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Social Media and the Church

Tackling Obstacles to Social Media: Part 3

Overcoming the Absence of A Model to Follow

The Church often has a hard time looking outside its monastic walls for advice. In this case it may be necessary. There are models to follow; they may not be created by Church organizations.

A wonderful thing about Social Media is that it forces you to work a plan. We have published a basic plan to follow in crafting a Social Media Strategy. We adapted it from information shared in forums held for corporations. If you don’t want to work a plan, you can keep holding monthly meetings— trying one disconnected and ineffective idea after another. This can certainly keep you busy!

Here are a few models worth reviewing. There is something to be learned from each. Churches can mix and match to suit their demographic and particular needs. Most of these are examples of blogs, which is where we think congregations should start their Social Media exploration.

Pastoral Leadership in Blogging

Expect resistance until the power of the blog is understood. Pastors will be tempted to republish their Sunday sermon—which no one is likely to read. Pastors should consider a new art form in preaching—short, concise thoughts with an appealing twist that readers will come to anticipate. Aim for 200 words. The model to study: Marketing Guru Seth Godin. His daily blog offers an insight on many topics. Every so often he points readers to a longer document or even a book. He looks at things people in his field see every day and instead of just reporting them, he analyzes them, making his readers question the accepted.

Did we say this was new? It is actually a big part of the New Testament! We call them parables.

Community Building in Blogging

Jason Stambaugh of heartyourchurch.com teaches how to use Facebook to create community in the church. He uses examples from his own Facebook work in his small Maryland community church.

Teaching Through Blogging

Here is untapped potential for leadership training in the church. The model to follow is Michael Stelzner’s socialmediaexaminer.com. In just a couple of years, Mike built a business around teaching social media and is respected worldwide. His model taps into internet scalability. You can join his clubs and get advice from thousands of people.

Thought Leadership Through Blogging

2×2 attempts to engage readers in analyzing the mission of the Church to find ways to serve that complement traditional church ways but not to the exclusion of innovation. There are enough people who do little but complain that things are failing in the Church. We try to find the reasons why things are going wrong. This is hard for the Church, since tradition is important and leaders rarely like to be seen as mavericks. Questions are not likely to be raised by church-sponsored employees or media. We try to do the job they can’t—or won’t.

Inspiration Through Blogging

One of 2×2’s member churches publishes a Bible verse daily. Nothing more. Just a Bible verse in their followers inbox each day. Seems so simple. It is often very comforting to start the day with a Bible quote. These can be scheduled to go out automatically, so it isn’t as hard as it might sound. Just pick out a month’s worth of favorite quotes and schedule them using a service such as HootSuite. You can always add an insight or prayer as in devotional books.

Networking Through Blogging

Blogging excels at building networks. If you start a blogging ministry, you are likely to be surprised by the people who find you and follow you. It takes a some time but soon your congregation will have friends all over the world. 2×2 is a model for this, too.

Church Ministry Help Through Blogging

Pastors can turn to workingpreacher.org, published by Luther Seminary, to kickstart their thinking of the weekly scriptures. There is no reason why this concept can’t work for congregations and lay people too. Pastors can turn to sermons4kids for ideas for children’s sermons. Both lay and professional church workers can be part of a community serving children’s ministry. We didn’t set out to make this our specialty, but we noticed in our statistics that the number one search term which brings people to our site is “object lessons for adults.” We have responded by posting an object lesson once every week or two.

Be A Pioneer

Create your own model and share it. That’s the power of the internet!

photo credit: Mike_tn via photo pin cc
17 Jul 2012

Tackling the Obstacles to Social Media: Part 2

Every year more people learn to swim.Overcoming Fear

You’ve heard the stories of the worst in Social Media.

  • Teenage girls lured by older men.
  • Bank accounts raided.
  • Private moments broadcast to the world by someone with a grudge.

The potential for greatness outranks the use by the criminal element.

