4/7InkzHVUEQeEdU9vpc1tikzEhChrKmPfvXI-FSDBrBQ

Evangelism

Telling Your Congregation’s Story

A Good Story Is the Heart of Evangelism

The Bible is full of stories. Jesus understood the value of a good story more than anyone!

 

There is a resurgence in the interest of good story-telling. Marketers talk about it all the time, but it is rarely discussed in congregational circles and few congregations understand that good story-telling is also at the heart of evangelism.

 

Here is a link to a blog written by a rabbi known for his consulting with Jewish congregations. They are struggling with the same challenges as we Christians. We can learn from one another.

 

Rabbi Hayem Herring features a guest blogger well-versed in marketing.

 

Mission, Marketing and Media Are Inseparable.

 

This is a frequent theme on our 2×2 blog.

 

We see congregations ill-equipped to share their stories. They may be great at re-telling the biblical stories. They may be spectacular at interpreting the biblical stories. But when it comes to telling their own story, they don’t know where to begin.

 

Problem 1:

Congregations rely on the pastor as storyteller and the pastor often does not know the congregation’s story nearly as well as the congregants.

 

Problem 2:

Parishioners rarely have the platform to tell their story. Some are natural networkers and could do a great job, but they have not been encouraged.

 

Problem 3:

Congregations confuse history with “their story.” They can point you to the website or a memorial booklet published at a key anniversary. These invariably recite key pastorates and building projects and organ renovations. These aren’t the type of stories that interest newcomers. The how and why of these stories — the stuff that interests people — are lost in the recitation of names and dates.

 

A congregation’s story isn’t all about the past. Your story is being written every day. You have an opportunity to tell it every time your congregation adopts a cause, reaches a new demographic, accepts a new member, sponsors a student, conducts a mission project or addresses a community concern.

 

Every congregation has a great story with a plot populated with colorful characters—some from the past, some still with us. Your members can tell you why their church is important. They can tell you what sets your congregation apart. They can tell you the congregation’s strengths and passion. They can see into the future.

 

But they are rarely asked.

 

Congregations need to hone the story-telling skills of leaders and members alike. We need to encourage our members to tell their story in any way that is comfortable for them. There should be little attempt to sensor or edit their stories. They must be genuine.

 

Allow your members to witness, write a blog post, speak before the next potluck dinner. Write letters to the editor of the local paper. Encourage them to tell their story on their personal social media pages.

 

Remember the past. Celebrate the current. Show the neighborhood that you are interested in the problems of the community. Talk about moving into the future.

 

People will notice. You’ll be seen as vibrant no matter how large or small you might be.

 

And this could make all the difference.

04 Feb 2014

The Power of Visiting

When did the Church become afraid of the door?Visiting Is A Lost Art in the Church

Redeemer adopted a project that is surely unique in Christianity. It is unique because we are unique.

We are denied access to our church home, so we go visiting. We visit a different church about three times a month. We call ourselves the Redeemer Ambassadors.

We made our first visit in August of 2010 — about a year after we were first locked out of our church building by the Southeastern Pennsylvania Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.

The idea was sparked after one of our home church worship services. One of our members commented, “I don’t understand why they want a church without us in it.”

The group response was “Good question. Let’s find out.”

Here we are in 2013. We have visited 75 of our neighboring churches—all of whom, it is safe to say—like the idea of taking one church’s property to pay for their debt. At least that’s how they voted. And they voted without bothering to visit us!

We didn’t know quite what we were getting into. We laid some basic ground rules.

Our mission: “to worship, learn, and share.” We would share during our visits only if we were invited. Few do.

At first we wrote letters to congregations. Now we just write about our visits online.

We have a unique vantage point in the ELCA. We’ve seen common problems. We see occasional attempts to solve problems. We can see what is working and what is not. Our view has its limitations to be sure, but it is broader by far than other congregations’ views.

Waiting for Visitors vs Outreach

The typical approach to evangelism is to entice people to visit us. That’s not really working very well.

Redeemer was a church with a high rate of visitation and we were doing a pretty good job of following up as well, relying (like most churches) on our pastor to do the legwork. We experienced moderate success. But our pulpit was somewhat of a revolving door. (SEPA was waiting for us to die and was not helping to fill our pulpit). Often people joined for relationship with the pastor more than with the congregation. They disappeared when the pastor disappeared.

