As you become accustomed to using Twitter, you will want to connect with your following in other ways.
This is where having a blog comes in. It is a place to assemble your Twitter congregation. On your blog you can elaborate on your Twitter message. Your Twitter efforts should interest people in knowing more. Send them to your blog.
Blogs are not difficult to set up, but they do require some discipline to maintain. Many churches build their web sites on blogging platforms but they do not use the features that make blogs so powerful — the ability to attract followers and interact with them.
We’ve written a lot about blogging on this web site. Type “blog” within the site search box on the right to find articles. Or go to the Social Media Category.
For now, here are some tips to refresh about blogging.
Write about things of interest to others beyond your immediate congregation. If you write about things in your community, you will attract community attention. If you write about yourself, you will interest only a few of your members. You will get discouraged and quit because you will conclude early on that it is a waste of time.
Give your efforts a year before measuring worth. It takes six months to start getting traffic and and meaningful growth takes more than a year. Can you think of a better way to attract 1000 followers in a year’s time?
Aim for 200 to 500 words.
Use images. They attract attention and are an additional way to communicate. Images are available online. They are often free with a link required. We uses photopin.com.
Again, we’ve written many posts on this topic. Dig around.
In our resolve to be more active in our own community, the Ambassadors attended William Penn Charter School’s Upper School Winter Concert.
Many of Redeemer’s young people are alums of Penn Charter so we are very familiar with the school. A few years ago, the concerts would have seemed crowded as they were held in the Quaker Meeting Room. But recently, Penn Charter built a luxurious auditorium — a real asset to East Falls. The venue now has plenty of room for neighborhood people. We hope over time that the neighbors take advantage of the cultural offerings of the school.
They call it the Winter Concert, because that’s what we do these days, but it had a nice selection of Christmas choral music and one upbeat number celebrating Hanukkah. It had a couple of raplike verses but the only word I could understand was the word repeated throughout the chorus, Miracles, which is what Hanukkah is all about. Two Grinch numbers. He is almost replacing Santa in our culture.
We did not join the traditional closing, where all are invited on stage to sing the Hallelujah Chorus along with the youth. Next year!
We firmly believe that if neighborhood churches expect people to come to them, we must go to neighborhood events.
In our Twitter experiment I started researching the power of the #-tag.
The # is a way of finding people who share your interests — long-term interests or passing fancies.
I started by plugging #church into the search box at the top of the twitter page.
Tons of tweets followed, a few of them of interest.
Here is a link to one of them. It addresses church polity and how church polity can go against church law depending on the faddish thinking of church leaders or members at the time.
It is precisely the same problem Redeemer faces with the Southeastern Pennsylvania Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (SEPA / ELCA). Church polity can go against its own written laws and the courts will not uphold church law. In our case, they won’t even hear the case.
The lesson to be learned is that church members must be vigilant about enforcing their own laws or it will take years and unmeasurable embarrassment to correct mistakes of wayward leadership.
I wouldn’t have found this interesting vignette without Twitter.
Use the #-tag to find topics of interest to you and follow the voices which are most interesting to you.
That’s today’s Twitter assignment! I’ll add the #-tag to a few more topics and see what surfaces.
Guaranteed, the first response when a congregation pushes for an online preaching presence will be the offer to post transcripts of Sunday sermons. There. Done. Let’s move on.
Also guaranteed, no one will read them. The style does not fit the habits of online readers.
People don’t read online sermons. Post them for reference if you like, but they won’t find readers, new or old.
Effective online preaching is not what the Church wants to hear about. They want people in the pews, listening to 20-minute sermons and sticking around at least until the offering plate is passed. Pastors have worked hard at their 20-minute preaching skills. They’ve studied with the best 20-minute preachers.
The effectiveness of the sermon as compared to any other form of communication is rarely discussed between pastors and congregants. The formula is so old that questioning it seems to fly in the face of the oft-heard demand for change. “We didn’t mean this kind of change!” So the 20-minute sermon is what people in the pew expect. It is what pastors are trained to do. What’s the problem?
There are very few people in the pew. The 20-minute sermon is reaching practically no ears.