  • Personal stories of inspiration abound.
  • Information is available to anyone, anywhere, anytime.
  • Dictatorships have toppled.
  • Long-lost friends and family members have been reunited.
  • The gap between classes is blurred.

Most of what is wrong with the internet was happening before there was the internet. Meanwhile the potential and effect of good has grown beyond the exponential.

Social Media is a tool. It is can be used for good. It can be used for evil. One thing is certain. It is going to be used. Better to be in the game than watching from the sidelines.

What do people in the Church fear?

  • We fear that someone will criticize us.
    What else is new!?
  • We may fear that we may not meet expectations or do something wrong. Everyone makes mistakes. The online community is actually pretty good about tolerating typos and grammatical errors. We learn very quickly how easy it is to hit the send button by accident. The online community tends to be gracious about correcting one another, too. So, if a mistake is made, you can take it back.
  • The Church may fear that our weaknesses will be exposed. This may very well happen, but there is a good side to this. We can address concerns early and directly. This has improved the business environment. Corporate leaders know they no longer operate behind closed doors. If it has been good for corporate America, it will likely be good for the corporate Church, as well.
  • We may fear the exposure of our most personal concerns. This is something the world is coming to grips with. Any notion of privacy in the world is pretty well shot. Worrying about this is yearning for the past. Better to learn to be prepared to react to criticism. (This will be a new skill for many church leaders.)
  • We may fear not being able to predict the outcome. Well, we can predict the outcome of most of our usual evangelical efforts — and it is pretty dismal! Serendipity is a delightful part of the internet. Where’s the old pioneer spirit?!

Using Social Media is like learning to swim. You have to get wet. You have to lean forward and let yourself fall to take your first dive. You have to swallow a little bit of water. You’ll splash some of the people around you and get splashed by others, but if our hearts are in the right place, we’ll all be good-natured about helping one another keep our heads above water. Don’t be afraid to be part of the wonderful digital world God has blessed us with in the 21st century. You’ll have plenty of company!

photo credit: USAG-Humphreys (retouched) via photo pin cc
17 Jul 2012

Tackling the Obstacles to Social Media: Part 1

a snowflake on the tip of the iceberg of social mediaOvercoming Lack of Knowledge

Did you notice in yesterday’s post how the four obstacles to integrating social media into ministry are interrelated?

Lack of knowledge leads to Fear. Fear leads to hesitance to experiment and the Absence of a Model to Follow. The Absence of a Model results in a void that might be filled by Leadership. Leadership is preoccupied following more acceptable, time-honored ministry techniques that have far less potential.

How does the Church enter the same world we share with members and people we hope to reach?

How do we train Church leaders in Social Media?

First, we talk. Talking opens the door to acceptability.

Second, we let lay people lead the way. Lay people are “all over” this new media. They have to be. Business, including nonprofits, are embracing it. Five years ago, marketers were dipping toes in the water. Today marketing budgets have shifted away from conventional advertising. It is being received with enthusiasm from both the corporate and consumer side. Both are empowered. Both see benefits. All can be engaged.

Corporate users see benefits in reaching more people. They see customers coming to them already informed resulting in a shorter sales cycle. They feel closer to their clients resulting in better services and responsive innovation.

Those on the receiving end feel like they are no longer “being sold.” They are part of the sales process. They can reach the top CEO with a 140-character tweet and get responses when they are really fired up. They are engaged in the companies they patronize and become “evangelists” as they share their experiences.

Creating evangelists—isn’t that what Church is about?

So how does the Church create modern internet evangelists? Somebody has to start experimenting, measuring results and developing best practices. 2×2 has been doing this for about 18 months with fascinating results worldwide. Our work is a snowflake on the tip of the iceberg of the medium’s potential, but we’ve started and many larger churches with greater resources haven’t bothered.

Last week, 303 new unique readers read our web site. Another 100 received our posts in their inbox every day. That’s more than 1000 reads.