We began to grow in a more solid way when our members started visiting within their network of friends. We had no pastor at the time, although two pastors were helping us and were interested in a call to our congregation. This was remarkably effective. 52 members in about 18 months. Enough to alarm synod that they were losing the “waiting for them to die” game. Better act fast!

Add this to our three years of church visits and we know something about the power of visitation.

We can place our experiences side by side and see trends. Sometimes we see opportunities that remain untapped staring congregations in the face. Sometimes we can see why.

There is great potential for sharing and ministry in visitation.

This is probably true on the parish level, too. Yet neighborhood visiting is almost a lost art. We don’t even bother. We cite demographics as a code word for “why bother trying.”

People who are not just like us are not worth the effort? Really! Have we so little faith in our message!

Finding a way to visit with people is key to church growth. It may no longer be a simple matter of knocking on doors, but it does involve putting ourselves out into our communities so that we can interact. Waiting for people to visit us is death row. (click to tweet)

Visiting Is Powerful

So powerful it can be seen as a threat!

For our third visit, we chose one of the churches closest to our own. If any of us had been inclined to transfer membership, it might have been to this church—at least that was the chatter among our ambassadors at the time.

The pastor of this church reported our visit to the bishop. The bishop became alarmed and issued a letter of warning to all pastors. It advised congregations to greet us with Christian love—as if they needed instruction! It included a contact phone number in case we caused trouble. How inviting! How paranoid!

Ironically, this is the only Lutheran Church in a 4×1-mile stretch of Philadelphia. Our members live within about a mile and a half of this church. One of our members has lived for 25 years just a few blocks away. None has ever been visited by this church. Yet our visit to them was seen as a threat.

It is not likely that this church will survive to call another pastor when their current pastor retires. Another lost mission opportunity.

There is just one question a church visitor should ask. We’ll cover that in our next post.

(By the way, we haven’t visited a single church that we would vote to close and relieve of their property—even though many of them seem to be no stronger in numbers than Redeemer.)

photo credit: Kevin Conor Keller via photopin cc

18 Oct 2013

Branding in the Church

Do We Know Who We Are?
and if we don’t,
How Can We Expect Anyone Else to Relate to Religion?

Today, I’d like to link to a discussion published on the Grow Blog.

Two marketing experts and a rabbi discuss the meaning of brand in today’s society.

The foundational argument is that brand matters to people who want to belong. We proudly walk the streets wearing grungy t-shirts that advertise the causes—including commercial causes—we want people to know matter to us. In our minds we aren’t advertising the company (although we are). We are broadcasting that we somehow relate to this service or product, and we want people to know it.

The companies want people to know it, too!

Branding, the discussion suggests, addresses a fundamental need to belong to something bigger than ourselves.

That used to happen in church. Religion used to define a big part of our lives.

Not so much anymore. We worship at the altar of technology, beauty, comfort and fun and choose an occasional charity at our convenience. The Church gets this nod of convenience at Christmas and Easter.

Read the discussion.

How does this thinking relate to the community of believers? What are we going to do about it?

10 Jul 2013

Blogging Is Not About Forsaking the Assembly

An anonymous commenter wrote today:

Blogging may be good and it may reach all over the world. But the word of God says, “Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another . . . . ” (Hebrews 10 :25) and to my understanding I am going to church.

We have never advocated blogging as a replacement for Christian community. We see it as enhancing Christian community.

There is value in assembling as a people of God. Most of the people who read and correspond with us through our blog are active in such assemblies and send us many photos of their congregations.

Assembling as a congregation is not in itself an evangelism tool. The sizes of these assemblies are shrinking—big churches and small churches alike. Most are experiencing sizable decline. As they shrink, they are becoming protective of who they are. In a sense they forsake who they might become, if they actually had a way of reaching out.

The value of blogging is that you reach beyond the four walls of your congregation and start to learn about the people who are not part of your assembly—yet.

As for the people of 2×2 and Redeemer? We have been locked out our place of assembly by all the other Lutheran congregations in our region. This was an unnecessary cruelty and was designed to make taking our property, our offerings and possessions easier.

