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Church Leadership

13 Ways to Prepare Your Congregation to Welcome Other Cultures

The success of your Multicultural Ministry begins with preparing your people. You are entering uncharted waters and your people want to know what lies ahead.

People need time to adjust to new ministry initiatives. Expect apprehension.

Recognize that faith is not constant. It is likely that you have members that are in various stages of their individual faith journeys. Faith wavers with age and circumstance. Faith is precious and needs to be nurtured and protected.

  • Youngest children have the strongest faith. They rely on everyone else for survival.
  • Some are confident of their value to the church. They are healthy and prosperous enough that they know their position in the “society” of church is secure.
  • Others may still feel like newcomers and be unsure of their ability to contribute to the ministry. They are weighing what their investment should be in a new direction. They haven’t quite grasped the old direction!
  • Others may feel threatened. Once they were strong leaders in the church but are beginning to step back. Your congregation’s new direction may have them wondering if there will still be a church they recognize when they most need comfort and support.

Change must be implemented in ways that are not threatening and which can be sustained. Unless you want your congregation to become a revolving door of new members — attracted by a fleeting special initiative and gone with the next new initiative — you must prepare your congregation.

Here are important steps to take as you begin your outreach.

  1. Make sure your pastor is comfortable with the outreach initiative. Ask what help or additional training he or she may need. There are few pastors trained in multicultural ministry. It is as new to them as it is to many lay people.
  2. Work with your governing board long before you take plans to the congregation. You need their full support.
  3. Involve as many as possible in creating a plan. When people are part of change they have less to fear.
  4. Get support staff on board. Your church musicians may have to learn some new music. Your visiting team may need coaching.
  5. Remind members of scriptures that charge us to minister to all the world. Hold a special Bible Study. If people won’t come to a Bible Study, build the elements of the Bible Study into worship and other areas of church life.
  6. Address fears and concerns. Make sure that your current members know that their spiritual needs are still important.
  7. Educate. As you develop your plans and decide what groups in your community you hope to serve, help your members learn about the cultures you will encounter. Invite someone to speak. Recommend books. Point members to helpful web sites. Learn music from other cultures. Have a congregational dinner featuring food from the culture. Take whatever time you need to prepare your current members for change. (The children’s sermon is a good tool for change. Everyone is listening while you talk to the children! Teach the children and you will teach the adults.)
  8. Do not abandon your current culture. Make sure favorite hymns and observances remain prominent in the life of your congregation. Add new things. Don’t replace old things. As stated before, you will know when to mothball the old. No need to force it.
  9. Make it fun. If a foreign language is involved, teach a new phrase a week. You can make this part of your Facebook and Twitter initiatives.
  10. Answer questions immediately. Address negative comments immediately. Failure to do this can scuttle your mission project and allow discontent to spread. If you use Social Media, monitor it and respond to both positive and negative comments. Supporters will be encouraged. Those with doubts will know they are being heard.
  11. Make friends with leaders in the culture you hope to serve. Invite them to participate in a project, so that members make friends a few at a time.
  12. Use inclusive language at all times. Remember as you use Social Media that everybody can take part — your existing congregation and the people you want to reach. It will benefit your mission if you keep your multicultural outreach from becoming “us and them.”
  13. Love one another.
10 Nov 2011

Experiencing Multicultural Ministry: Part 1

2×2’s sponsoring church, Redeemer Lutheran Church, has broad experience in multicultural ministry. As we start a new series of posts, we’d like to share our experience. We doubt it is typical or even if there is any typical methodology to multicultural ministry.

(We invite you to share your experiences. This is a fairly new emphasis within many church bodies. We can probably learn more from each other than from books!)

Multicultural Mission Outreach changed our church enormously for the better. It enriched our worship, our sense of mission, our fellowship, our stewardship, our spiritual life and our individual lives.

We did, however, encounter difficulties we never anticipated and which were severe.

We discovered that the greater church does not understand Multicultural Ministry. Its view seems to be “same old church/different people.” While leaders have identified this as a worthy goal (even a necessity), it does not appear to have a plan to achieve the goal or leadership with training to help implement it. In our experience, lay leadership was pivotal to laying the groundwork.