How many people heard the sermon preached in your sanctuary yesterday?

2×2 has a few suggestions.

  • Seminaries MUST teach Social Media.
  • Congregations MUST create a Social Media presence. There is much helpful information on this web site for exactly how to do this.  Starter advice:
  1. Don’t wait for the pastor to do it and don’t wait for the regional or national church to create a program to help you get started.
    Pastors, unfamiliar with the territory, are not likely to take the risk. The field changes too quickly for church hierarchy to keep up with it themselves much less teach others.
  2. Start with blogging as opposed to Facebook, etc.
    Blogging is more thoughtful and focused and helps you create the discipline to keep your efforts in line with your objectives — telling the Good News. You can set the pacing and community rules. People will feel safer. Other outlets have their value, but could derail your efforts if you are not prepared to monitor and engage frequently.
photo credit: Ludovic Hirlimann via photo pin cc
16 Jul 2012

4 Obstacles to Using Social Media

Social Media: the New HorizonA recent study of social media reveals that there are four main barriers to the implementation of Social Media in organizations.

They are:

  • Lack of knowledge and understanding
  • Fear
  • Absence of a model to follow
  • Unprepared leadership

The Church as an organization should study these barriers if we are to overcome them.

Each fear can be overcome. We will address each fear broadly now and later in more depth.

Lack of knowledge and understanding

The Church is no different that any other organized entity. We are facing a new world with enormous potential. We are all novices at how this new media works and we are uncertain as to how it will affect us and our mission. Scary!

Fear

There is always the fear of abuse. This is nothing new. Religion has had abusers in the past and the Church has moved forward regardless. Social Media may actually overcome some of this. It is entirely open platform. Participants lay their hearts on the line and others — anyone — can respond.

The biggest fear is not about abuse but in facing the changes that are necessary to implement Social Media. Are we prepared for the changes that are likely to happen? How do we proceed?

Absence of a model to follow

There are models to follow, but they are not necessarily in the religious realm. Until the Church adopts Social Media as a viable tool, it must follow the models of the secular world. (We might learn something in the process.) There is no way around the fact: someone has to create the first model.

Leadership

Church leaders are busy being church leaders the way they were trained to be church leaders—anywhere from one to sixty years ago. This new tool is outside the experience and comfort level of many.

The Church must recognize that leadership in Social Media may come from the bottom up. Lay people are likely to have mastered these skills while clergy were studying Greek! Both are valuable! It doesn’t do much good to understand the Gospel and then ignore the tools that will help you share your understanding.

photo credit: Stuck in Customs via photo pin cc

15 Jul 2012

God is doing something new AGAIN in East Falls

Redeemer, East Falls is too small to serve its “missional” purpose (“missional” is not a word but church people seem to understand it).

That was the premise used by Bishop Claire Burkat and her coterie. It was never true. It sounded good to the people they needed to convince in order to have their way—which had nothing to do with mission but was all about money and property and synod’s habitual deficit spending.

SEPA’s actions did tons of damage to our people, our congregation and to our neighborhood, but Redeemer’s mission continues to grow. That’s what happens when you work a plan with selfless resilience and flexibility!

One of our projects was to develop our ministry online (since we had no building). We started slowly, doing research and following best practices. The site grew slowly at first, but after about six months, it was apparent there was a foundation for steady growth and an inexhaustible potential.

The site has grown steadily over all. There are day-to-day peaks and valleys, but the weekly and monthly trends reveal steady growth that is picking up.

In the last two weeks a few remarkable things have begun to happen on www.2x2virtualchurch.com.

We now have 100 people who read out posts by email each day. We have an additional 50 unique  visitors every day. Our weekly unique readership (not counting those who follow us on Facebook, Twitter or email) hovered between 180 and 275 for the last six weeks. Adding our subscribers or followers to that number puts us at around 1000 readers each week.

