. I don't want to be honest, you

know? I think what we need to do that

people don't do enough of is what if it's an audio and you're

attaching it to a post or whatever?

Listen through the audio. People just listen to a little

snippet, throw it up there and then don't even know the rest of

it. They just, they just attach it.

I see that a lot on like static content like photos and and

graphics where people would just attach on Instagram, you can

just attach an audio to it. And if it's a trending audio,

people may just say, hey, it's trending, why not?

But it may not be very, very beneficial to you and it may

you, you need to listen to it, you know, go if it's not going

to show you the whole thing, go and listen to it and find it on,

on Google or something. Listen to it.

If it's not depicting what you think it should be depicting

based off of, of the word God, or if it's not depicting

anything just from the, the, the source, then maybe don't use it.

The The thing is, is that when it comes to to trends and and

truth and compromising is it's not.

You need to engage the culture, not become a part of the

culture, right? And you're trying to engage it

and, and, and get people to, to come around to maybe a community

of people or anything like that. But that's not necessarily means

that you need to become a part of that thing.

And when it comes, when it comes to trends, at the end of the

day, the thing that I do with with anything is, is either

listen to it. And if I can't find anything

type, if you need an audio type in instrumental and find just a

simple instrumental that's not from any like huge known artist

or anything. It's just someone that sat down

and did something on the piano or something.

And and you throw the instrumental in the background

and then your, your your hands are clean.

You can you can post that with with clarity of mind and stating

I didn't do this and and I was I wasn't silly and and this is not

tied to anything that compromises.

Right, Yeah, because I know I mean good people have just been

taken in and, you know, tripped up on something like that with

no, not, not meaning to whatsoever.

And I, I, another aspect today is that, and that's probably

like close to the one of our last questions, I'm not even get

to it. And I'm trying to keep track of

time to talk about deep fakes and things like that, that

we're, we're looking at here very soon of, you know,

individual talking, they're using their voice to say

something that they would never say.

And we live in the world right now.

What can you even trust? What can you even trust?

I had a little thing pop up in my Facebook page here a few days

ago. Read it sounded so convincing.

It was so good. Have been a great I could I

could preach, I could preach this aspect.

I shared it with her. I went to the bedroom.

My daughter was already asleep. Her was about the whole lullaby

of Rockabye baby in the tree top and is saying how the Native

Americans used to have their babies in the trees and stuff

and that it's actually showing a progression of life that

whenever the bow breaks, the babies get too big, the baby

will fall down goes baby cradle and all is like a transitionary

period of life from from infantile to and so the and I'm

like, yeah, that's good stuff. And so then I did further

research on it. It's all it's all just, it's

just stupid. It's all hoax.

It's made-up. And so there's so many things

like that, even a news outlets, things like that.

What's real, what's not real? This is the world that we're

living in, right? Because we're we're saddling up

a pseudo truth and we're riding it.

And how many times have we shared it, whether digitally or

in person before we find out that was malarkey, that was

right. So I mean.

Check your sources. People do not do that enough.

It is. It is.

It is. On the side note, I've heard

people preach stuff and use stories that were totally bogus.

It preach really good. Though it preach good,

everybody's raw, raw, raw. But it wasn't, it wasn't

truthful. Yeah, Was it truthful?

Check your sources. I say that and this is actually

because again, AI is a great thing and a pitfall at the same

time. But if you really need to,

there's there's a research feature on there.

You can throw it in there and do the deep research and say, is

this real? Cite sources, Tell me about it

and it'll tell you whether or not it's, it's, it's real or

fake. I mean, it'll, it'll tell you,

yeah. Check your sources.

But they go into another one. I know we're already red here,

but is everybody doing OK? Yeah, OK.

About 60% of teens and young adults report that social media

causes them to feel anxious, left out or insecure.

Right. Because we we're transitioned

here from an organic, personal social world to a digital 1.

And yet what I'm finding out is some of the very things that

exist and some of the same problems that exist in the

digital world is what they experience also in their social

world. And there's no bounce.