And still we attend church — sitting several times a month with the very people who condone this action—some actively, most passively. We worship, we pass the peace and sometimes commune with them. We listen to words read from the Bible that point to the wrongs of these actions. We have visited 60 happy and contented congregations who would rather not be bothered. We live the Good Samaritan story every day. The Levite and Pharisee pass us by.

We worship with others even when it is difficult to do, even when we are treated with only minimal hospitality and no recognition of what their communities have put our community through. We have abided condescending platitudes. We have also met some really nice people!

Congregations seem to find justification in their communal acceptance of wrong.

We still believe in local assembly and gather in our own “upper room” in a theater that has loaned us the space for three years while our church has persisted in vilifying our members to justify their leaders’ actions. We pass our locked church, a symbol of atrocity, every day.

We still get together once a week for worship and often during the week to work on projects or just enjoy one another’s company. We still help one another through tough times and celebrate good times. We still pray for one another and for the rest of the church that treats us so badly.

We agree with you! Go to church.

But beware! Just being there is not enough. The gospel—including the book of Hebrews—makes other demands on us.

Don’t forget the teachings of love, forgiveness and reconciliation. Don’t forget the admonition to go into the world and make believers of all.

Blogging has made this possible for every Christian.

02 May 2013

Overcoming the fear of Social Media

horseGet 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
09 Feb 2013

B to B or B to C? Or maybe churches are C to C?

Business people know marketing jargon, so when they meet up at a networking event, they know that when someone asks them if they are B to B or B to C, they are being asked if their business serves other businesses (B to B) or if their business serves consumers (B to C).

This language doesn’t apply much to the church world — or does it? The national church and the regional bodies are B to B. They are a church Body serving another church Body.

Congregations are more B to C. Their church Body serves individual Christians.

The concept is worth examining with fresh eyes and maybe a twist on this old business analogy.

The Church is actually C to C in two different ways.

Christian to Christian. That’s how evangelism works. It’s a play on the Frank Laubach missionary maxim, taught to all Lutheran children of the 60s. “Each one teach one.”

Or

Congregation to Congregation. Historically, the church has been very weak in congregations communicating, sharing and serving one another. There are token niceties exchanged at seminars and assemblies, but generally, it’s every congregation for itself. Pastoral turf and competition for members block the doorway for inter-church cooperation. They pull together to save money on church supplies, but that’s where cooperation often ends.

For the Evangelism Tools of the Future to Work this MUST Change

Social Media, the greatest evangelism tool the church has ever encountered, both creates and depends on connectedness. Congregations now need to work together. Without inter-church cooperation, which includes pastors cooperating, efforts at social media will quickly peter out.

Social Media thrives on content. Individual congregations are going to be challenged in feeding the content beast. But if they start working with other congregations, they will expand their possibilities.

How will this work? Here’s a possible scenario.

Lutheran youth in our area are planning a mission trip to an Indian Reservation. This common venture is supported by member churches and their individual youth groups.

An individual congregation might  put an article on their website or newsletter announcing the project. They might put a donate button as a call to action — and that would be that.

A more ambitious approach would be to learn as much about the project and the people they hope to serve and start TELLING THE STORY.

The content promoting this might include interviews with the youth as they prepare for the trip. They might be asked questions about their expectations, what they hope to accomplish. Church A might post two or three short videos with youth answers. Church B might do the same thing.

Then Church A links to Church B and vice versa.  (Add Churches C, D, E, etc.)

Why go to this trouble?

Because more gives a fuller picture, more is more interesting and more interaction attracts search engines—for everyone!

There will be a temptation to not do this, hoping that by telling just your congregation’s story, you’ll encourage anyone inclined to click a donate button and that contribution will come to your congregation.

That narrow view will cause you to miss out on the evangelism potential of the moment.

Here’s what could happen.

Members of Church A—beginning with the youth themselves—are loyal and check the web site to see their youth talk about the upcoming trip. They end up clicking the links to Church B and Church C. Connections have been made between the parishes. They are starting to know one another.

Members of Church A and Church B share the link to family and friends. Some of them send donations. They share the link, too.

Meanwhile, the local friends of the youth have checked up on them. They become interested and ask to come along. The youth group grows!