It is not the first time preaching styles have changed. Decades ago people thought nothing of settling in on a wooden plank pew to listen to a preacher for two or three hours. No more. A century ago a weekend revival was a big attraction. In Jesus’ day people would sit on a hillside all day to listen to a good speaker. And now our cultural expectations are shifting again.
As a life-long church goer, I enjoy a good sermon. I am also very aware that even great sermons are ephemeral. They are forgotten in less time than it takes to deliver them.
Recently, our Ambassadors listened to a sermon in which the preacher made five points. He illustrated the points well. He even used visual props and interspersed some music. It grabbed my interest. I thought as he was speaking, I really ought to write some of this down. When we left church, one of our Ambassadors who is also a retired pastor commented that he thought the sermon was really good. A few hours later I sat down to write a few words about the sermon. I could remember three of the five points. I contacted the pastor who was with us and who had gushed about the sermon. “What were the five points the pastor made? I asked. “I can remember only three of them.” The pastor paused for a moment and finally said, “That’s three more than I can remember.”
And that’s the problem preachers have in relating to modern listeners. They are not connecting with the modern attention span and sensibility. People are wired differently today. That difference is going to grow as today’s younger generations reach church leadership age—if they stay involved long enough to serve.
People today process much more information from many more sources than did our ancestors. Our most valued skill sets are dominated by multi-tasking. We want the same information. We need for it to bedelivered in ways we can process while we do a dozen other things.
Online preaching is suited for this. Twitter is ideal. There is no reason to bemoan the decline of the Church in this regard. It is a new opportunity for the Church.
There are several online pastors I follow. One is Jon Swanson who writes a blog, 300 words a day with a second daily email blast to subscribers called 7×7 or 7 minutes with God. 7×7 is nothing more than a link to a short scripture passage and usually just one sentence to help you think about the passage. For those wanting to read more he offers a 14-minute option. In recent months, by virtue of his email links, I have read several epistles in their entirety, 1 and 2 Chronicles, Esther, Ezra and most notably the book of Nehemiah.
Pastor Swanson has effectively communicated his passion for Nehemiah in ongoing posts, supporting the daily reading. This chronicle of an unlikely building contractor is pretty easy to skip over for the average Bible reader. Nehemiah is sad to hear the temple is destroyed and sets out to rebuild it. He recruits help. He records long lists ancient names of contributors, complete with geneological references that contribute even more unusual names that haven’t been pronounced in centuries. He fights off the high and mighty who want to see him fail. As he nears completion in 52 days he recruits the people to staff the temple and returns a whole people to God. It is anything but boring when read with the gentle prods of Pastor Swanson.
In fact, it is amazingly similar to the experience of 2×2 — rebuilding a church after (or during) an attempt to totally destroy us. Nehemiah faced the the same behind-the-scenes conniving and intrigue, the same obstacles of human nature. Nehemiah, under the gentle guidance of Pastor Swanson, empowers us.
Recently, through our Twitter account, I’ve discovered Bishop T.D. Jakes. I’ve seen this guy on TV as a frequent talk show guest, but I never paid much attention to him. I won’t point you to his website. It’s easy enough to find and heavily monetized. That’s not what I admire about his ministry. His Twitter ministry is very effective. He tweets just one inspiring thought a day — just what a lot of us hunkered in the Christian trenches need. A sample:
God sees your tears! God sees your circumstances! God sees your situation! God sees your faith and perseverance! WAIT ON HIM!
These Christian leaders are mastering the 21st century art of preaching.
How do you present yourself, your church, on Twitter?
The best advice is to be yourself. But individuals tweet, not organizations. How does your congregation represent itself as a community?
When you sign up for Twitter, you will be asked to upload an Avatar — a photo or image that represents you. Avatars are more important in Twitter than anywhere. They help you scan the long list of tweets you will receive to help you sort out the ones that most interest you.
Experts advise us to use a photo of a person. People relate to people not logos, they tell us.
Churches include many people and focusing on one is a recipe for cult-building.
The most likely candidate for a one-person Twitter persona is a pastor. There are plusses and minuses to this.
The plusses
The pastor knows the congregation’s mission.
We assume he or she is working all week on profound interpretations of scripture that will make good tweets.
You can use a photo of the pastor as an Avatar.
We assume he or she knows the community and can relate church life to what is happening community-wide.