We encountered something very different, exciting and refreshing!

A Little About Redeemer

Redeemer is a small congregation in a well-established Philadelphia neighborhood. East Falls is home to rich and poor. Up until about a decade ago, it was flanked on either end by government high-rise housing projects. These have been destroyed. New single family subsidized housing has been built where they once stood.  The presence of the “projects” in our neighborhood influenced attitudes toward different cultures for many years.

An outsider passing through would see tree-lined streets with well-kept homes. Some of them are sizable estates. Most are modest rowhouses. There are upscale apartments at opposite ends of town.

Redeemer sits at the economic and cultural crossroads of our community. Across the street is the public library and a K-8 public school. Down the hill is old factory worker housing. Behind Redeemer are middle class rowhomes. Above and across the street are the homes of many of Philadelphia’s movers and shakers, including a former U.S. Senator and Pennsylvania’s former governor.

East Falls is a university neighborhood. Philadelphia University, Drexel and Eastern Universities have campuses within our borders. Temple and LaSalle are also nearby. The local public school has struggled with academic achievement. Quaker and Catholic Schools are neighborhood options. Educational opportunities bring many newcomers to our town.

The buildings are of manageable size. A practical church layout, reflects the practical working class people who built it. In addition to a sanctuary/fellowship hall, our members built a seven-room educational building which proved to be an enormous asset to the congregation even after the loss of members following the turbulent 60s.

Redeemer was in a prime position to become a multicultural church, but it didn’t happen overnight.

A decade of poor leadership in the late 80s and 90s, left the congregation divided. We received little help from our regional body as they were having financial problems and any congregational problem was likely to be seen as opportunity to close a church for its assets. We struggled with our denomination for two years in the late 90s.

Eventually, our lay leaders identified a retired pastor who agreed to help. He came into a congregation that no longer trusted pastors. He spent three years with us, slowly restoring our congregation’s confidence with a weekly message of love. He invited many and a good number joined. He laid the groundwork for acceptance as our new members represented many parts of the world.

One family from Tanzania, began inviting their extended family and friends. Over a period of ten years, we developed a small East African community within our congregation.

In 2006, our congregation decided to concentrate our evangelism efforts on growing this segment of our congregation. We asked our part-time pastor to help us find leadership who could relate to Swahili-speaking East Africans. We talked about this for months. The regular report at council meetings: “There is no one.”

When this pastor resigned suddenly, our members within weeks identified two rostered Lutheran pastors from Tanzania. We started working with them.

Our members put every effort behind this outreach. We began by hosting a separate worship service entirely in Swahili. English-speaking members helped with music, putting together a worship bulletin, hosting fellowship and helping with child care. Leadership discussed that attendance at the English service might have to suffer while people, who normally supported it, helped with the Swahili Outreach.

Within a few months 49 members joined through this effort. At the suggestion of our Swahili-speaking members, we united our worship.

We were not prepared for the reaction of our regional body.

To be continued . . . 

08 Nov 2011

Evangelists Can Learn from Marketers

Have you noticed that the business world has adopted words commonly used in the religious world? Companies once hired spokespeople. Now the job title is “evangelist” (for example, Guy Kawasaki, former evangelist for Apple).

The business world also talks about a successful sale as a “conversion.”

Church evangelists can learn a great deal from modern marketing. Marketing and evangelism share many of the same goals. They can also share the same strategies.

The hottest trend in marketing goes by several names: Inbound Marketing, Relationship Marketing and Content Marketing are just a few. These three emphases fit beautifully into any church’s evangelism program.

INBOUND MARKETING

In a nutshell, Inbound Marketers make lots of helpful information available to everyone for FREE, using blogs and websites, coupled with Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn networking tools. While sharing their expertise, they gain authority. When people are ready to buy, they think of the people who were so helpful to them on the web. This marketing technique is tailor-made for Church Evangelists. Help people and they will come to you.

This marketing specialty grew from the modern challenge salespeople faced. As a people, we once were amenable to the knock on the door, the cold call, or chatting it up with visiting sales reps in the company cafeteria. Today we are security conscience. We ban solicitation, check Caller ID before answering the phone, and we do not allow anyone to enter our work space without passing security.