Meanwhile, the Indian youth in South Dakota see the videos. They comment and send a welcome message or make their own video and direct it to the youth they are looking forward to meeting in a few months. Dialog between the youth starts. When they eventually meet, they already know one another.

Meanwhile, a local church from a poorer neighborhood sees what the  youth in richer congregations are doing. They lament that their youth could never afford to go on a trip like that. They’d have to raise funds in a neighborhood with little to give. One enterprising mother decides their kids are not going to be left out. She contacts the churches that are having fundraisers and makes arrangements for several of the youth from their church to help with the fundraising efforts so they would have the experience of initiating a mission effort instead of being the recipients of mission efforts. This is life-changing for the young people in both congregations.

Also meanwhile, a youth group in Texas has happened upon the videos. They visited the Indian Reservation a few years ago and recognize some of the Indian youth who have commented. They invite people to come to Texas next summer to help with an outreach ministry in Hispanic neighborhoods.

Meanwhile, meanwhile, meanwhile — there’s no limit on parallel interactions.

This is the tip of the mission iceberg. Maybe no one clicked the donate button and your congregation lost $20. The value of the interconnectedness paid off in far greater ways.

How can your congregation become a C to C church?

07 Feb 2013

Paying for Denominational News

An Antiquated Worldview Stifles the Voice of the Denomination

SUB0000001bThe turmoil in mainline churches is symptomatic. The concept of hierarchy is becoming outdated. In a decade or so we look back at how we did things before the computer revolution with the same incredulity we experience today when we review the history of the Crusades or slavery.

Until then there will be struggle as hierarchies try to hang on. It doesn’t have to be ugly.

A hierarchy that remembers that in the church we exist to serve is actually well positioned to meet the new age.

A hierarchy that is focused on its own power, importance and preservation will topple.

People who have embraced the new world can view what’s happening with amusement—if they are not part of tumultuous transition, that is.

Church leaders are slow to understand the gift that has been handed to them with social media.

We see it with the pope. He will tweet but he will not follow. The power of Twitter is in following. But popes and bishops are tempted to see that as beneath them. Communication has been one way for thousands of years. This is to be expected.

We will soon see it in religious social services. it will not be long before religious social service agencies admit that their association with a denomination may deter mission efforts. They can now reach volunteers and supporters more easily themselves than through national or regional church efforts.

American Roman Catholic nuns have already experienced this.

Similarly, mission efforts that rely on denominational funding will soon realize that they are not as in touch with the people who support them as they could be without the filter of hierarchy.

How Church Hierarchies Are Unprepared for Modern Publishing

There are also big changes in church publishing—or there should be.

Church hierarchies were once needed to support church publishing. Their pooled resources were the only way a denomination could afford the cost. Because they were needed to fund publishing, they got used to thinking that they were needed to control what was written.

That day is over. Anyone can publish.

But our denomination is stuck trying to adapt old publishing models to the new media. They are missing the fact that the whole game has changed.

Unlike some of the other things mentioned, national church publishing can still play a major —but very different—role.

First, the regional and national church should make it a mission priority for every congregation to become familiar with social media. There is no excuse for any congregation to not have a web site or blog. They cannot be effective today without one. Everyone checks online for everything these days. No web site. Few visitors.

More important, churches and pastors must learn to use social media. Having a web site is one thing. Using it as a mission tool is another. This can no longer be overlooked and the regional and national church can lead the way.

If the denomination cares about member churches, they should help them make this transition. Both large and small churches find this to be daunting. The denominational and national church could and should help. Make it a mission priority and make sure pastors are trained to use social media.

Before they do this, they need to understand the power of the web themselves. In this they are missing the boat.

Standing on the dock and watching the ship of church sail

The ELCA publishes a “house” magazine. It is called The Lutheran. It contains a little bit of denominational news and feature stories of how the denomination and its congregations work in mission.

The Lutheran mails to 200,000 subscribers (only a small percentage of its 4 million membership).

It is also online. Sort of.

If the magazine prints 200,000 magazines, those magazines — assuming some are shared — might result in 300,000 readers—still a small fraction of total members.

An open and free online readership could easily magnify this reach. A good article might get 100,000 reads and then be passed onto 500,000 who might then pass it on to 2 million others. Wow! Imagine reaching the world with your message every month. Exciting!