So what digital habits or patterns do we see as

spiritually or emotionally unhealthy in the way many

believers engage online? Because if there's young adults

and teens feeling anxious, left out all this in a social media

world, then then what? What?

What can we do? I say this.

Do we have control? Yeah, I say this first to to

start out with with teens and young adults that that idea is

many of those have probably already been addicted to social

media for many years. Parents, I say this lovingly but

I suggest based off of understanding marketing and the

psychology of it and understanding teens from a youth

pastors perspective. I do not believe that your

students should have social media below 13 at the very

earliest Habitat 13 and I know the teens in here are like Oh

no. But if even if you give it to

them, I think it needs to be highly monitored and it needs to

be restricted to the NTH degree to, for, for one, to keep from

addiction of, of social media, but also just to protect them.

There is a culture today of people giving their kids phones

and at a very young age and, and social media and in, in general

and, and they're, they're exposed to things, whether it's

just cyber bullying, pornography, anything like that.

And, and they are exposed to it and they don't understand the

device enough and that the child, they are very, very

smart. They are smart guys.

And I want you to understand how smart they are.

They will get around things if you don't put things in place.

You, you can, I can, I told my wife I was talking about it.

And I know this is a detour, but I told my wife about it and I

said, you know, I can literally add a phone to our account and I

can make it to where all it can do on an iPhone, right?

All it can do is call and text, right?

All it can do, I can, I can still access location because

this is what I plan on doing with our kids.

I can still access location, everything like that.

They can't access the Internet, They can't access social media.

All they can do is call or text me.

That's it. And so to, to, to take that,

that side of it, which is, is a positive side of it, but then

the inverse of it is unrestricted.

It, it's, it, of course they are going to feel, they're going to

have anxiety, maybe depression, maybe, maybe have insecurities

because who who knows what they've been exposed to or, or

people they have been talking to.

And so I say that and I highly suggest parents, please, please

do yourself the favor of of doing research, do do all of the

due diligence before you give your child a phone and and

again, social media. I highly recommend 13 and up,

but but with with the pitfalls of of habits and patterns.

I think habits and patterns is the fact that we, we all do it

to some extent. Probably some of us are better

at keeping keeping our mind in in order, but many of it is a it

is a measuring stick. Social media is and we measure

it up against people's again, we're talking about preference

and, and, and their portrayal of themselves.

We are, we are measuring against other people's portrayals,

personal portrayals that they want you to see.

Highlight reel. The highlight stuff, right?

And so it becomes a comparison game.

Students already have that issue.

They already deal with the comparison game.

It starts, it starts quite early.

And so to to have that and then it compound on itself after the

fact or it it start at school and then it continues on social

media, right? When they go home.

When they go home. When they go home, they're not

away from, they can't get away. They still have access to it.

They still have access to it. And so it's, it's one of those

things where behind the scenes, they may say they're fine,

everything like that, but they are, they're anxious, they're

left out, they're insecure, they're whatever they're

insecure about, insecure about their body, they're insecure

about, you know, how their knowledge, how much they know

what family they come from, anything like that.

And so when we, when we do that, and it doesn't, it doesn't just

confine the students, but that was, that was very prevalent

right there. But it is important that it,

social media is a measuring stick.

And we have to take a moment and really remember what reality is,

right? We live in that, we're living it

when we're scrolling. We're living in that other

world. We're living in that virtual

world and we have to remember what is reality?

Do they do they have XY and Z? Are they just saying that they

have it or they just trying to portray something nice because

that's what they want me to see, right?

You don't post, you don't post all of the random photos you

take on on Facebook and Instagram.

You don't. I don't just go to my phone and

find all of the random screenshots that I and you don't

post all the random stuff. You post all the you know,

people post all the pretty stuff or oh, this is just a photo.

Dumb, but it's it's really not a photo dump they go through and

they pick pick pick pick. It's still a photo.

Pick. So once I'm even wondering, you

know, go ahead. Do we lean on it then?

Has it become a personal therapist?

