A Picture Is Worth A Thousand Words

The post title is a modern adaptation of an old adage. Science has confirmed it. A picture is worth a thousand words—more or less.

Images teach. Images reach the soul. Images spark action.

And yet the mission of the church banks on The Word, often reinforced only with music. This comes from a day when there was only one style of music in vogue. Today, musical taste is broad—classical, rock, gospel, folk, new age. People who like one often despise another. Choose the wrong music and The Word will be lost.

Communicating visually was once time-consuming, expensive, and dependent on skills that take years to develop. Early attempts involved carving sarcophagi and painting on walls. Sculpture and stained glass reached their heyday in the Middle Ages. Monks illuminated manuscripts which today are under glass in museums with only two folios visible.

When book publishing and printing became affordable, the Church started using imagery. Sunday School papers and Bible cards proliferated.

When I was a child, an elderly member gave me a shoebox filled with treasured Bible cards from her childhood. They had a biblical image in full color on one side and a message and scripture reference on the back. When I traveled to Germany as an adult, I saw the same images on the walls of a cathedral.

Images stick with you.

Today, it is possible to do a great deal with imagery, The Word can, for the first time, be illustrated as it is being delivered weekly in the sanctuary.

Many churches our Ambassadors visit use projection. Sometimes they flash ads for projects in the church. (Hey, we are in America! Any flat surface is fair game for advertising!). Sometimes the projections include photos of waterfalls and mountain ranges with a Bible verse.  A few (typically the smaller churches) have full color bulletins. But we have never seen a concerted effort to tie imagery to the sermon. Why not? Messages delivered with imagery have an 80% greater chance of being learned.

The time has come. It is now possible to illustrate the weekly sermon.

A project of 2×2 for 2014 will be to develop visual resources to accompany the weekly lectionary. These will be available in editable form. Individual slides can be referenced to print in a bulletin for parishioners to take home and keep in a shoebox to pass on to a child someday.

If they are helpful to you, please let us know.

Look for the first slide show on the baptism of Jesus later this week.

photo credit: Photo Extremist via photopin cc

I just visited some church Facebook pages. They were all pretty much the same. Come to our Music Night. Buy a meatball sandwich to support our youth group. Photos from Christmas Eve. Everything was promotional. We wonder how well that’s working.

We are betting that traffic is pretty much limited to existing members who already know about the Music Night and plan to buy at least one meatball sandwich and were probably in the back row on Christmas Eve.

Nice, but they sidestep the power of Facebook. They also sidestep mission potential.

I call these Topsy Facebook sights. Churches put them out there and hope that they’ll work. They may grow but they are growing without purpose or strategy. They are self-satisfying—narcissistic.

Facebook facilitates this thinking. Add pictures. Add text teasers. Invite comments. Job done.

This approach admits  your audience is people already engaged in church life.

There is a different approach, but it requires some planning and dedication to a purpose and more of a world view. These are Intentional Facebook sites.

An Intentional Facebook page has a structure—a rhythm. It still can include all of the above, but by offering or directing content, you are inviting others. Mission.

Study business Facebook efforts. Some of them never mention their product. (Proctor and Gamble sites, for example). Instead they address the interests of people who are likely to need their product.

How does a Church do this? It’s not as hard as it sounds, but it does involve new thinking for most people accustomed to church life. We are so sure of our product that we usually limit all engagement to self-promotion. It has never worked very well and isn’t working at all today. And that’s where Social Media can be a lifesaver. It may force us to change our ways.

Social Media allows us to do from our kitchen tables what Jesus and the disciples spent years traipsing the dusty roads of Galilee doing. We can address and engage people all over the world and we don’t have to draw them into the sanctuary as social proof. We can meet them where they are.

Where to begin?

Establish a content plan. Plan for at least five days and three posts each day. Remember that a key value to Facebook is that it can drive traffic to your church website/blog, where there should be  more helpful information for members and seekers alike.

Here’s what a plan might look like.

Day One: Talk about something in the neighborhood. Address a local issue. Comment on a local community event or school event. Why? You care about your community, don’t you? The people you hope to reach care about the same community. If you are addressing local interests and concerns, search engines will direct people in the community to your Facebook page. Your Facebook page will direct them to your website/blog. Somewhere down the road, they might show an interest in something your church is doing to address the issues you are talking about.

Day Two: Address the scriptural texts of coming week. Not just once. Make relevant comments throughout the day. Find meaningful links that will enhance next week’s worship experience. You will be tempted to talk about what happened last Sunday. Let it go. Talk about next Sunday. Your current membership will be coming to church prepared and seekers will come with some familiarity. Your Facebook presence will have introduced them to the main event.

Day Three: Post some meaningful photos that illustrate the teachings of the coming week. Tag them if they are from other sites. Write short comments about them. Photos drive Facebook.

Day Four: OK, take a day and talk about yourself—in a way that engages. Always ask yourself, why would anyone else want to read this? And then write copy for that reader. What happened with the money raised by selling meatball sandwiches? How did Music Night make a difference? How might they become involved in the next Music Night?

Day Five: Address issues as found in popular media. If you started on Monday, Day Five will be Friday. People will be relaxing and going to movies and other cultural events. Movies tend to address current hot topics and give churches a chance to address the same issues from a Christian viewpoint. Write about a popular book. Promote the High School Musical. Keep the Christian slant.

Take a break over the weekend and just respond to any activity on your Facebook page. On Sunday evening you might routinely thank people who joined together for Sunday activities and invite them to engage during the week on Facebook.

