Here are some random thoughts connecting modern technology and social media with aspects of our life with God, family, and friends. If these ideas resonate with you certainly you and especially your students can expand on them—perhaps in a short brainstorming session or to create an icebreaker activity of some kind.

To get started, have you ever compared:

• The presence of cameras everywhere to God’s omnipresence?

Think of how if a person goes missing, authorities can nearly recreated the person’s steps throughout the day using cameras on streetlights, at banks, attached to gas station awnings and more. Not to mention the many friends who may film a person in regular interactions. What is it like knowing you are being captured on camera?

God is everywhere. God sees everything we do. How does God’s omnipresence differ from being photo’d randomly? How is it the same?

• Cancelling someone based on old social postings to God’s mercy and forgiveness?

We’ve seen this happen, right? Someone digs into a past tweet from five or ten years ago. Something a person (many times an adolescent) said is construed as something racists, homophobic, misogynistic, or something else. And that could be true. Often, however, the person has changed and reformed from previous views but they are nevertheless called out and “cancelled” from their current career or endeavor.

God calls us to repent and reform our lives. Jesus came to earth to minister to the sick, not the healthy. What might be a proper response to someone whose past “sins” have been discovered on social media? Would digging into someone’s past ever be warranted?

• Making a movie via Vimeo or some other platform with how God will review a life on Judgment Day?

It’s fun to put our best foot forward in creating a short video on our phones using our past photos and videos. When we do this, the video forms a snapshot of our lives. It’s pretty typical for a person to only highlight the good memories and happy events in order to make a good, happy, and enjoyable video.

God will review or individual lives at our judgment, the times we did good and the times we did bad without repenting. He will separate the good and evil doers to his right and left. If you were making an accurate video of your life to show at Judgment Day, what would be on it?

• Connecting with people worldwide on social media with the universal nature of the Church?

Staying in touch with old friends, making new ones, and communicating with people from all over the world is generally a positive aspect of social media. That’s why they call it social media, right? While there are many negatives to burying oneself into a screen and to trying to get to know someone without meeting face-to –face, social media platforms offer a chance to know a diverse and large swath of the population worldwide.

The Catholic Church is a universal church. In God’s eternal kingdom, we will know people from all areas of the world and all generations past and present. How can communicating via social media help to further the universal nature of the Church?