Our global reach is picking up. There are a few countries that check in daily—France, Canada, Great Britain, Netherlands, Australia, Kenya, Pakistan, the Philippines and most recently, India. Twice this week our foreign readership outpaced United States readers, at least until the very end of the day when there is often a surge in North American readership.

People are slowly beginning to participate in the discussion, often by email rather than on the site.

Yesterday, we had a request to find a way to have the site translated into Urdu, so Pakistani Christians might have access to our posts.

We invited churches to follow the site. That invitation has led to interesting friendships with four other congregations—two in Kenya, one in Pakistan and one near to us in Philadelphia.

Redeemer was never more able to fulfill its “missional” purpose. We believe our mission and ministry activities measure well with every other congregation in SEPA (large and small) — who now have the benefit of our resources.

photo credit: jurvetson (retouched) via photo pin cc
12 Jul 2012

SPOTLIGHT on Five Small Church Ministries

God is doing something new  . . . .

2×2 invites small churches to join this page and share ministry experience—not just successes but ideas, criticisms, problems and challenges. If we don’t talk about things, how can we improve?

(If you’d like to join, send us your story. There is no cost and no money changes hands. We share our experiences, ideas, and pray for one another.)

Five churches have been part of our exchange in our first year. In this post we will spotlight their exciting ministries.

SPOTLIGHT on Glory of Pentecost in Eastern Kenya

Glory of Pentecost’s leader, Silas Kadenga, first wrote to us last spring asking us for help with their Vacation Bible School. They had read about our idea for helping small churches restore their summer outreach efforts. Their first email did not give their location. We started asking questions. We were surprised to learn they were in eastern Kenya. Our first reaction was there was little we could do to help. Our program was focused on the USA and even more locally. But we kept firing questions. The responses revealed a very different ministry scene than anything we expected.

How many students do you expect? Do they speak English? How many teachers do you have?

The answers: About 200 students. Most speak English as a second language. Three teachers and a few more that show interest but need training. Their obvious need was training for teachers and for resource material.

We pointed them to some free resources on line and kept in regular touch.

Today, their pastor sent us a notice of a new program and asked that we help publicize it.

Please join us in prayer for their new ministry.

Welcome to The Silas Faithfull Foundation

The Silas Faithfull Foundation (SFF) is the only Kenya-wide child protection charity dedicated solely to reducing the risk of children being sexually abused. We work with entire families that have been affected by abuse including: adult male and female sexual abusers; young people with inappropriate sexual behaviours; victims of abuse and other family members.

Drawing on our expert knowledge about child sexual abuse we offer a broad range of services for professionals and members of the public. These include: assessments, intervention and treatment of known offenders, case specific advice and support, training and development courses and workshops, educational programmes for internet offenders and their families, circles of support and accountability and internet safety seminars for schools (teachers, parents and children).

In 2009, The Silas Faithfull Foundation established the prevention campaign, Stop it Now! Kenya East Africa which supports adults to protect children through providing information; educating parents, carers and other members of the public; training those who work with children and families and running a Freephone confidential helpline_+254 708 403 409 +254 707 434 093_silasabali@yahoo.com  More information Stop it Now!

Through that we are looking forward to request your Support for this Organization to continue to Help more people all over the world your support of Prayer will make our Vision and Mission to be complete 

Together We Can Change the World 

 Message from founder of Silas Faithfull Foundation Kenya-wide

SPOTLIGHT on Kiorori Church in western Kenya

Simion Sagwe and his wife, Florence, have been caring for a number of widows and orphaned children in Kisii District, Nyanza Province, Kenya.. They work hard to feed and clothe them and find the money for their medical care and schooling.

We sent them a recording of a little song we thought the children might enjoy. They wrote to tell us that they learned the song and sang it in church. Now they sing it all the time. Meanwhile, back in East Falls, we often use the hymn in worship as well!

