Popular Facebook identity, Franciscan Brother, John Mary Ignatius recommends not using Facebook to evangelise in the traditional sense of the word, making religious announcements and proclamations to the masses.
Br Ignatius, the Facebook Monk, has more than 3,500 friends on Facebook and he says that making religious announcement and proclamations to the masses as “offensive”.
It’s like “walking into somebody’s living room and then preaching to them the whole time. It’s kinda rude and most of all, it doesn’t work.”
Brother Ignatius uses Facebook the way most others do. He posts videos and photos, makes observations about everyday happenings and “messages” his “friends”.
The key he said is “authenticity”.
“When I send a message, I make sure there is an answer and a dialogue so it’s not just me stating my opinion and that’s it,” Brother Ignatius said.
“My hope is to bring people some sense of joy and hope,” he told the Catholic Anchor. “In the end, my ultimate goal is to bring people to Jesus Christ — to have them be curious enough to find what animates me and what makes me put things like this on a Facebook page.”
“Beyond the photos and videos are the messages,” he explained. “The goal is to create dialogue and to message back in forth in a profound way and then to go beyond that. I often encourage people to go beyond the computer and pick up a phone and talk.”
Despite the fact that a growing number of teens are abandoning their religious upbringing — especially in Europe — Brother Ignatius finds that even hyper-secularized teens respond to the truth.
“They react to truth and they are not afraid to admit in front of everybody, that, ‘Yeah, what Brother just said makes sense,'” he said. “That for me is the hope. There is tons of hope.”
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