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Social Media and the Church

Social Media and Branding Your Congregation: Part 1

Branding is a marketing term. Branding is how people distinguish one company from another. Branding tells your story.


Corporations spend a lot of time, money and attention on branding. They know how important image is in today’s world. They establish lengthy rules and guides to control their public image.

Branding includes things like logos, fonts, colors and the “look” of anything produced by the company. It also includes intangibles — ways of thinking, priorities and behaviors or policies.

Most small or even large congregations never gave branding a passing thought until recent years. But in today’s world, it can be a valuable tool. As congregations look beyond their established communities they will want to be conscious of how they are perceived.

Many churches take part in a branding process without realizing it.

Have you discussed a vision or mission statement lately? That’s an important first step in any branding process.

Key question: What do you want the world to know about your congregation?

  • What is important to your past?
  • What is important to your future?
  • What is there about your congregation’s personality and mission that makes you special?

Once a vision or mission statement is approved, the most common place to start branding is a logo. Many churches have their own logos in addition to logos of their denominational affiliation. Check with your denomination for rules.

Logos used to be black and white and simple. This comes from the days of black and white printing or photocopying. Enter the digital age. Use color.

Decide which one, two or three colors are going to represent your ministry. You’ll be using them in many, many things. Make sure they are colors you can live with!

Use imagery that represents the answers to the bulleted questions above. What makes your congregation unique?  A church near the seacoast might want to use ship, water, or anchor imagery. A farming community might want to use wheat, bread or nature imagery. Urban churches might focus on people, buildings, or multicultural images. There is always the image of your building to fall back on, but your logo is an opportunity to say much more.

Your logo should be something that any member can relate to your congregation’s mission in one simple sentence. Simplifying the complex is part of the art of branding.

Keep in mind how your logo will be used.

  • Signage
  • Stationery
  • Bulletins
  • Newsletters
  • Ads
  • Posters and Fliers
  • Website
  • Avatars (which are square)
  • Video/Powerpoint Backgrounds
  • SWAG (you may want to get some promotional giveaways like mugs or pens)

This list is growing just as our communications options are growing. You may even want to animate a logo for use on the web! There are many possibilities.

There should also be a black/white version. There will still be a need occasional one-color printing.

Surf the internet for examples of church logos. There are some very nice ones.

The logo image is important enough to hire some help if you do not have artists in your community. In fact, it might make the process go easier with outside input.

The process of deciding on a logo can take a while. It should include many people. That always lengthens the decision process. But remember, the logo belongs to your whole congregation—past, present and future. You want the involvement of many. Try to make the process part of your mission conversation.

Dive in and have fun. We’ll address other aspects of church branding in later posts.

photo credit: vapour trail via photopin cc
19 Apr 2012

Redeemer’s 2×2 Website Surpasses 5000 Visitors

Redeemer’s experimental congregational web site just tallied its 5000th first-time visitor.

Little Redeemer reaches more people every week than most large churches reach on Sunday morning.

Redeemer started 2x2virtualchurch.com in late February 2011.

The site was started as a mission vehicle when  Southeastern Pennsylvania Synod (SEPA) of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America seized our property.

Redeemer knows that small churches are capable of big ministry. The internet seemed to be a perfect vehicle for a congregation with no church building.

By the end of summer 2011, 2×2 had only a few dozen visits. We were posting sporadically — a few times a month.

We began posting daily.

We focused on three strengths of the congregation: Social Media, Children in Worship and Multicultural Ministry. The site also includes commentary on issues facing many neighborhood congregations today.

We learned to create content with others in mind.

We write interdenominationally, but we don’t hide our Lutheran roots.

We link to other related sites and engage in conversation in other religious forums—all things encouraged in this new communications medium.

Statistics guide our content development.

At Easter we posted a short play, written and produced by Redeemer a year before our doors were locked. It was downloaded 150 times. We responded to this interest by posting a Pentecost resource for small churches.

Much of our traffic comes from our ongoing exploration of Social Media topics.

Our Multicultural series did not attract as much attention, but it was reblogged — linked from other sites—more often. This tells us that there is intense if not broad interest.

Several seminaries posted articles from our website for discussion. One of our recent posts was broadcast by a retweeting engine.

We now have more than 80 followers who subscribe daily via Facebook, Twitter or direct email feed. An additional 30-80 visitors per day represent every state in the Union and more than 70 countries with just shy of 1000 visitors a month. As that number continues to grow, we expect to have between 12,000 and 20,000 readers by the end of our second year.