Simion has been traveling to attend classes at a Bible College. His wife is making jewelry in hopes of starting a cottage industry to support their mission work. We may be able to help their efforts. We will work on that.

We get weekly reports of their Sunday services and walks through the village afterwards to interest new people.

SPOTLIGHT on New Life Fellowship in Faisalabad, Pakistan

Pastor Sarwar Sadiq writes to us daily, sharing Bible verses and reports of his ministry. He wants to learn as much as he can about our church and writes his prayers for us, asking about our members by name. He describes the difficult mission of growing a church as a minority religion and the effect it has on their families and their children in school. He sends many photos of their ministry.

Their internet service is iffy and we are going to try to help them by setting up a mirror service on our site.

They have a vibrant ministry in their neighborhood but take mission trips into more remote areas to spread the Gospel. The above photo is from one of their mission trips.

They pray for better and affordable space for their ministry.

SPOTLIGHT on Prince of Peace, King of Prussia

Prince of Peace is a small, suburban congregation near Philadelphia. They happen to be the first congregation our Ambassadors visited two summers ago. We have stayed in touch and tried to help them with some projects.

Their current project is called “No Family Left Behind.” It aims to reach all families with worship and learning opportunities, including families including elderly, disabled, or children with learning disabilities. They are partnering with the Community Center directly across the street from their church and with Ken-Crest, a Lutheran Social Service agency.

They plan to make iPads available to help people with disabilities communicate, read, and take part in activities. The Rev. Dr. John Jorgenson, a retired pastor serving the congregation, has drawn on his years of service with the LCA in developing curriculum to develop the innovative program.

SPOTLIGHT on Redeemer, East Falls

Much of this web site talks about Redeemer’s very active ministry so we’ll list just a few.

  • Redeemer Ambassadors visit churches
  • 2×2 Foundation pioneers Social Media Ministry
  • Maintaining a Lutheran presence in East Falls
  • Staying active in East Falls organizations and government
  • Working to maintain Lutheran congregational polity by challenging actions of SEPA Synod
10 Jul 2012

Scalability: Religion Seeks It But Can’t Embrace It

Exponential Growth vs Scalable Growth

The Christian Church has recently focused on the Gospel account of Jesus sending his disciples into the world 2×2.

Jesus’ concept of mission was built on exponential growth. If two people are each successful in reaching two people — for a total of four — and they in turn form teams of two reaching four more— that’s exponential growth. The effort and cost must be repeated again and again. The church will grow with hard work and dedication.

This was remarkably effective. Within a few hundred years, the Gospel spread to the farthest borders of the known world.

Scalability is a bit different. It is a term that centers on the power of technology. How can teams of two reach a thousand or more people using the same effort it takes them to reach four?

The answer is incalculable—and entirely possible. The tools are in our hands to make mission work scalable beyond the wildest dreams of the early Christian apostles. The same work required to reach or teach 100 people can also reach or teach a million for basically the same outlay of resources.

So why aren’t we doing it?

Roadblocks to Scalability

Sadly, the church is not set up to take advantage of scalability.

Try this, for example. Take an idea to a religious institution. They will have a great deal of difficulty thinking beyond their own constituency. “But don’t you see,” you might argue, “you have the power to reach beyond your congregation, beyond your geographic territory, beyond your denomination.”

They will respond with confusion. “But it’s our job to serve our constituency. We work for [name the regional entity.]”  

They will try to be helpful. Scratching their heads, they will suggest, “Take your idea to [another territorial constituency that might be a bit bigger]. Maybe they can help you.”

Any denomination can reach congregations and clergy of all denominations all over the world with truly helpful information—all for the same effort that they might put into a local symposium or workshop which they would charge 50 people $25 each to attend. They won’t, though, because tradition outweighs potential.

