In the recent news, Pope Francis, our new leader has made a twitter account. He has been tweeting regularly to the public as a method to attract youth to have a greater role in the life of the church. Unfortunately, it is sad that having a twitter account will not necessarily attract people to have a greater role, let alone youth. With twitter, one needs to
follow in order to receive the inspirational messages from the Church's teachings. The twitter account and tweets will only be effective once individuals follow the Pope, and unfortunately, if the youth already refuses the church, what makes you think they will suddenly follow a religious leader? In my eyes, the lack of youth participation will not motivate them to click that
follow button!
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| #TweetToPope to connect religion with the Internet! |
The benefits, say we did follow, of having our Church leader tweet would be our exposure to the teachings of the Church in an inspirational way. Many youth, and people in general, find it troublesome to make the time to attend Church on a weekly basis to learn about the gospel's teachings. By connecting to social media, the Church is making an attempt to make the spreading of the values in a method that is most convenient and easy for everyone to access. It will help people who do not have the time, or feel bored in Church to experience the inspirational message and life-giving ideas that religious leaders express. Signing onto the internet and connecting the Church to the social network, also helps people understand that they Church is no longer an outdated source of knowledge that should be ignored. Considering twitter is a new method of communication, it shows that the Church is trying to keep up-to-date with the trends so that they can send the positive messages in ways that the people prefer. There are some disadvantages considering it is now easiest to talk to the religious leader about messages we do not believe in and harass him about things that we feel are more important. People might feel that reading about the disagreements would be more appealing than reading the religious content. On a side note, hackers, viruses and negative publicity are all associated with the online world, and people could find their way into the Pope's account and post
inappropriate, non-religious information from the Pope's 'perspective' that could lead to
incorrect knowledge for the people, from their leader.
However, my parish is very old school, without the ideas of taking a step forward to enter the 21st century along with the public. But I personally feel, Churches are working hard to encourage youth to get involved. Some churches offer programs such as Altar Serving, Youth Programs, and opportunities for volunteering which guarantee both
a fun time and volunteer hours; the best of both worlds for teens! Churches could also associate with homilies and sermons that youth can actually relate to and understand, making church less boring. At my parish, the priest sometimes makes jokes and holds parties with specific groups; e.g. the choir, altar servers, etc. so that he, personally can get to know you by name and encourage you that Church is a fun place, but a serious place as well. By personal experiences in my parish that stands out the most is volunteering my time to hold fundraisers with my parish. I've been involved with it since I was seven, and have some wonderful friends and memories about it. My parish got me involved at a very young age, and it kind of stuck.
It is amazing what kind of difference, a little time can make when you are with your Church.