We assume a similar knowledge of individual church members, so messages that resonate with members should be easy.
The minuses
Pastors are often resistant to social media and would need to be brought “on board.” This could stall your entry into social media for years.
Pastors are leaders but they are not the church. You must make sure that a tweeting pastor is doing so on behalf of the congregation and not building a personal “tribe.”
Pastors come and go. If people follow your congregation’s Twitter presence centered on a pastor, you will lose followers and have to start over when that pastor moves on, which statistically is something like every three to seven years.
Analysis of social media efforts when focused on the efforts of one person, could be devisive and spill into other aspects of a congregation’s relationship with a pastor.
We are all new at this so we are looking for solutions along with everyone else. Perhaps two Twitter entities are needed. The pastor can have one which can follow him or her wherever they plan to go. Equal attention should be given to the Twitter voice of the people.
Talk it out in your congregation. Perhaps you can have a team of tweeters, voicing for the congregation. A worship voice once a day. A social ministry voice. An education voice. A fellowship voice. And a pastor’s evangelical voice. Maybe there is a way to indicate via your Avatar that your Twitter account is a team effort. A tight team photo?
This is one of many things to think through. It is worth the effort. Please, let us know how you solve this problem.
We are trying to stay in a Twitter groove. We have been sending at least two tweets a day. We’ve retweeted a couple of good thoughts. Meanwhile we’ve been researching blog posts in the Twitter theme to share over the next few days.
We tweeted the news that the Pope will be tweeting beginning December 12. We invited him to follow us even though we are sure he won’t. But at least we are in good company. In our case however, we didn’t have international ad agency and Twitter itself helping us. It’s just we Redeemer members, doing ministry the best we know how.
We like the quote of the ad agency involved in the Pope’s new enterprise.
You can’t be a leader and not tweet.
We retweeted Dr. T.D. Jakes comment to preachers. It resonated with us.
Preachers, a ministry built on tearing down others will never cause yours to grow!
We are following 13 and we have 8 followers to 2×2 and 7 to our old Twitter account for a total of 15 followers.
We noticed one church is participating along with us. Join our Twitter experiment. It could open many new doors.
That is the summation of a media representative talking about the news that the Pope plans to begin Tweeting his messages in eight languages beginning on December 12.
Maybe it is time to seriously consider the value of the disorganized church.
Change is very, very difficult in the Church.
Why? There is really no desire to change. People rarely go to church to spearhead change and church leaders, as much as they talk about change, are really interested in change for just one reason.
Economics.
The Church wants to maintain the economic advantages it came to enjoy in the affluent Post World War II years. If the money were still flowing, if the Sunday Schools were even half the size they were in 1965, there would be no talk of change. If the building were maintained with salaries paid and if a healthy proportion of offerings were being shared with the regional and national offices (do we remember why?), then everyone would be happy.
There would be celebrations for the status quo.
Somewhere amidst the revelry the mission of the church will be left behind.
The catalyst for change is need—the more personal, the more imperative.
The need is there. The imperative is strong. But there is no strategy. We are all worried about just getting by! There is no money for mission.
Congregations are hurting. When congregations hurt, regional offices lose support. When regional leaders can’t pay tribute to the national office, you have a mess. The battle cry sounds. Change!
Under these conditions, there is a temptation to follow policies designed to mandate change. They don’t work.
Here is a link to a TED talk that addresses the problem of traffic congestion. How does this relate to church life? Watch it and see.
Here is a short vignette. It’s about the temptation to make plans and expecting other people to simply carry them out.
Back in 1989, when the Berlin Wall fell, an urban planner in London got a phone call from a colleague in Moscow saying, “Hi, this is Vladimir. I’d like to know, who’s in charge of London’s bread supply?”
And the urban planner in London says, “What do you mean, who’s in charge — no one is in charge.”
“Oh, but surely someone must be in charge. It’s a very complicated system. Someone must control all of this.”
“No. No one is in charge. I mean, it basically — I haven’t really thought of it. It basically organizes itself.”
It organizes itself. That’s an example of a complex social system which has the ability of self-organizing, and this is a very deep insight. When you try to solve really complex social problems, the right thing to do is most of the time to create the incentives. You don’t plan the details. People will figure out what to do, how to adapt to this new framework.
