Church Growth strategies: 'Be IT Savvy: Social Media!'

By now you'll probably be aware of Hauerwas' comment that:

'Church growth strategies are the death rattle of a church that has lost its way. 

But it doesn't make it any less necessary to add it to the top of the post to make the point and get us all thinking, does it? 

At a conference a couple of years back the keynote speaker (the Rt Revd Dino Saur) told the assembled masses how we needed to get back to basics and, 'Put down our mobile 'phones, computers and other technology. Doing this will grow the the Church!' Many of those around me vigorously nodded their agreement (in the hope that their names might be taken for tea and medals later perhaps?) whilst others merely rolled their eyes and tweeted, "You wouldn't believe what the wally on the stage just said!.

Some months later I was at another training event and the person at the front closed the whole thing by telling us that the only hope for the Church was for us to, "Get out there in the blogosphere and in the virtual company of people through social media and make Church virtual and effective!' This time everyone cheered (because we were all techies so would would, wouldn't we).

But, as ever, neither speaker was completely right or wrong because we live in a reality that is ('Hooray,' cried the Anglicans) a via media - and this middle path has us treading a fine line indeed!

But what we do need to always remember is this:

'Church is a communications sector business!'

Like looking in a mirror this image!

Having engaged in 'virtual church' I found it to be a place where people could attend virtual services and could raise their hands and shout 'Amen' and stuff from the safety of their keyboard. I could elect when to be 'doing church' and it was great fun.

BUT

God could have solved all the problems of the world in one swift reboot and yet He didn't!

No sirree! What He did was realise that the answer to life, the universe and everything required something extra-special. It needed His presence (what was already there anyway) to be made flesh; and this is the problem with 'virtual' Church, there's nothing of the incarnate in it (innit?)!

I have run a forum for a few years now (Cavedwellers) and what we had when it was going well was a bunch of people who communicated, prayed for each other and shared best practice and stuff like that. It was a community but I'd have to say that it wasn't Church. Well not until one of us had a need and others climbed into cars or boarded busses and arrived to pray and be there for whoever had a need - and this, I think, is where we have lost the plot a little. So let's consider IT and the ways it can enhance, and limit, our Christian witness and the Gospel we proclaim. I've included but a few areas and thoughts to get you started or keep you running:

Twitter Prayer

Last Sunday evening I sat in a church building and invited prayer needs for our prayer service and as I sat there praying, in came tweets and messages from people I knew and others I had never met before and, although not in the same place, we prayed together for needs confident that God hears and acts and joined by the omnipresence.

SMS Prayer
Our little church has a number of people who volunteer to be on what was once a traditional prayer chain: One of those great church things where prayer needs are passed from one person to another (originally by telephone) and situations are brought before the Lord as they arise. These days my 'phone vibrates and there, on the screen, are prayer needs for situations happening there and then! For those who don't do messaging there's still a telephone call but this is a great way of being a prayer active and engaged church (remember to make sure that those on the chain remember that all prayer needs received are confidential unless told otherwise).

Facebook (fb) and others (click on 'others' to see a list of social media sites
There are times when I realise that Facebook is the source of division and cruel (and wounding) comments but that said it is also a great place to share stuff around the church and wider community. Set up a 'page' or a 'group' for your church or project and then use it to publicise, invite and share information. 

A page effectively sings your church or project up to Facebook as if it were a person and there are many benefits to going down this route. A group is exactly what it sounds like: A group of people who are sharing information, stories and opinions on a common interest area (which in this case is church). Here's a page for St Editha's.

Social media is a great facility for church but a few gentle thoughts:

i. Don't appear 'needy': One of my colleagues posts some of the most desperate stuff on their church fb page as they try to invite people. 'Please come to my church event because no one ever does and I've worked so hard!' is not the way to present Church (or you).

ii. Be thoughtful and attractive: Something I've rarely ever accused of :-) But challenge people by all means but do it in a way that invites comment and makes people think, 'Wow! I'd like a go at that!'

iii. Little and often: But not too often! If you've ever sat on a train with the boring person who drones on and on throughout the whole journey you'll understand what posting too much is all about. Post relevant and interesting stuff and do it when it is right to post: many who try to use fb as a means of evangelism (or community connection) actually bore the pants off people because they keep posting loads of trite and ineffective dross. Timely, interesting and talk when you need to talk, not when you want to talk!

Snapchat
This is a great way of connecting using the visual stuff that our clever mobile devices can provide so easily. It's not something that is public like fb But it is a great way of sharing the ephemeral moments with those in your circle of friends - and that could even mean church I guess ;-) . I love this medium for the ability it gives me to share instants in time. Like all social media it has been used for ill as well as good and the need to post appropriately is especially there with the image - because words don't always sanitise a situation (so think what you are sharing before you share it).

Pinterest
This is an area I like because it shares images and can be a source of inspiration and encouragement (and it's fun: an important thing when communicating). It's a great way of sharing things (mine can be found HERE ) and looking at stuff that relates to the areas that interest you. It's a great way of sharing things, especially seasonal stuff (Lent, Advent, Christmas, etc.) and connecting with new people.

often overlooked but as they say: 'A picture is worth a thousand words!'

Linkedin
Not, as some might have it, the 'boring' social media network but something a little more affinity and prior relationship driven that brings others into relationship with you on professional, industry and more formal settings. Not the place to be advertising services and  stuff (use the more relaxed social media for that) but a place of connection and peer relationships - and that's important!

Web Presence
We will visit this some time soon: Tea is drunk, brain is surged onto the screen and time to go and be blessing people.

I hope that this has been of some assistance. Some of what is here will be useful and other bits probably pure pants (If only I knew which was which)!

Pax

Social Media - not about preaching . . .

