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Dr. Yaw Ansong; Challenging Facebook with Faith

" Though social media provides a good enough opportunity for social satisfaction, it may not be good enough for a Christian who may want a more conducive spiritual platform."- Dr. Yaw Ansong Jnr

 

It's unbelievable the influence social media is having on life today. Many can practically not live without Facebook or Twitter.

It’s hard to believe that, only a decade ago, social media was little more than a budding trend. Sure, there were websites such as Friendster and MySpace that had a decent level of adoption, but the population as a whole had not come around to it yet.

Back in 2005, Facebook was still in it’s early stages of its spread across the world.

This tells us that everything has officially and permanently changed. There is a generation of kids coming up who can’t even conceive of a world without smart phones and social networking. It has officially embedded itself in our culture.

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But is the content good for a Christian? Does it not make you predisposed to sin? Exactly how much can it contribute to keeping you on track as a Christian?

Dr. Yaw Ansong, Co Founder and CEO of  Love Realm Network, believes that the same tool that  appears to give good things in the form of quick info, business marketing channels, friendship and even religious upliftments, take it all back with the other hand by polluting teens with pornography, and other self-esteem problems from trolling.

" Though social media provides a good enough opportunity for social satisfaction, it may not be good enough for a Christian who may want a more conducive spiritual platform."

He narrates how the idea for Love Realm Network started:

"I used to keep a Christian blog where I posted devotions and religious articles meant to uplift Christains. And while people were coming to me for support, I realized that I had personal challenges myself. For example if I was struggling with sexual immorality, I asked myself, how could I share this on the average social media sites around? I would be ridiculed.  But if there was a Christian platform where Christian brothers and sisters would understand me and help me overcome my challenge, that would be godsent. That was how the idea for Love Realm Network started."

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Then on, the team has expanded to include Dr. Yaw Ansong and his other twin siblings( He is a triplet by the way), and many others all over the world.

When drawn into the argument that secular social media sites help propagate the gospel as well, Dr. Ansong narrated an ordeal where, he tried searching for a sermon on one of the video  sharing site, only for the search to show up with other very profane and explicit content.

" That ordeal lended some credibility to my assertion that, though there could be some good content, they are equally contradicted by unwholesome content. Imagine that you go to a social media site to read a devotional only to see nude pictures of models and other explicit content, how does that help you as a Christian?"

Whereas the Love Realm Network looks like a considerable work of innovation, there has been some skepticism as to how such a platform will be received. But the Beta launch of the platform will silence all such doubts.

Success with Beta Launch

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The pre- launch was done at a colourful ceremony at the fully packed five thousand seater auditorium at the Pentecost Convention Centre during this year’s Pentecost Students Association (PENSA) conference.

The aim of the pre launch ceremony was to get feedback from randomly selected users before opening up to the world in few weeks time.

The spots however, available for testing were limited to hundreds of users and this was reached within an hour after the pre-test outdoor.

After temporarily increasing the number of sign up spots available from three hundred, then later to five hundred, the team at Love Realm has finally decided to limit the rush by allowing two thousand more users to avoid crashing its servers.

All subsequent users will thus, be on the waiting list and would be notified immediately testing spots are available. You can Sign up at www.loverealm.com

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Dr. Yaw Ansong JNR speaking at the launch

Some members of the team at the Launch

Background

Dr. Yaw Ansong Jnr, is a medical doctor by training who works at Ghana's 37 Military Hospital. As revealed earlier, Love Realm Network started from a hobby of Christian blogging, that took on a new life stemming from his own inadequacies and what for a avenues to further build his faith.

One fascinating thing about him is his closely knit family of 8, made up of his parents, an a first brother, two older siblings who are twins and the other two who are his twin brother and sister- he is a tripplet. So his family is interestingly made of a twin and a triplet.

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As if this is not interesting enough the triplets are all doctors, and the twins all pharmacists.

Today his twin brother Dr. Yaw Ansong Snr, and his Twin sister  Dr. Sophia Ansong, are staunch members of  his team.

All is set for the next level of what the BBC labels, the Holy Version of Facebook. Watch out!

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