Absolutely. So on bad days, do we go there

to get our encouragement, right? Just find the things that's

going to speak what we want to hear because we had a bad day,

whether your day was justifiably bad or part of your own fault,

because you just search to find what it will say to say right to

me. You know, it's to a certain

degree, it can become the yes men in our corner if we feel a

certain way with everything that identifies with how we're

feeling. Yeah, that's good.

Yeah, that's right. When when we get to the

grassroots of it, really how we feeling may be totally

unfounded. We may need someone to say, no,

you got it wrong. But we're just searching for

everything that feeds how we're feeling and that's where the

shares the likes. The repost is how I'm feeling

and it's become therapeutic to us.

But is it really helping you or digging A deeper hole for a

direction? Inadvertently, what it causes is

an identity crisis. Sure, it may not be as

flamboyant as what we would think an identity crisis would

be, but we, we in our brain, we have an identity crisis and we,

we turn to those things to give us our identity, whatever that

may, whatever that may be. I think it becomes very

unhealthy. It we, we be kind of we kind of

become numb to reality and that is our reality.

And we don't sit with our own feelings, right?

We use it for a distraction when much as we say it can become a

distraction sometimes that's it's vice for life to be a

distraction. And so we never take time to set

with our own feelings, with our own thoughts, be very

introspective and think for ourselves and meditate up even

maybe upon what we know from scripture and how that plays

into the fibers of whatever it is we're going through in that

moment. So I think it's great.

It's a tool. It's a tool to be using very

serious. Is there a certain one that you

want to go to? We only got probably 5 minutes

here and we'll be doing this for an hour that there we still got

several questions, but you don't have time, all right?

You don't have time. I don't know.

Is there one I? Mean the only thing I can think

of. Any closing words?

We can't finish the day without saying, hey, if you guys want to

follow Alex Mason, what are your things on Twitter?

And I mean, it would be totally injustice not to do that.

Go on, like and subscribe. It's awesome.

I think, I think the closing things I would say is regarding

just kind of jumping down a little bit to that bottom is, is

regarding AI is really in in the grand scheme of things and and

most of it is free use AI to confirm it that it's AI use.

AI again, so that with discretion use it, Yeah, because

the disclaimer at the bottom of all those, Oh yeah, is that

every fact, everything may not be correct, may not.

And I have caught it and I've shared it with these.

We've had stuff because I've talked about it in the use of

studying or things like that with men that I mentor from

Nebraska and stuff. And I pointed out things where

it got it wrong. I said, look at this, AI is

wrong. It's biblically wrong.

Yep. So you, it won't just be

biblical stuff, it'll be just everyday stuff.

I mean, still, you know, call 911 for your emergency.

Yes, understand. No, you're fine.

Understand. One thing about AI is that AI is

a conglomerate of everything that has been input to it.

It's a learning. Model It is a learning model.

It did not already have all of this information.

It is learning. It is constantly learning, it is

constantly growing. And so when you understand that,

correct it, correct it when it's wrong.

But when, when you were looking at something and you think I'd

seen one, I don't remember what it was.

It was during the hurricane victims and everything.

And there was a, there was a photo that was posted to my eyes

personally to, to my eyes personally.

It was a little girl holding the dog to my eyes.

Personally, I looked at it and I was like, well, that's AI.

But then there were people sharing it.

And there's people in the comments like, oh, this poor,

this poor girl. And I'm like, she's this poor

girl. She's not even real.

She's not even breathing because she's not real.

And so understanding when, when you start to get exposed to it

and, and more exposure you get to it, the more you'll be able

to kind of catch it, you know, do some research on it, do some

research on it. Look up those type of things.

Look up what, how does, how does it write?

How does it, how does it look when it comes to imagery?

Because, because at the moment it's still not quite there

there. I I say that to say get, get as

quickly as you can later. There is a Google, there is a

Google video AI form right now it is Google VO3 that it can it

can create cinematic video with people moving.

There's no random weird parts of their bodies random anymore.

Forearms, yeah, we're not talking anything like that.

Nothing like that anymore. That's weird.