Marketers looked for new ways to get their message/product before potential customers. They used modern tools and technology to attract interest. It is a breath of fresh air for the business world. They no longer feel like nags. They refer to the old days (just a few years ago) as the days of “Interruption Marketing.” They are glad they are no longer distracting irritants. They know that the people they talk to are already interested in their message.

RELATIONSHIP MARKETING

Companies don’t want to work harder than they have to. Finding new customers is more work than keeping old ones. Businesses look for ways to stay in contact with their customers and continue to serve them long after the initial transaction. This can begin on the web. Some of it will rely on other strategies which we will discuss in later posts. Churches must learn from relationship marketers. It will help them be better Christian witnesses.

CONTENT MARKETING

Content Marketing is related to both Inbound Marketing and Relationship Marketing. Content is the helpful information you provide for FREE that attracts people to your message or product. Churches of any size can do this. It is a redirection of energy, but it is a potentially powerful evangelism tool. Provide helpful advice, meaningful thoughts, valuable information, and show that you care. People will notice and begin to build a relationship with you.

Churches must consider implementing these outreach techniques. It requires work and retooling ministry concepts, but these new methods can be very effective. It is not enough for congregations to be witnesses for Christ. They must be effective witnesses for Christ. That means looking for strategies that will make a difference in people’s lives and in the life of your congregation.

The above chart reveals 2×2’s web site’s pattern of growth. This is a project of a very small congregation. We began using Inbound Marketing techniques in February when we launched this blog. We took a few months to learn the ropes. In mid-summer we began following best marketing practices. We slowly started adding content more regularly (now daily). We monitored the statistics. Weekly, we saw interest growing. Today we expect to welcome our 1000th site visitor (almost all within the last four months!). We are averaging close to 30 new visitors every day. We’re not sure where we are going, but we are following a plan that seems to be appreciated. Thanks to all readers. We encourage you to start your own web ministry. We’ll be glad to help.

06 Nov 2011

Multicultural Ministry Requires Congregational Confidence

Congregations are not wrong to approach a multicultural outreach program with hesitance. It is honest and human. Humans make good Christians!

Multicultural Ministry means things will change. Change opens the doors to the unknown and that can be unsettling.

Any new ministry initiative must start with the people you have. If they feel loved and respected, they will be equipped to welcome and serve new people. If they feel criticized and worthless, they will become resentful and protective. Your congregation will not have an atmosphere that invites anyone — much less those of other cultures.

Begin your Multicultural Ministry by affirming your congregation. Make sure they are confident and have self-esteem. The one thing every member wants to know (without asking) is that they will still fit in when their congregation begins to change. They want to know that in building a ministry around new people they are not valued less. We all want to be loved for who we are — not what someone else thinks we should be. A confident congregation — no matter how small — can grow.

Approach change as additive. You are adding new people, new music, new traditions. You are not replacing or criticizing the people who have worked and sacrificed for your congregation for decades. Your members should not have to change the things that are very special to them. They can sing the same hymns, have similar observances. New hymns and customs should be added to the old. Visitors don’t expect a church to drop everything and do things their way. They will notice that your congregation respects your elders and traditions. In fact, most foreign cultures respect this more than we do!

Take it easy. This is probably the most difficult concept for leadership to grasp. Leadership tends to be eager for quick transformation. Leaders have incentive to look for success in statistics. They have at stake their professional career image and desire for personal achievement. Congregations, on the other hand, have their entire social order at stake. They have their history, their family relationships and friendships, their way of life/culture and traditions. This must not be run over roughshod. It will destroy Christian community. Measurable successes will be fleeting.

Don’t put a timetable on change. Your congregation will know when to mothball old customs. It doesn’t have to be forced.

Celebrate your people. Members need to know that they are “chosen” for this ministry because they are a good community with ministry skills. Stress the qualities that make your congregation welcoming to other cultures. Build on them.