Not about posting Bible passages on Twitter!

Not about preaching from a one-sided pulpit.

For me, one of the greatest benefits of the social media, twittersphere, blogging world is not that we take for ourselves a platform that makes us known but that in it we find a means to make ourselves more accessible, better understood and, most importantly, accountable.

Posting on Facebook on any of the other social media sites is not about being 'down with the kids' or evangelising. In fact if the only reason you post on a social media site is to 'win' people then might I most respectfully* suggest that you stop it and go buy yourself a sandwich board and at least have some integrity.

We don't win people to Christ by posting trite stuff, nor do we do it by posting contextually isolated (and often confusing) passages in cyberspace**; we win people to Christ by making ourselves open, honest and transparent.

I post here because, as I have said many times, it is a place of reflection and internal dialogue with the added benefit of inviting others to offer correctives where they might be required and to enter into the dialogue that I might better understand, be better understood and perhaps (for those reading and especially for me) shine a light on the world of faith that is Christianity.

God became man and was found among the people He came to save. This is what blogging, twitter and social media offers us - an opportunity to be part of the people around us and to learn of their needs and to make ourselves known in the hope that the same Spirit that raised jesus from the dead, that IS in fact Jesus, who is present in us, might just shine out, like a diamond in the darkness of a mine, in the darkness of our lives.

So - a Plea - to all who engage in making themselves known across the many facets of the internet.

Do it with integrity

Think about who the focus is in your scribbles

Remember that once posted it is there for ever - even if you delete it!

Remember that Jesus and His bride, the Church, might well be judged by what you write and think before you post.

Pax

* Well, with as much respect as I can honestly garner that is!

** And to then render it in the King James version is double-folly and compounds your first silly act into something of gigantic proportions in my book!

When social media becomes antisocial

I see a number of Police Forces around the country have posted something like this:

We would urge people to consider the very real impact of their online comments in relation to this matter.

We have received a number of reports from local members of the public about tweets and Facebook comments that could potentially incite racial hatred and violence.

These are currently being investigated. If such communications are reported to us and they do breach the law, those messages may be monitored; captured and robust police action will be considered.

(This version comes from the Lincolnshire Police force)

It seems to me that immediacy of the electronic communications world can lead us into many potentially dodgy places and open us up to criticism and more besides (as Emma Way found after tweeting about knocking a cyclist of his bike!).

I find myself dealing with situations where people have posted stuff as a kneejerk and found themselves starting WWIII as a result and it is not just terrible things like the Woolwich murder that has raised the passion - communication is great but not always beneficial!

Desperate (or switched on) clergy?

I chanced across an advert' for a church service this week.

Well actually I chanced across eight from the same person (on the same day) all of which were almost pleading with the reader to come to their church services. Then, quite by coincidence, I found them on Twitter and, Facebook? Yes you've probably guessed, the same services were advertised there too! So this got me wondering and so I trotted over to some of the other social media sites and found that they were quite prolific.

Now I think there is great merit to be found in social media sites with regard to disseminating information, dialoguing with people and being grounded but there was something in what I had stumbled across that caused me to think that what I was reading was bordering on the desperate and tacky rather than merely seeking to engage. It was all a bit like those conversations where you know the other person isn't going to come to Back to Church Sunday' or perhaps those where you struggle to make excuses for the fact that you won't be popping round to enjoy 'an evening with . . . .'

One of our church members recently recounted an encounter where they asked someone to a church event. Before they were halfway through the invitation the other person said, "We're busy on that day!"  "But I haven't told you the date yet," protested our evangelistic hero. "Oh, we're busy every ___day," came the reply. The sad thing is that this is a repeat of last year's encounter with the same person and probably the year before that as well - and I get to the stage where I don't think it's worth throwing 'good money after bad' and that the time comes when we shake the dust off of our shoes and leave them to their own designs, even if there was once a relationship. The door is always open and the welcome is always there for those who wish to come - even after a number of year's absence - but the time comes when you decide to use your energy where it is valued and effective (and yes, I know about the persistent woman and the magistrate!).

As one of my favourite sayings puts it,

'If you lend someone a tenner and never see them again, it was probably worth it!'

This applies equally well to some who have come and gone in that their departure can sometimes release us to be effective elsewhere.

But, as is often the case, I digress and so let us return to the desperation stakes minister.

The more I read the posts the more I felt saddened rather than uplifted and so I decided to give them a call to find out what they were doing and why (and how I might support them in prayer and any other ways). It transpired that they, like so many of us, were in the middle of an exercise to reduce clergy numbers and the events, services and other attractions on offer were part of an attempt to attract more people and get them known in the area so that people (especially pointyheaded people) would see how much they were doing and find their sacrificial sheep elsewhere.

I tried to tell them that reducing clergy numbers is about doing church more effectively and efficiently and is not (well it shouldn't be) a popularity contest! The idea that by throwing loads of services at the wall some of them will stick and a successful church will emerge from the shadows to help deflect the axeman's blow is folly and, in my humble (and brain-limited) opinion, will only cause more clergy depression and desperation. The potential for some to act like dancing bears to attract the crowds or start writing in the local paper about everything the church is doing in the hope that the community will be impressed is doing the wrong stuff for the wrong reasons.

So I write this saddened and concerned - we prayed on the telephone and I think I have found a potential friend in the social media minister. But the wounds, pressure and desire to perform to appease those above and continue to support those around them is neither healthy (for minister, congregation or Church) nor God-honouring.

Church - how do you do yours?

(and God: How should we be doing it? Give us a clue!)

ps. Think He has if we read our Bibles ;-)

Social Networking - a guide

I found this to be one of the best explanations of social networks and the way to get the best from it that I have seen.

Enjoy!