Dogs & Doghouses

Dear Pastor;

Recently I went looking at MySpace. It started out as a curiosity on my part because of recent news stories – what with the pedophiles using it to find out information about people. I’d never been there before.

What I did was this – I first went to Google and typed in the names and hometowns of several teens who attend our church. I later discovered a user can also search for individuals straight from the MySpace home page. I found links to their MySpace pages. Boy was I shocked at the content of their pages! I mean, it wasn’t X-Rated but it was a lot more than PG-13. There was a lot of ‘F-this!’ and ‘I hate my parents that…” Several talked about drinking and doing drugs. Additionally, some of them had personal information about themselves posted (like address, birthdays, and ways to contact them via email). One or two of them lied about their ages. This one girl I know for a fact is 15, but on her MySpace page she said she was 19. Anyways, I found out a lot about who their friends are and what they’re about – a side to them I’m sure doesn’t get a lot of exposure at home.

I’m troubled because now I don’t know what to do. Should I tell their parents or send them the links or just keep quiet about the whole thing? I don’t want to cause a problem in the church but at the same time I feel like I should tell someone. What if something happened and there I’d be sitting on the information before the fact?

What should I do?

Sincerely;
Confused in Cyber-Babylon


Dear Confused:

What you’ve done won’t win you any popularity points among the young people (or, I’m afraid, among some of their parents).

You definitely need to tell the parents – but do it quietly. It doesn’t need to be headline news at the church. Just talk to them in a one-on-one setting and then email the links to their kids’ MySpace pages.

Additionally, brace yourself for at least one parent to be angry with you. This has to do with a prevalent, “My kid can do no wrong.” attitude. The parents might not show it to your face, but they would definitely rather you hadn’t gone ‘snooping’ like that.

Finally, this sounds like an honest discovery on your part. Just remember – you are not the spiritual police. Meditate on this.

Sincerely;
- Pastor