  • Are your people naturally welcoming? Let them know that this skill is now more important than ever.
  • Have your people travelled? Are they knowledgeable about some other culture? Give them a leadership role. Have them talk about their experiences in other countries.
  • Does your church have families that can mentor new families? Multicultural Ministry may mean that you will be inviting immigrant families or families new to your neighborhood. Prepare your families to show them the ropes. Let them know this is valuable service to their church. Train them. Help them find ways to connect with newcomers.
  • Holidays can be a particular challenge to immigrants. Try explaining Halloween to someone who has never experienced it! Yet children will be expected to take part in Halloween fun at school. Your church families can advise parents, answer questions, or even help them put a costume together. Similarly Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny are ingrained in our society. They can be puzzling to newcomers.
  • Are there people with special skills in your congregation that could be helpful to newcomers? Members with experience in real estate, banking, business and legal issues could be helpful in reaching out to people looking for housing, financing, jobs and citizenship. Their special skills can play a big role in Multicultural Outreach.
  • Do you have members who can help teach English?

When your current members know that they are important to your congregation’s new ministry, change becomes exciting. The threat is gone.

In later posts, we’ll give you real examples of how some of these points played out in our multicultural ministry.

03 Nov 2011

Budgeting for Social Media Ministry

Social Media Ministry can be run on a shoestring, but if you want to develop your ministry faster you may want to allow some money to give you some options. Here are some costs you can anticipate.

  • Hosting and registration of a domain name (web address): $25
    This is the only cost on this list that is absolutely necessary.
  • Purchase of a theme: $50 (Themes are templates designed to look good, add functionality and make blogging easy and accessible to anyone. There are many FREE themes available.)
  • Purchase of a digital camera: $100
  • Purchase of a video camera: $250
  • An allowance for occasional guest bloggers: $50 per post ($100 per month ought to be enough). If you build good relationships, many will offer to contribute freely. Barter! It works! Be sure to give proper credit and a link.
  • You might want to allow $500-1000 per year for some design and programming expertise. A designer could make sure you have an attractive header and give you some guidance on the use of colors and fonts. A programmer can help you over some of the interactivity hurdles as you get more sophisticated with your Social Media Outreach.
  • It is helpful to allow a small budget for the purchase of stock photography which is proven to increase readership. Istock.com is a good source and very inexpensive. You buy bundles of points which cost about $1.50 per point. Many photos (the size you need for the web) cost just one point. $20 per month is ample. (You can take your own photos!)

Adding all of these items together, a starting annual budget of $3000 is more than adequate. You can get started for much less!

2×2 started this site in February 2011 for $25. We’ve purchased about $10 worth of stock photography. We purchased two guidebooks for about $25 each. We use cameras our members already own. That is our total investment so far — eight months later.

Training

You can pay for training and how-to books, but there is abundant help available for free on the web. This is a reliable avenue. Information can become outdated faster than books can be published.

There is some comfort in having a book nearby. Teach Yourself Visually WordPress gave us a jumpstart. It’s step-by-step illustrated approach is very helpful. WordPress for Dummies is the other book we have on hand. We found an ancient guide to html that is useful, but lately we’ve just googled what we want to know and found answers easily. Cut and paste the code and eliminate typos!

Don’t let this talk about code scare you. Most code is built into the blogging platform and you won’t need to know any code. There are times when it is helpful, but it is not necessary.

Online webinars are very helpful. We’ve referred you to socialmediaexaminer.com and hubspot.com before. They are great places to start learning Social Media. Both provide much information for free. SocialMediaExaminer runs quarterly webinar series which cost between $200-$400. Hours of trainings are available for a full calendar year. An online community grows around these trainings which is very helpful. Hubspot sells analytical software but makes TONS of information available for free. Visit their site and look for ebooks and recorded webinars. Both sites will point you to other good resources as well. They practice what they preach and are models for what you will be trying to do with your web site!

Hiring a Social Media Manager

As your Social Media Ministry takes off, you may want to hire a Social Media Manager, but don’t worry about that to start. A manager would help maintain the editorial calendar, see that blog posts were written and coordinated with Facebook and Twitter, analyze your Social Media’s performance, and (with your committee) strategize to maximize your site’s success. This is a strength of Social Media Ministry. You can measure results, and what you can measure, you can improve.