Oddly, the efforts to take advantage of the power of the internet are not coming from the higher echelons of the Church. Many regional web sites are of poor quality and virtually all are self-focused. Some of the flashiest regional web sites focus on only their own work—not the work of their members. They are ignoring the potential to strengthen community. They are also ignoring the potential to reach the unchurched — which is their mission.

Church leadership is accustomed to publishing and teaching coming from top down. There was a time when this was necessary. Not everyone owned a printing press and distribution system. There grew to be a comfort in the control which was part of this outdated system. Because control was once possible in publishing they mistakenly believe that it is necessary. It is not only unnecessary in today’s world; it is impossible.

The system of the past is clumsy and archaic, but the Church’s entire structure is built around it.

Smaller entities—individual institutions, small congregations and even individual church members are making stronger headway.

Examples

One example,  www.workingpreacher.org, a project of Luther Seminary, features guest theologians from many backgrounds, analyzing the weekly lectionary. Directed towards pastors, anyone can study the week’s scripture guided by the insights of a seminary professor.

Another: ministry-to-children.com is a web site started by Tony Kummer, a youth/family pastor. It is a lively, interdenominational exchange of ministry ideas and resources that has a large community participating and helping one another. A small church in Africa asked for 2×2’s help in finding affordable educational resources. We directed them to this web site and they were delighted!

Jason Stambaugh writes a blog, www.heartyourchurch.com. He is an individual layperson who works in social media and is a member of a small congregation. He writes about social media in the church and other church issues.

A college student in Texas, Virginia Smith, has used the internet to help small congregations access used Vacation Bible School resources. She’s just one young person passionately engaged in mission, armed with the web. (www.vbs247.webs.com/) Virginia has been very helpful to 2×2 in networking.

And then there is this site, 2×2, the project of Redeemer Lutheran Church, East Falls, Philadelphia, a church the Lutheran denomination (ELCA) determined was too small to fulfill its mission (the old-fashioned way). Three years after locking our members out of our church building, 2×2 is reaching more than a thousand readers a month with a significant local readership with global reach. (And we are just beginning.) We offer ideas for small church ministry and attempt to prompt dialog on small church issues.

Scalable projects are our passion—not to make vast amounts of money, as is often the aim of online enterprise, but to build an new infrastructure that will provide hope and help for neighborhood ministries that we believe are the strength of the Christian Church. We believe there is fiscal potential that would provide the hands-on resources to neighborhood churches that can’t afford them the old-fashioned way. (And this is a large number of churches!)

Meanwhile, denominations concentrate on building Christian communities of a certain number so that they can afford a pastor/building and support their regional and national denomination.

This is not scalable. And it is failing. But it’s still how the Church measures success!

09 Jul 2012

June 30: Social Media Day—July 1: Social Media Sunday?

Do We Need Social Media Sunday?

Three years ago, the Social Media company, Mashable, created Social Media Day. In 514 cities, Social Media enthusiasts will gather (many in a bar) to put a real live face and warm handshake to the entities that drive the keyboards and hide behind little square avatars. It will happen again tomorrow, June 30.

Perhaps we will someday declare a Social Media Sunday, a time when Social Media Ministries physically welcome the people whose lives they touch from a distance.

It raises an interesting concept? What kind of program would a church’s SM Sunday promote?

There would be a temptation to do things the way the Church always does things.

They would hold a big worship service centered around a few people doing a few things in the chancel while everyone else sits or stands (as able) on demand. They would ask the strangers to break into ancient song at appropriate times, prompted by an overpowering organ. They would focus the newbie’s attention on the scriptures as interpreted by one person for fifteen, twenty, or thirty restless minutes. They would require that they shake everyone’s hand without really knowing a thing in the world about the hand they are shaking. They would bless them as they turn to walk out the door to be greeted warmly (perhaps) by a caring pastor and one or two others before returning to total anonymity.

That’s how a church service might seem to the uninitiated. Churches all over the country do this every Sunday, many with feeble results.

(And people say Social Media doesn’t create true community!)

