The Journal Gazette, 600 W. Main St., Fort Wayne IN

As a Christian mom of two teenage boys, Karen Worden of Aboite Township knows she has to put her foot down now and then, even when it won’t make her popular with her sons.

“They’re not allowed to have MySpace pages,” she flatly says of her sons Josh, 14, and Jordan, 16.

Whoa. That probably earned the 41-year-old the silent treatment for, what, 20 years to life?

But Worden’s kids are still talking to her. That might be because she came up with an alternative to social networking on the computer for her two home-schoolers, hungry for contact with kids their own age.

Worden found www.faithfreaks.com, which offers teens and others what she considers a more wholesome, faith-based environment for online friendships.

FaithFreaks, one of a growing number of social networking sites geared at Christian young people, bills itself as an alternative to MySpace and Facebook.com.

Other Christian networking sites include www.xianz.com and GloryLane.com.

“We’re not out to bash MySpace, but people post things we don’t consider appropriate,” says Worden, who quickly became so enthusiastic about FaithFreaks that she became one of the site’s 40 adult “moderators.”

She now spends a couple hours a day keeping an eye on everything from the language in chat rooms to the lyrics of uploaded songs, to the modesty of photos posted with member profiles.

“I think they (member teens) appreciate it,” she says of the supervision. “A lot of kids don’t know how to act. They don’t have a lot of boundaries set at home, so we set them for them.”

Nick Zano, 37, of Columbus, Ohio, a self-described “computer geek,” says the site has grown to 82,000 registered users since he founded it in April 2007.

About 75 percent of users are 13 to 19, he says, and about 250 are from the Fort Wayne area. The site now gets 135 million hits a month.

The growth has come despite strict rules – no nudity, bigotry, hate speech or cursing. Excessively violent, bullying, sexually explicit or “otherwise objectionable” subject matter also is banned.

“If your account contains questionable material, it will be deleted,” the site proclaims in red type at the top of its sign-up page.

Zano says he began FaithFreaks after setting up a MySpace account for himself three years ago. He wanted to connect with family members and teens at Vineyard Church, where he was leading a youth ministry group.

But he found himself getting concerned.

“I saw all the advertising and the language they were using. I noticed that their profiles and messages were laced with profanity – ‘What the f--- is up?’ and so forth,” he says.

“The advertising was really seductive – a lot of references to anatomy and sexual ads trying to get guys to join dating sites and (adult) chat lines.”

Among the last straws, Zano says: having a teen he knew contacted by someone apparently from a porn site and seeing photos of a girl wearing nothing but a thong on her head.

“Kids really don’t need to see that, you know,” he says.

Zano acknowledges that secular social networking sites “are cleaning up their act.” And he says he can’t guarantee content or safety either.

But he’s trying.

A major concern Zano has about social networking sites is the connections teens can make using them. Not only do they run the risk of being contacted by unsavory characters wanting to be their “friends,” he says, but teens can be lured into initiating contact with such people.

Zano explains that most sites allow users to see profiles and contact their friends’ friends.

“And you don’t know who your ‘friends’ have as ‘friends,’ ” he says.

FaithFreaks limits contacts. It automatically classifies profiles of teens younger than 16 as “private,” which means no one can see their full profile without asking for and gaining their permission to be added as a “friend.”

Those seeking access to the profile of a person younger than 15 also must provide the profiled person’s name or e-mail address.

The provisions restrict access to people the younger users know in real life and invite for online contact, Zano says.

Profiles of members older than 16 are automatically classified as public, but they are also given the option to restrict access, he says.

No last names, street addresses or city names are allowed in profiles. Neither are commercial solicitations.

FaithFreaks, which is free to users and has been supported by advertising and donations, also screens advertising for unacceptable content, Zano says.

The site has been promoted largely through word of mouth, in churches and at youth gatherings, says Zano, who adds the name was chosen because that’s the way kids into Christianity refer to themselves.

“The whole ‘freak’ thing … just means they’re crazy about something. We’re just allowing them to be who they are,” he says.

Worden says she and other moderators tend to counsel kids who engage in borderline or unacceptable behavior rather than discipline them.

But she says she has kicked a few out of the chat room.

“We give them a lot of grace,” she says, “because they’re kids, and sometimes kids just have a bad day,” says the member of Lifewater Community Church in Fort Wayne.

But more commonly, she says, kids who know her online name, MamaKaren, seek her out for private chats about subjects they’re wondering or are troubled about. Prayer requests aren’t unusual.

And despite her snooping ways, her sons tell her she’s known as “the cool mom” among their online friends.

“My kids get so mad at me sometimes,” Worden says. “They say, ‘You’re just so popular!’ ”

rsalter@jg.net