A Social Media Ministry Manager is foreign to most church budgets, but the addition of these skills to your leadership team could mean as much to a congregation’s ministry as an organist, choir director, youth minister or other church professional. Aim for it! (But don’t wait until you can afford it to get started!) This is a topic which deserves its own post. Watch for it!

Using Analytics

Another potential budget consideration is to subscribe to a metrics program, which will give you real time reports on the effectiveness of your site. (It is interesting that people in this field talk about web sites leading to conversion. While they mean purchases of services/products, churches have used this language for decades.)

Using the internet makes it possible to analyze the effectiveness of your ministry and lead you toward measurable ministry solutions. No more sitting around at committee meetings and guessing what might work. You’ll have answers.

2×2 is looking into this now! We’ll share our experience in later posts.

31 Oct 2011

Getting Pastors Onboard with Social Media Ministry

Social Media is new — only a few years old from the start and even fewer in universal popularity. Many pastors and professional leadership were not trained in using social media. They probably never gave it a thought when they answered their “call.”

Therefore, congregations may run into resistance when talking with their pastors about developing Social Media Ministry.

Professional leaders should be excited!
• Social Media gives the church tools to reach many more people.
• The people churches want to reach are using social media.
• Social media is a change agent — just look at what is happening across Northern Africa!

While many in the church agree that the church must change, often they are slow to accept the tools which will create change. It seems the Church longs for change as long as everyone (including leaders) can continue doing things the same way! Social Media is a tool for changing ministry. Use it!

Here’s a great video overview from PBS’s Religion and Ethics program.

This video begins with a mega-church approach. It may intimidate you to see the opening scenes of a church with a control room and banks of computers. But watch to the end. It ends with the Social Media Ministry of an order of nuns in the Boston area, who have made it a mission to answer spirital questions online. They have more than 16,000 “Likes” on their Facebook page. Anyone with a laptop and internet connection can do Social Media Ministry.

If your congregation has a pastor that is savvy to social media, great! If not, encourage your leadership to explore the possibilities. Remember, it’s new to everyone!

Here’s the choice for pastors of small congregations:
Continue to preach on Sunday to the same few people and an occasional visitor or go into all the world (without leaving the church office!)

Using Social Media will require some shifting of mental gears. Social Media is most effective with short thoughts (as opposed to skillfully crafted long sermons). Think of the power of parables which were sometimes only a couple of sentences.

Social Media requires frequent interaction, not just once a week. Your leaders will have to restructure their work habits to make room for new work. They will not be alone. People throughout the business/nonprofit world are restructuring the way they work to include Social Media. The church will have to follow suit. Many executives are starting and ending their day with 20-30 minutes of participation in Social Media — and finding it to be time well spent! “I don’t have time,” is not an acceptable excuse.

Social Media invites dialog. It will take a while to develop online dialog, but pastors must be prepared to field questions and engage in online discussion. What a great opportunity!

Social Media requires commitment. Online questions/comments must be answered within 24-48 hours. Longer than that and you have turned a seeker away. All comments deserve a response.

Start with blogging. Facebook and Twitter are often the first things that come to mind when people think of Social Media. They have their place but they are not good places to start if you are encouraging reluctant pastors to get their feet wet. Blogging is more sophisticated — closer to what pastors are trained to do. Professional leaders can maintain their voice better on a blog than in the short and fleeting interactions of other tools.

Share statistics. Start your church blog without your pastor as contributor if necessary. It’s too important to wait. You are not likely to change minds while doing nothing. As your audience grows, share the statistics with your pastor. If you start to get 50-75 new hits a week (as our church experienced after four months with no pastoral involvement), your leadership may begin to see the potential.

Be specific in you initial expectations. If your pastor does not want to contribute regularly, ask for help with specific topics your committee may have identified.

27 Oct 2011

How to Create A Social Media Committee for Evangelism in a New World

Going into all the world to preach the gospel has never been easier.In a previous post, we recommended renaming your Evangelism Committee the Social Media Committee. Evangelism today must embrace social media. Changing the name will
• remind you to use social media,
• attract the interest of young people whose lives revolve around social media, and
• communicate to your neighborhood that you are serious about your message.