But what does The Lutheran do? They feed you about ten lines of a story online and ask you to pay to read the rest. They limit dialog on the articles to subscribers. No pay. No say.

Engagement is the goal of almost every organization these days. Corporations understand that engagement is pivotal to relationships, sales, their mission and survival. Meanwhile, the church barricades themselves from engagement!

They are missing out on the social nature and evangelical power of the web. When they place that “pay to play” obstacle between them and their readers, they keep them from further sharing the good news. (Explain that to advertisers!)

Of course, they are interested in subscriptions. That’s the old publishing model. But The Lutheran is a “house” magazine. It should be looking for ways to get the message out to everyone—especially to people who just happen along who might be learning about the denomination from a friend who sent them a link.

They are hampering their own mission.

In the new world, religious magazines should explore a new funding model. Perhaps their work should be totally subsidized. Forget subscriptions.

There are other ways of adding to the income while enhancing the dialog within the church. Partner with denominational authors. Be a Kindle storefront for them. Empower the news potential of every congregation and every potential writer in the denomination. It’s new territory with great potential.

The denominational magazine will then be so much more powerful and able to attract a new level of advertising.

If preserving the publishing model of the past is the goal, keep it subscription-based with limited reach. A private club. All the members breathing the same stale air.

If influence and reach are the goals of church publishing, content must be free.

31 Jan 2013

What Makes a Post Actionable?

2x2CategoryBarSMHow Can A Blog Be Actionable?

Yesterday’s post talked about the characteristics of a viral post — a post that readers share in large numbers. One of the characteristics is that a viral post is actionable.

An actionable post results in a reader doing something. When marketers use the term, they mean the reader either bought something or took a step towards buying something. Marketers have embraced blogging because they see it as a customer relations, customer retention and sales tool—all in one.

Churches have the same needs but use evangelical/ecclesiastic terminology.

Yet churches seem to be puzzled by the blogging genre. They tend to see a blog as an online musing . . . an extension of the sermon. It is so much more!

The easiest way to move away from this thinking and to begin to harness the power of the web is for churches to think in terms of writing blogs which prompt action.

In church terms, this could mean a number of things.

Here are some actions that could result from congregational blog posts:

  • A reader might subscribe to your blog or the congregational newsletter. Your congregation could then reach subscribers with a short message every day. (They probably won’t sign up to read sermons, though!) 2×2 has about 63 subscribers and another 100 or more who subscribe via Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn. We reach more than 500 new readers every week! (Imagine what we could do with a building!)
  • A reader might share your post with someone else. I occasionally send links to Pastor Swanson’s daily emails, 7 Minutes A Day. I find them to be inspirational and motivating and hope others will, too.
  • A reader might take some action they might not otherwise take. Pastor Swanson’s posts have prompted me to read more of the Bible and look at familiar Bible passages in a new light.
  • A reader might become interested in a new ministry. A congregation could blog about homelessness and inspire someone to do something about it.
  • A post might inspire someone to make a donation (sweat or dollars).
  • A post might inspire a new understanding or make a new connection. I can’t remember how our posts led us to ministry friendships with Christians in Kenya, Pakistan, and Sweden, but they did!
  • A post could spark an interest in personal growth. I was impressed with a captivating video of a young girl telling a Bible story. I shared it on our blog and was myself inspired to improve my storytelling skills.
  • A blog post can lead to new alliances. Our early posts on the value of Vacation Bible Schools created alliances with like-minded Christians in other areas of the United States.
  • A reader may comment on a post and that may spark an online conversation.
  • A reader just might be inspired to faith and salvation.

How A Blog Might Impact A Common Scenario

In yesterday’s post, I posed a scenario where a congregation became aware that their neighborhood was changing. A new and very different ethnic group was moving in and changing the demographic. This isn’t a stretch. It’s happening all over our city (Philadelphia). A common result within our denomination is to declare churches closed in changing neighborhoods. We can only guess that they feel their message will not fly with the changing demographic. (Actually, we are not guessing, that’s what our church was told by our regional body.) This is foreign to the biblical mission of the church—and unnecessary—especially if congregations use social media as a mission tool!