You can develop other themes for certain days, too. You might regularly address an issue near to your congregation’s mission. If you are involved in Habitat for Humanity, write about issues of poverty and homelessness. Link people to services that can help them—shelters, food pantries, etc. (You may soon find yourself developing new resources.) If you volunteer in prisons or hospices, write for the people who visit prisons or have family in hospice. If your congregation has a Day Care Program, write about family spirituality. If you are a multicultural church, you’ll have no end of topics to interest you.

You might even write about how to use Facebook in ministry!

This is a first post in a short series about congregational Facebook sites

Facebook is a tool that is rarely used by the church well.

I’ll be upfront that Facebook is not my favorite platform. I don’t think it is the platform where the church can best shine. But it is so much a part of today’s world that it can’t be ignored.

Here are some things about Facebook—some good, some not so good, and some a mix.

• The Facebook platform does not belong to you. Facebook can, and does, change its rules as it pleases.
• Facebook makes its money on advertising. Every free site is a billboard that you will not control.
• Facebook has text limitations. Church people like words!
• Facebook shifts back and forth from favoring photo content to text content. A moderator must stay on top of these shifts in Social Media.
• Facebook is a great linking platform and holds great potential for churches if they can get over the fear of “sending people away” from their site.
• Facebook is fun for people already a part of a community, but it can appear cliquish to outsiders.
• Facebook can augment your church blog or website. It can drive traffic if used properly.
• Facebook, once the favorite of young adults, is now growing more popular among older segments of the population. (The young are liking Instagram today. Who knows what they will like tomorrow?)
• Facebook requires attention and to work well should have fresh information available several times EVERY day.
• Facebook is very public. If you are not judicious in your postings, you risk offending. You will have to be vigilant about things like outsider tags, etc.
• Again—Facebook is very public. Members may unwittingly share information that others consider private. John may not want the world to know that he has cancer. The Smiths may not want to advertise that they are traveling for two weeks and their house will be empty. Emily may not want her employer to know that she is taking courses to prepare for a new career. It may seem natural for members to offer prayers, travel blessings, and congratulations, but in doing so, they may be creating problems.

These are all things to consider if you intend to build Christian community with Facebook.

Start Asking Questions—NOW!

The news of Nelson Mandela’s death was still fresh when I shared lunch with a fellow Lutheran.

She told me that she remembered going to church the Sunday after the news of his release from prison in 1990.

Nelson Mandela went to prison when I was in the fourth grade. Those were turbulent years ruled by fear. There was talk of the evils of Communism. The Civil Rights protests were in full swing in this country. There were mixed philosophies on how to protest decades of wrong policy in our own country. Nelson Mandela epitomized from afar everything we feared at home. He had Communist sympathies and had practiced both nonviolent and militant protests. He was living with a very tough situation. People in tough situations are likely to try many paths.

Pressure from around the world influenced Mandela’s release from prison after 27 years.

His release was not met with universal approval.

My friend told me that her visit to one of the churches closest to Redeemer that morning was led by an angry Lutheran minister. His sermon was about the huge mistake that South Africa was making. Nelson Mandela deserved to rot in prison.

Read the description of traits of a doctor. We should trust them. Why? They work hard! Do we give our church leaders the same unquestioning allegiance?

Imagine that sermon being preached today. The world is just coming off three weeks of mourning Mandela’s death and celebrating his life.

Nelson Mandela did not have an easy life but he was given time to prove himself.  He became the one-term president of a divided country and proved that the surest way for all of South Africa to move forward was to put the past behind them and move ahead together.

His 27 years of brutal and humiliating punishment were erased by his final 23 years of peacemaking.

It didn’t have to be that way. He could have written an autobiographical manifesto fueled by bitterness and anger. Instead, he was typically seen with a smile on his face and the words he spoke were as gentle to the young and innocent as they were to the older generations who had witnessed and perhaps advocated for his downfall.

The world is always challenged to think independently, to make difficult judgments. This is pivotal to a democratic society. It is also pivotal to Christianity.

The people who make up the Church, lay and clergy alike, are tempted to follow. Following Christ is part of our heritage. We tend to take the same trait and misuse it. We act as if mortal church leaders are due the same unquestioning devotion.

Followers are not expected to be mindless! If we behaved as unthinking drones, no new leadership would emerge.

Perhaps that is the problem we face in today’s church—a problem of leadership.

In our society, church leaders are given special protection by courts reluctant to get involved in church matters. This creates a very dangerous environment, especially for lay people. Church laws may not give special protection to clergy but custom does. Because courts will defer to church leaders, lay people are at risk. Ask the people of Redeemer! The court ruling in our case stated that if the law were applied, Redeemer’s arguments held merit. But the law was not applied. The courts deferred to the Church. Church leaders reveled in their ability to flaunt their own rules without legal consequence. Church rank and file followed — mindlessly.

The Church deals, usually in private, with thieves, adulterers, liars and schemers. We don’t question when we should. We are beginning to regret it in the sexual abuse cases. But abuse comes in many flavors.

If we could get in the habit of asking questions, there’d be no need for the dramatic sacrifices of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Nelson Mandela — contemporaries fighting similar problems.

Christians need to question leaders. Leaders can be wrong. When there is self-interest in the decisions in question (either monetary or prestige), it is almost guaranteed.

When we don’t question early and often, we end up with defensive stalemates. That’s where the Church is today. Stalled by leadership that is vested in protecting the past and their own positions within the past. We wait for someone else to take the first dangerous steps. It usually takes a very long time. It is not without cost.

Enter the Martin Luther Kings and Nelson Mandelas. Neither lived an easy life, but we are all the better for their struggles.