1. Explore Social Media

The most up-to-date information is online. There are many books but they get outdated quickly. Many good websites provide FREE training (socialmediaexaminer.com, hubspot.com, are rich sources of information and training, much of it FREE). If you want to do your own search, start by looking in the search engines for articles on “Content Marketing” or “Inbound Marketing.” (Don’t be put off by the terms. Marketing is the secular term for Evangelism!)

2. Review your church membership and look for people with the following skills:

• passion to spread the Gospel
• good communicator
• is a social person (very important)
• uses social media (this may mean recruiting youth that you might otherwise overlook)
• basic computer skills
• has some experience with Facebook or web design
• likes to write
• can use a digital camera or video camera

Do not try to find all these skills in one person. Social Media Ministry needs the skills of several people. This is simply a guideline. You do not have to have all of these skills represented on your committee to get started.

3. If you have difficulty finding the skills and interests within your congregation, look outside.

This media is too important to ministry to resist with “but we don’t have the people.” Find the people. Try for volunteers first but if that proves difficult, create a budget and pay for some expertise to get started. This can be a short-term commitment.

Follow or join online communities. You will find lots of help online for free. You will be surprised at how many people are eager to help. This may seem daunting at first, but you will learn to trust the online community to help. (Leave questions here in our comment boxes, we’ll be glad to post them and help you find answers to your questions!)

As you search for committee members, tell people: Our congregation is starting a social media ministry, and we are looking for someone to set up a blog and create a Facebook community. As you engage in conversation let them know you will be using a blog, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube.

Start talking about your plans in the community. Talk to the parents of kids in your day school, if you have one. Talk to the Scouts or other groups that may use your building. Put a small ad in the local paper or a sign on the grocery store bulletin board. If you think it will help, offer to pay someone short-term to train your committee or get you started with a blog. That’s the biggest hurdle — getting started.

Don’t overlook youth. This is a medium young people thoroughly understand, and is it a way they can contribute to their church. A young person might be willing to undertake this as a confirmation project or even a Senior Project in his or her school.

If your pastor understands social media, great! If not, find a way to get clergy on board. Pastors should jump at the chance to reach a greater audience than those who attend church. If they need training, help them find it. Again, there is ample training available on line for free. At the very least, encourage them to be enthusiastic supporters.

Churches say they are looking for change. Social Media is a change agent.

4. Your first meeting.

This is all the farther we are going to go in this post, but we thought you’d need to know what to talk about at your first meeting. A good social media plan begins with a blog. At your first meeting, talk about setting up a blog and brainstorm for ideas for content to put on the blog. Once you have a plan, it will be easy to assign tasks to committee members. We’ll cover this on our next post.

19 Oct 2011

Social Media Can Help Your Church Make a Good First Impression

Part 3: Social Media MinistryToday, when someone visits your church, it is likely they have already formed their first impression of your congregation from their online search. Congregations need to put their best foot forward on their web sites.

Here’s a list of questions to consider:
(This list was derived from our visits to 32 churches in the last 14 months.)