And they can now speak, right? And so now you can tell it what

to say. It can talk and it can, you can

act it out like it was a movie and that it will, it will do it.

And you could there will be movies that will be completely

audio or I, I generated, I dare say within the next couple years

because it is, it is becoming so quick at that.

And, and the, the viewing of it, I can still tell it's AI, but it

is getting more and more difficult.

And the, the more you can inform yourself, be informed, the more

you, you can inform yourself, the less likely you are to be

tripped up by all those different things.

And so that's what I say is, is that instead of well, I don't

because, because you don't want to get, you don't want to, you

know, get hoodwinked, right? No one wants to get hoodwinked.

The best way to do that is to become informed, right?

You don't have to go deep in the research or anything like that,

but just get some exposure, get some understanding of it because

that's what's going to keep you from being tripped out by that.

Yeah, it'll be the new scam coming out, folks.

It'll be the new scam. AI telemarketers.

That's right, it'll be the new scam.

Amen. I hope this was enlightening,

enjoyable here this evening. Second time that we've done

something like this. I do want to stand though and I

want us to end it in prayer tonight for us because living in

a world like we do, I mean, like I said, if you come into a

place, then what is truth? What is truth, What is real?

That could just bleed on over into every aspect of life, then

that we just question everything.

Well, what can I even trust that?

Can I even trust that church? You know, it can just really

start encompassing a whole lot. But I think we got the Bible

spoke even concerned the disciples when the Lord sent

them out. You know that they would be as

sly as serpents and as harmless as doves.

And that is still yet good, good, good advice for us today

there. There must be a slyness or an

awareness to the fact and also then as harmless still that love

and that support and stuff that we have as we interact in these

two worlds of both digital and real world.

All right. And so we want to use it for the

best of the ability in our own lives and for the life of the

church to extend the reach, all right, to be wholesome with it

and not to be, you know, argumentative and all of these

things that it can be. We want to use the tool in the

appropriate manner, just as any other tool that we would put

into our hands concerning the church.

So I'm going to pray tonight. Will you help me pray and let

the prayer just be personal? God help me to be aware.

Let me be aware of its pitfalls, but help me then to utilize it

in a praiseworthy way for your Kingdom.

Father, I come to you tonight. I pray, O Lord Jesus, this is

the generation that we are in God.

We're all living during this time.

Lord, you're not surprised by this.

I pray, O Lord, that you would give us wisdom and knowledge and

understanding. Know how to navigate Lord, these

waters. Lord Jesus of social media, in

the day that we live. Help us, O Lord God, to use

them, Lord, in a Lord uplifting, Lord edifying Lord Jesus type of

way. Not to Lord, tear down not to

Lord Jesus, sharpen the edge of the sword, Pierce anybody

through help us, oh God today, God, to be mindful God of how it

can distract us, but also mindful Lord, how we can use it

God to evangelize Lord, another portion, Lord of our world, I

pray, O God, help us to keep and strike a healthy balance.

Lord, in all of this, I pray Jesus God as a church, as

individuals, as Christians, I pray, O Lord today, God, that

you would be Lord the, the, the very character of who you are is

what we would try to perpetuate Lord, what we would try to

mirror Lord to others, not some facade, not something that is

fake, not something Lord God, that is not real, but Lord, just

something that's genuine. I pray Father, in our day and

age, God so that we could become all things to all men.

I have a launching pad, a connecting point, Lord Jesus,

that we might have a word or a voice God in their life.

I pray God bless your people, Lord Jesus this week, strengthen

them and empower them. Help them, Lord Jesus, to be

what they need to be, Lord within the dynamics of these two

worlds, in the lovely name of Jesus Christ that I pray

Hallelujah and Amen, the church say Amen, Amen.

This coming Sunday, Father's Day, AM service only, no PM

service, all right, AM service only.

And then again next Sunday or next Wednesday rather, you'll be

with brother Jerry Alan Mason. Doctor Jerry Alan Mason will be

here on Wednesday speaking to you all folks.

All right, have a have a have a great week.

Amen. And don't wear out that thumb

going to the Eiffel Tower or the statue.