Our highest international traffic comes from Canada, France, Great Britain, the Netherlands and Belgium, South Africa, and Australia. Traffic is growing in the mid-East and Africa.

There are interesting, inexplicable spikes in readership. One day we had 26 readers in the Bahamas! The very next day we had 16 readers from the Netherlands.

We hear regularly from small mission congregations in Pakistan and Kenya and support one another with ministry ideas and prayer.

We are encountering Christians from many denominations — some of them represent very large ministries. We learn of interesting projects and try to help by providing links. A college student in Texas, who has created a ministry recycling VBS materials, gets a few daily visitors from 2×2 links.

Redeemer may be one of the most active and growing congregations in Southeastern Pennsylvania—even if we are shunned by our own denomination. SEPA justifies its actions in East Falls with accusations of lack of mission focus. There is no lack of mission focus at Redeemer. We are just using a very wide-angle lens!

We will be glad to make a presentation to SEPA Synod Assembly on our growing experience in web ministry. Just contact us!

Redeemer is not closed;
 we are locked out of God’s House by SEPA Synod.

photo credit: Absolute Chaos via photopin cc (retouched)
17 Apr 2012

Facebook: A Force for the Church to Reckon With

Facebook and the Church are entering relatively uncharted territory.

Congregations with broad age demographics are likely to use Facebook as a way of promoting activities. There are a few youthful congregations who have implemented a Facebook social media strategy that is more comprehensive, encouraging lively interaction among members.

Facebook is something the Church must learn with caution. It may be something we should teach as well, but it will take some experience to become authoritative.

A congregation should consider demographics when using Facebook. Measure them against these statistics.

  • 81% of Americans aged 12 to 17 check Facebook daily.
  • It is likely that a quarter of a congregation’s members over 65 are on this Social Media platform and this statistic is quickly growing.
  • Close to three-fourths of your members 25-45 engage in Facebook use.
  • Business people in your congregations are surely exploring Facebook strategies.

Your members are already on Facebook. Grandparents are following the activities of their grandkids. Youth are likely to be in touch with dozens of friends while you think they are having dinner with you.

How many of your members check your congregation’s web site daily? How many read the newsletter? How many members participate in creating the content on your web site or in your newsletter?

The reins of information are no longer in your church leaders’ hands.

There is no doubt that Facebook is a force to reckon with and a tool to consider.

Facebook is changing the way we think. Privacy is valued much less. There is a driving need to be in touch. Facebook has an entry age of 13, but figuring out what year you have to be born to qualify takes elementary math. Children are using Facebook.

When our way of thinking changes, our ways of acting follow. What this means to the Church is not known. Will members become more engaged? Will they see less use for Christian community?

If the Church hopes to influence the answers to these questions, we must engage in the conversation.

The problem Churches may have in building Facebook community is that the thinking of older members and younger members may clash. The impact could be felt across a congregation. One piece of private information, innocently shared on your congregation’s Facebook network, could create serious fallout. Pictures that seem fine to someone posting on multiple walls might not pass the vanity test of others in the congregation.

Though not excluded, deep thoughts are rarely shared on Facebook. It tends to be a lively conversation with lots of inside innuendo going on. This could be fun for those in the know. Others could feel left out.

Still, Facebook is here to stay and it is changing the way we think. If churches hope to reach the people in their community, we must adapt our mission strategies for today’s way of thinking.

Maybe Facebook will force the Church to dust off the cathedral rafters!

11 Apr 2012

Stop Blaming Congregations for Failure

Let Social Media Save the Day

We lay people have been taking it on the chin for years.

  • We’ve been ridiculed. We don’t tithe. We don’t evangelize. We aren’t welcoming. We don’t volunteer.
  • We’ve been labeled. If we aren’t strong, we are backward and resistant to change, and dying. If we are strong, insisting on answers, we are adversarial and resistant to authority.
  • We are made to feel inferior and inadequate, unable to find our way in the world without hanging onto the robes of the clergy.

—all because mainline churches are failing.

IT’S NOT OUR FAULT.