  • Is service information easy to find?
    It should be boldly displayed on the home page.
  • Is the service time correct?
    Ten percent of the churches we visited had wrong times listed on their web sites.
  • Is parking available in a lot or on the street? What buses or trains are nearby?
    Some congregations we visited had information printed in their church bulletin that parking was available at neighboring businesses. Too late!
  • Is the entrance they are to use obvious?
    We had trouble figuring which door to use on occasion.
  • Is the phone number you want people to call prominently displayed?
    Adding office hours and the name of the person likely to answer is also helpful. It puts a face on your community. For example: For more information about our services, call Lois at the church (555) 321-5432, weekdays between or 9 am and 1 pm. Our answering machine provides basic information 24/7.
  • Can web viewers ask questions online (email or Facebook) and be assured of an answer within 24 hours? People expect this these days!
  • Is there a warm welcome from church leaders (clergy and lay) with photos and a little background?
    Visitors will recognize leaders when they visit and have some information to ease conversation. You might even give visitors a prompt such as “When you visit, ask for Gus or Mary. They’ll be glad to give you a tour.”
  • Is there a date for the last update of the site?
    Many sites we visited had not been updated in years, even listing pastors who had left long before. Timely updates reveal that your church is on their toes.
  • Is new information prominent with older information archived?
    Old information is fun and can show your congregation’s personality, but the first images and information should be about the immediate future or very recent past.
  • Is there time for fellowship before church or after church?
    If visitors want to mix and meet your members they need to know if they should arrive early or plan to stay later. Invite them to fellowship. At several of the churches we visited, the congregation disappeared quickly after worship to a side room or basement area for fellowship without announcing fellowship or inviting visitors.
  • How long is your service expected to be?
    We encountered several services that were two or three hours long. Visitors need to know if a service is expected to be more than an hour long.
  • Is your service contemporary, liturgical, multicultural, or multilingual?
  • Are there helpful details about your next service?
    Will communion be offered? Is it a special Sunday? Will there be a blessing of pets or a baptism/confirmation? One church we visited was having a special meeting to call a pastor. Our visit seemed intrusive and we left.
  • Is child care available?
    Not everyone is comfortable leaving a child in a nursery with people they don’t know. Will their children be welcome in worship?
  • Will there be a children’s sermon?
    Families may like to know.
  • Engage your potential visitors from the start.
    Give a teaser. Ask a question that will be answered in the sermon!
18 Oct 2011

9 Reasons Every Church Should Have a Social Media Committee

Part 1: Social Media MinistryMost churches have a set of standing committees which look something like this: Worship, Property, Social Ministry, Finance, Education, Stewardship and Evangelism.

In today’s church environment the Evangelism Committee can play a huge role in shaping the future of any congregation. Once the realm of church newsletters, the modern Evangelism Committee must embrace Social Media. The potential is too enormous to be overlooked — so great that it should be the hub of any congregational plan for growth.

First, consider changing the name of the committee to Social Media Committee.

Have you noticed that the word "evangelist" had been adopted by the business community?

There is nothing wrong with the word “evangelism,” but calling it a Social Media Committee will force you to see “evangelism” in a new light.

Social Media used correctly and DAILY is powerful. Look at it this way: A small congregation could go on reaching the same 25-75 people week after week, or it could start to reach thousands with the same message on the internet.

Here is a short list of how a Social Media Committee can spur your congregation’s ministry.

1. Using Social Media will give your congregation visibility, especially if you look beyond your own circle of activity and begin to interact with other neighborhood groups.

2. Using Social Media will give people a way to interact and share. The internet crosses religious and denominational lines. Invite people to share. Soon you’ll be engaging people who would never walk through your door on Sunday morning.

3. Social Media is cost-effective. The traditional costs of printing and mailing can be nearly eliminated. The costs of Social Media are more time intensive. Content must be created and your various social media accounts must be monitored, but this is work that can be shared.

4. Using Social Media will force your congregation to stop relying on programs that require people to come to you. It’s called OUTREACH.

5. Social Media will grow your network of people with skills and talents. You will discover influential people and you may be able to enlist them in projects. Ask a local authority to comment on an important issues that your church should address (bullying, crime, child care issues, etc.). Invite guest pastors to contribute.

6. Social Media will open eyes! Change (which most congregations admit they need) will be within reach. You will have a new arsenal of tools.

7. Social Media will open hearts as you expand your congregation’s reach in the world. If you engage in online communities on topics of interest to people in your congregation, you may be astounded to find help in places you never dreamed. Your congregation might learn about a situation your people could address and form networks far beyond what was once possible.

8. Social Media will force your congregation to work as a team. One person cannot do the job alone. Every other committee will have a message they need to share. A social media committee will have to work with all other committees to develop a strategy for each of them.

9. Social Media provides measurable results which can help you shape ministry. Increasingly sophisticated metrics (many of them free) can tell you who is reading your blog or web site, how they came to your site, what pages they look at,  and how long they spend. If you offer something of value (community calendar, devotional booklet, etc.) you can collect information and expand your audience. You can tweak what is not working. What you can measure you can improve.

There is a lot to learn, but it is not difficult to get started and you can grow at a pace that is comfortable. Here is a guide to help you get started. 2×2 will start a Social Media Page to provide more help for congregations who want to harness this powerful EVANGELISM tool.

13 Oct 2011