Christian Chat Rooms
I have to fess up that I frequent a Christian chat room on a regular basis. Online chatting has been both positive and negative for me, but I mainly want to share how I got started chatting in the first place.
To begin with, I visited Christian chat rooms, because I was looking for someone with whom I could discuss theology. Face it, if you are a middle-aged female with children, most theologians and pastors don't take you very seriously, no matter how much experience or theological training you have. I was hungry for some deeper discussion, and I quickly discovered that people in the chat rooms seemed to take what I said more seriously, and my age and gender hardly mattered.
My first visit to a Christian chat room arose out of my desire to have questions answered about the Messianic Jewish faith. Since chat is a live format, I joined a room frequented by Messianic Jews. It was a positive experience, and it whet my appetite for more.
My next visit was to a chat room which was simply labeled "Christian Chat". It should have been labeled "My Way or the Highway Christian Chat", because open debate meant that as long as you agreed completely with the majority of the chatters, you were fine. If you disagreed, you were ridiculed. It was not long before I grew weary of being ridiculed all the time, so I started to see what else was out there. I was shocked at what I found.
On one site, the only way to participate in chat was to submit all kinds of personal information including the name of my church, the name of my pastor, my marital status, my home address. I'm surprised they did not ask what I did for fun on the weekends. Needless to say, I never signed up for that chat room. On another site I visited, no one was ever there. Then one day, I accidentally clicked on Christian Chat, UK (CCUK), and a whole world was opened to me.
In addition to serious theological discussion, I found separate rooms for general chat, praise and worship, Bible study, Bible games, talk for specific age groups. In short, CCUK is a Christian network. The rooms are well monitored and open debate is welcome as long as it stays clean and civil. In CCUK, I've made Christian friends, listened to people's problems and prayed with them, participated in Bible study, and praise and worship. In fact, I enjoy it so much, that I've had to put a limit on how much time spend there. That's a downside and another topic for another day.
NOTE: For those of you who read my last post and wondered if it might have rained? Well, it did, got a healthy dose of rain which brightened up things quite a bit. Thank You, God.
To begin with, I visited Christian chat rooms, because I was looking for someone with whom I could discuss theology. Face it, if you are a middle-aged female with children, most theologians and pastors don't take you very seriously, no matter how much experience or theological training you have. I was hungry for some deeper discussion, and I quickly discovered that people in the chat rooms seemed to take what I said more seriously, and my age and gender hardly mattered.
My first visit to a Christian chat room arose out of my desire to have questions answered about the Messianic Jewish faith. Since chat is a live format, I joined a room frequented by Messianic Jews. It was a positive experience, and it whet my appetite for more.
My next visit was to a chat room which was simply labeled "Christian Chat". It should have been labeled "My Way or the Highway Christian Chat", because open debate meant that as long as you agreed completely with the majority of the chatters, you were fine. If you disagreed, you were ridiculed. It was not long before I grew weary of being ridiculed all the time, so I started to see what else was out there. I was shocked at what I found.
On one site, the only way to participate in chat was to submit all kinds of personal information including the name of my church, the name of my pastor, my marital status, my home address. I'm surprised they did not ask what I did for fun on the weekends. Needless to say, I never signed up for that chat room. On another site I visited, no one was ever there. Then one day, I accidentally clicked on Christian Chat, UK (CCUK), and a whole world was opened to me.
In addition to serious theological discussion, I found separate rooms for general chat, praise and worship, Bible study, Bible games, talk for specific age groups. In short, CCUK is a Christian network. The rooms are well monitored and open debate is welcome as long as it stays clean and civil. In CCUK, I've made Christian friends, listened to people's problems and prayed with them, participated in Bible study, and praise and worship. In fact, I enjoy it so much, that I've had to put a limit on how much time spend there. That's a downside and another topic for another day.
NOTE: For those of you who read my last post and wondered if it might have rained? Well, it did, got a healthy dose of rain which brightened up things quite a bit. Thank You, God.
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