What if a congregation started blogging about the changes in the neighborhood in a way which fostered interaction between the settled population and the newcomers. If they did so regularly, it would be noticed within a few weeks. Doors would open. Introductions would be made. When the new population began to show an interest as neighbors, they would feel like they already know the people who sponsored such a welcoming blog.

Civic organizations would likely notice, too. The church would gain respect in the neighborhood. The voice of the Church might carry more weight. Mainline news might notice. The possibilities are endless.

Actionable blogs should be a goal of every congregation.

Many of these benefits can be achieved without a blog. But there is no denying that blogging amplifies the likelihood and the reach of ministry efforts. It is work. It is a new discipline. But it is exciting. Time must be carved out to learn new skills. But the potential for ministry is so much greater with a blog than without. Frankly, the time invested in blogging will steal time from ministry efforts which may be traditional but which are not resulting in church growth. No real loss.

One last thing!

An actionable post should end with what in business is termed a Call To Action. This can be as simple as posing a question. Or it could be a simple form.

Here’s our Call to Action!

If you’d like help getting started in social media or blogging, submit the brief form below. We’ll see if we can be of service or point you in a helpful direction.

[contact-form-7 404 "Not Found"]
29 Jan 2013

Why would anyone read a church blog?

2x2CategoryBarSMSocial media has been around for four or five years now. It still puzzles the Church. It doesn’t fit the church’s way of thinking. A few churches dabble at it.

Dabbling at social media won’t succeed. We must dive in—the sooner the better!

One pastor recently shared that he didn’t understand social media. What was new about it?

Power is new. In the old days a newspaper might have a readership of 10,000 people. That’s where their influence ended.

Today, readers can pass a message on to all of their friends and those friends can continue sharing with their friends. Social media transforms those 10,000 readers into a million readers with ease.

More than that, the receiver can add to the message. They can correct or object when they disagree in real time. No one needs to wait for an editor to review a response, confined to 150 words, and chosen from among many for publication. We all have a say!

We are all familiar with the modern phenomenon of “going viral.”

A wannabe singer posts a video online and six months later is an international star. Never before in the history of the world was it possible for little guys to get billing on the world’s stage.

We used to guess at reasons some blog posts are so popular that they reach the ends of the earth within a few hours.

We expect marketers to study the reasons for viral popularity. Now scientists are taking a look at the phenomenon, too.

We are discovering that the key to popularity is not what most people guess (sex, dogs, cats and babies).

The answers revolve around emotions.

People share what they read on the web when the information is:

  1. Surprising
  2. Interesting
  3. Intense
  4. Positive
  5. Actionable

This information was gathered in a study of media websites, but the same characteristics have been found to be applicable to other genres as well.

Church bloggers can adapt these principles to their posts, especially if they are writing about more than their church (which they should be).

True, this calls for a change in our evangelism mindset. We are accustomed to promoting who we are and what we believe with little consideration for the people we hope to reach.

Therein lies the value of blogging. It forces us to see things through the eyes of others.

Here’s an example of how a church blogger might apply these principles:

A congregation might discover an interesting statistic about their neighborhood. Let’s say an old working class urban neighborhood, known to be populated by a certain ethnic group, learns that the latest census shows their neighborhood is now home to a growing number of immigrants from another part of the world.

The church should write about that. It is surprising and interesting. It could have potential to become intense —in a good or a bad way. The church should put itself in a position to influence that!

Most important for ministry, the news has the potential to be presented in a positive way, benefitting both the church and community, which may then lead to action by the congregation or by the neighborhood.

Upon this foundation, a church blog can be the catalyst for a congregation’s mission and growth.

What is going on in your neighborhood that you can influence by writing a post on your church blog?

29 Jan 2013

Twitter and Blogs Go Hand in Hand

twiAs 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.

  1. Use your own voice.
  2. Blog with consistency. If you blog once or twice a week, keep it up. We recommend twice a week to start. Things start to happen when you blog daily, but it is a time commitment. Oddly, though, it gets easier the more you post. When blogging, once or twice a week seems like a chore. Blogging every day is a habit!
  3. 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.
  4. 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?
  5. Aim for 200 to 500 words.
  6. 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.

07 Dec 2012