How would you plan a Social Media Sunday?

29 Jun 2012

Short Posts or Long Posts — Which Are Better?

How do you write for today’s audiences?

Common answer: In short posts of 200-500 words.

Better answer: It depends.

Who is your audience? Are your readers busy people scanning a dozen blogs like yours every morning in hopes of finding one useful piece of information? Are your readers people searching for information that is not easy to find?

One exasperated institutional Church blogger threw her hands in the air. She was following the common advice and looking for guest bloggers among clergy. “It’s impossible to get preachers to limit themselves to 500 words,” she concluded as she waded through the lengthy submissions.

Getting people who tote Bibles to limit their message to shorter thoughts is a new discipline—and there is value in it.

But wait! Who made this rule? The fact is there is no rule. Some of the most popular bloggers take a thousand words to introduce their topic.

Most blog posts that are bookmarked are probably those that truly define an issue.

More people may be attracted to shorter posts, but serious readers (the kind you hope will consider you an authority) are looking for truly helpful information. They don’t want to be spoon-fed answers to their questions in five posts spread across two weeks.

The wonderful thing about blogging is that creative people are no longer bound by the costs of paper and production. [Tweet this!]

You can write the article you want to write without leaving room for advertising space within a newsletter’s budgeted pages.

So what happens? We finally have the freedom to do what we want, and the sages come in with new “rules.”

Phooey!

Write with your audience in mind. If your audience is diverse, mix it up. A short post here; a long post there.

Guard against falling in love with your own words, but otherwise, type away.

Final answer: If you have something to share, by all means—share it!

photo credit: philipp daun via photo pin cc
23 Jun 2012

Social Media and the Social Graces

The goal of Social Media is to engage others in a topic of mutual interest.

Social media is just beginning to be explored by churches. Judging from 2×2’s analytics, there is great interest. Much of it may come from lurkers just starting to remove their socks so they can dip their big toe in the water. We recommend diving in!

There is great potential for the church in the use of social media, but it requires engagement. Engagement requires time. More important, engagement requires sincerity and the careful exercise of the social graces.

Think of Facebook dialog as if you were at a party. How far would your conversation go if all you did was acknowledge someone else’s comment? If there is to be a flicker of life at this digital party, you must foster dialog. When you acknowledge a comment, leave the door open a crack to let your virtual guests come in — if and when they feel comfortable.

Here are some simple social graces to use in engaging with your readers.

  • Respond with a question.
    Glad you enjoyed our review of “We Have a Pope.” How did you like the ending?
  • Answer a question.
    Good question! Thanks for asking! Here’s our answer: . . . .
  • Add some additional information to the comment, even if it means sending them to another site. This is expected on the web and can be helpful to you, too.
    Glad you enjoyed our post on children’s sermons. You might also enjoy this web site (add link).
  • Make an invitation. 
    If you are interested in movies, you might like to attend our movie night next Friday. We’re showing….
  • Acknowledge a commenter’s expertise.
    Thanks for pointing out our mistake in today’s post. We corrected it right away. Overall, did you like what we are trying to say? Please, if you disagree, let us know!
  • Invite participation.
    Thanks for your comment. You seem to know what you are talking about. Would you like to contribute a post to our site? Our readers would love to hear your point of view!
  • Ask for links.
    Thanks for telling us about that youth project. Do you have a link we can share with our readers? 

One caution: readers expect the owner of a Facebook page to be a real, live person. If they share serious concerns, you must be prepared to have the most qualified person in the church respond with true empathy and unselfish advice.

Your guests may choose to remain anonymous, but there should be real names attached to the responses from your congregation. Truth and transparency are vital.

Engaging in social media is work, but it is the easiest way for the church to reach the most people. It is well worth the effort.

If you don’t invest the appropriate time and resources and have an open attitude, your Facebook presence will be as effective as the generic caveat on every church bulletin board. “All welcome.”

21 Jun 2012