Founder Hopes Christian Social Networking Site Will Fill Niche
by Jim Brown
May 8, 2006
(AgapePress) - - A new website designed in the sleepy coastal town of Pawleys Island, South Carolina, is offering Christians an alternative to questionable social networking sites like "MySpace.com" and "Facebook.com." The "Oaktree.org" website orginally began as a "hope exchange" where people could post prayer concerns and words of encouragement for people depressed, hospitalized, or battling an illness. But last month the site was re-launched with more social networking features such as online journals, photos, biographies, discussion forums, and chat.
Oaktree.org founder Brady Stump says he and his wife felt this website could fill a void, as they did not see anything on the Internet fostering Christian community from a social networking standpoint.
What they happened almost spontaneously with the Oaktree.org site, Stump says, is "it flipped social networking on its head and created a place where people could share their testimonies, share their favorite Bible verses, where ministers and pastors and youth pastors could get on a forum, and they could share ideas on how to reach more people, how to reach more youth."
Right away, the Christian site's founder says he and his wife saw how a social Internet forum "could definitely be used for good if it was created correctly, and that's kind of what inspired us to do this."
Thirty-one-year-old Stump says the idea of a hope exchange site came about following the tremendous outpouring of support he received from fellow Christians after he lost his left leg in a car wreck in 1998. Now, he is seeing Oaktree.org help countless others find not only hope but purpose in life.
The hidden gem in the site, the website creator says, is a feature called Impact Projects. This area is "a place to put 'Purpose Driven' in action," he explains. "Under these Impact Projects we have on our site, you can put basically your life purpose, your Christianly purpose -- what you want to do to build the kingdom of heaven."
Once a community member puts down this spiritual plan of action, what happens next is "kind of neat," Stump observes. As other Christians visiting the site connect with a person about his or her Impact Project goals, he says, "the way it's developed is that other people almost turn into accountability partners."
Stump says the online profiles and posting areas at Oaktree.org are filtered and monitored regularly to ensure appropriateness. He hopes that as the membership of the Christian social networking website grows, more and more visitors will discover it as a place where they can find community, encouragement, and accountability as well as resources to help them grow in their faith.
Jim Brown, a regular contributor to AgapePress, is a reporter for American Family Radio News, which can be heard online.