This is part of church life today. Regional bodies send “transition” experts to congregations and attempt to steer congregations toward newer, accepted, but not really proven, new ways of ministry. They are not recognizing what the people in the local churches know very well. It’s not working — no matter how hard you try, no matter how you veil the statistics.
The Church wants to control the distribution of bread. (No theological metaphor intended!)
What the urban planners dealing with congestion problems discovered is this: Attempts to mandate a change in driving habits had NO impact.
They didn’t achieve success until they found a gentle way to nudge drivers. The nudge was so gentle, no one even noticed that their behaviors had changed. Most people thought the changes were their idea.
The Church needs to learn to nudge. Lead, don’t dictate. We’ve been trying to force congregations to do the things hierarchy wants them to do for a while now. It isn’t working.
A little less organization. A little more incentive for grassroots initiative.
Here is a common version. Focus on the words for the number 2.
I’ll sing you twelve, Ho Green grow the rushes, Ho What are your twelve, Ho? Twelve for the twelve Apostles Eleven for the eleven who went to heaven, Ten for the ten commandments, Nine for the nine bright shiners, Eight for the April Rainers, Seven for the seven stars in the sky, Six for the six proud walkers, Five for the symbols at your door, Four for the Gospel makers, Three, three, the rivals, Two, two, lily-white boys, Clothèd all in green-o One is one and all alone And evermore shall beso.
Two lily-white boys. There are different interpretations of what this means, but one common interpretation is that the lily-white boys are John the Baptist and Jesus. The clothed all in green part comes from obscure customs of decorating the altar area with holly and mistletoe, plants with different colored berries but both ever green.
This opens the door for a discussion of the two very different cousins and their role in the Christmas narrative. Their devotion to one another despite their profound differences in personality and their differing birthright missions was a catalyst that sparked Christianity and makes the message so memorable as to be told 2000 years later.
So why do we work so hard today at being the same?
Our Ambassadors have heard the same phrase used in a number of the congregations we have visited recently.
Welcome to our growing church!
It caught this visitor’s ear, partly because the presentation was so similar in each community. The pastor seemed to be saying, “We’re glad you are here, but we want you to know there is much more to our church than what you see.”
I believe that. Redeemer people know what it feels like to be judged. There is always more to a congregation that can be viewed at Sunday worship.
Or maybe they were saying, “We know we don’t look like much, but we have potential.”
Or maybe they weren’taddressing visitors but were reassuring members that relief was in sight.
Maybe they actually have an incredible track record for growth.
As I worked on 2×2’s statistics for yesterday’s post, I decided to look up the ELCA Trend reports of the churches I could remember using this phrase.
Each of them as of the end of 2011 was statistically in decline in some categories and doing little better than holding its own in others.
So maybe 2012 had turned things around for them. Or maybe they were measuring different statistics than TREND records. To claim undefined growth is pretty safe. It all depends what we measure. We could be measuring deficits.
Perhaps calling attention to the word growth is a way of paving the road or priming the evangelism pump. It satisfies existing members that problems are being addressed and hints of great potential to visitors. How can you go wrong?
Meanwhile, let’s consider the advice of TV’s Doctor Phil.
Join Bishop Ruby Kinisa as she visits small churches "under cover" to learn what people would never share if they knew they were talking to their bishop.
Undercover Bishop will always be available in PDF form on 2x2virtualchurch.com for FREE.
Print or Kindle copies are available on Amazon.com.
For bulk copies, please contact 2x2: creation@dca.net.
Contact Info
You can reach
Judy Gotwald,
the moderator of 2x2,
at
creation@dca.net
or 215 605 8774
Redeemer’s Prayer
We were all once strangers, the weakest, the outcasts, until someone came to our defense, included us, empowered us, reconciled us (1 Cor. 2; Eph. 2).
2×2 Sections
Where in the World is 2×2?
On Isaiah 30:15b
Be calm. Wait. Wait. Commit your cause to God. He will make it succeed. Look for Him a little at a time. Wait. Wait. But since this waiting seems long to the flesh and appears like death, the flesh always wavers. But keep faith. Patience will overcome wickedness.
—Martin Luther
As you become accustomed to using Twitter, you will want to connect with your following in other ways.
