Get ready for the Horseless Carriage

Get ready for Social Media

Many congregations are interested in adding Social Media to their ministries. And so they dabble. They find someone to start a Facebook page. They lean back and relax. That’s done. Innovation isn’t so hard, after all!

Here’s the thing about Social Media.

Social Media is more than Facebook. Much more!

If your congregation embraces Social Media it will mean everything changes.

Social Media, fully embraced, is not a simple add-on — like adding an extra worship service.

It is transforming.

Transforming? Isn’t that what our church leaders have been demanding of congregations for the last decade with little definition of exactly what they mean?

Social Media—fully embraced—will affect every aspect of your ministry in positive and profound ways.

People need to be prepared. The only way to prepare people is to involve them and encourage flexibility. It helps to actually get started!

My family had lunch today in a historic inn along the famous Lincoln Highway. We got to talking about the history of the highway. It seems the opening of this newfangled cross-continental roadway that followed the introduction of the automobile came with no small amount of angst.

The big fear was that the horses of the early 20th century would not be happy.

Unhappy horses meant unhappy drivers.

A plan was developed.

Step 1: Prepare the horses. Warn them. Something new is coming.

Early drivers of horseless carriages were encouraged to carry flares with them. Upon approaching a horse-drawn carriage, they were to shoot up a warning flare. (Bet that went over big!)

Step 2: Protect the horses’ sense of security.

If horses were not reassured by flares (and why would they be?), then drivers were encouraged to carry camouflage. At the sight of a distressed horse, they should be prepared to pull to the side of the road and drape their automobile with a sheet designed to make the car disappear into the surroundings. What the horse doesn’t see will not be scary.

Step 3: Dismantle the horseless carriage.

If a horse is still disturbed by its new competition, drivers should be prepared to dismantle their automobile and hide the pieces along the side of the road until the horse passes as if nothing has changed.

All of this is, of course, absurd — especially to us Pennsylvanians who share the roads with our Amish neighbors. The horses seem to have adapted!

But this is a typical agenda for those who fear change.

• Warn people of innovation.
• Protect them from innovation.
• Be prepared to dismantle all the progress and benefits possible from innovation at the first sign of distress (real or imaginary).

Churches intent on incorporating social media must be prepared to meet the same sorts of resistance.

It will mean doing things very differently — across the board. The very structure of church will change.

Expect something like this:

• Social Media is clearly too much work for one pastor. But pastors are used to controlling communication in the church. Lay people cannot be expected to handle so much responsibility. Best to wait. And wait. And wait.
• What do we do if Social Media actually works and lots of new people join a church? (This was a problem Redeemer was dealing with as 49 people joined in one year.) What if those 49 people become a voting block with the potential to ruin any plans made before they joined. Our congregation was dealing with this issue head-on and making progress. But our denomination, intent on Redeemer failing so they could claim our property, couldn’t deal with change they hadn’t orchestrated. They skipped right to Step 3: Dismantle everything! They kicked out the 49 new members along with the 25 or so older members and locked the church doors. 

These are real problems but they are good problems that need solutions. Dismantling everything because things aren’t like they used to be is just plain silly—and it is counter to Christian mission.

Fortunately, there are real solutions waiting to be discovered.

The automobile is now the norm.

The new church that arises from the use of Social Media will soon be the norm, too — and it all may happen just in time to save the mainline church.

photo credit: NCReedplayer via photopin cc