  • It’s not our fault that the church is structured to nurture homogenous cultures of yesteryear that  naturally replenish and grow in numbers from generation to generation.
  • It’s not our fault that, in the New World, community demographics shift every decade
  • It’s not our fault that even the least dysfunctional families experience their own diasporas every generation or so.
  • It’s not our fault that fewer people enter the ministry as a life call and see the only road to advancement as moving to suburban settings, making neighborhood ministries less desirable.
  • It’s not our fault that leadership has been just as unprepared for changes in society as we were.
  • It’s not our fault that the Church, despite a strong start in the Reformation, managed to sit out the Renaissance and stayed mired in the Middle Ages for the last 500 years.

Now that we are in a new age yet to be named (the Information Age?, the Digital Age? the Age of Globalization?) we’re all playing catch up.

In the hierarchical past, this meant creating a position headed by a well-paid think tank leader with an alphabet of credentials after his name. It meant funding an office with a staff, providing an adequate budget for developing resources, allowing three to five years for development, and the creation of a network to implement resulting initiatives. Implementation would be easy because all churches would be alike, waiting for answers to their problems to be delivered to them. After all, there would be nowhere else for them to turn.

Today, we are standing at the door of the future. The answers will come by inspiring community. There will be much less need for a centralized office of any sort.

The church of the future will be led by a conductor who stands at the podium, signals the opening downbeat and walks away, allowing the musicians to get their cues from one another, to take off in an imaginative riff, to return to the group to enjoy another artist’s take.

Welcome to the Information Age, the Age of Social Media, the Age of Globalization. It’s all coming together just in time to save the mainline church . . . if the mainline church is paying attention.

There is a lot of rethinking that needs to be done. Lay people might be best equipped to lead the way!

photo credit: DeusXFlorida via photopin cc
02 Apr 2012

Facebook Changes the Rules in Two Days

For churches using Facebook:

As of April 1, all Facebook users will have to conform to new Facebook guidelines.

The biggest change is that the Timeline feature will be incorporated across the board. You must create a banner. Facebook calls it a cover photo. You have two days to do it!

So go into Photoshop or your imaging program and create a file 851 pixels wide and 315 pixels tall.

Add the name of your church at least and think about what else you can do with the banner.

Facebook has new rules about this.

The biggest “don’t” for churches is DON’T include any contact information on the banner. NO website address. NO Address. NO Phone.

Also: You cannot use a Call to Action. That means you cannot say “Visit us,” “Come to” or “Give to.” You can say “We welcome you.”

Just give basic facts: The Who, What, When and Where and Why. Telling How might be considered a Call to Action.

You can include:

  • Mission Statement
  • Service Times
  • Programs or Events
  • Event Times and Places
  • Pastor Names

Your site can be taken down if you do not comply.

Here is the banner we created. Note: We put the programs we emphasize on our site and used the basic words and imagery of our web site. It won’t be hard for anyone to find us in  a search engine. And we are doing this without breaking the Facebook rules.

There are more changes afoot. We’ll cover them later! Get to work on your timeline cover photo!

29 Mar 2012

Using the Internet to Reach the Person Next Door

Anyone with adolescents in the house has witnessed the scene where two or three young people are huddled in the rec room, each with his or her own cellphone or laptop, intently texting or instant messaging each other. Their eyes never meet unless something strikes them as funny and then heads fly back with youthful, exuberant laughter. Hearing that volcanic laughter rise out of silence will take adults by surprise. It is representative of just how engrained social media has become in the lives of more and more people.

Now Social Media is being used in this way by the church.

Pastors can use social media to reach their members and some may enjoy it. Be careful though. Social media such as Facebook are very public and people are still very private on matters of personal faith. A scan of some congregational Facebook pages can reveal all kinds of unsettling personal information.

Nevertheless, Social Media is a tool and according to this article, some pastors are starting to use it. As interesting as this article is, the comments that follow add more dimension, noting that it is not unusual for congregational social media to attract worldwide attention. That realization must be kept in mind at all times!

2×2 uses blogging as the hub of its social media outreach. We “meet” on the blog and correspond by email. We have befriended congregations in Pakistan and Kenya with weekly exchanges of news and mission. We ask permission before publishing anything about our friendship on our web site. We also have regular exchanges with churches across the United States and Australia. Few of them are of our own denomination, but that hasn’t mattered.

We don’t do this on Facebook. It’s too public and freedom of religion hasn’t reached every corner of the world.

It’s still a bit odd. There is a feeling of privacy when there really is none. An innocent exchange could cause trouble.

Worldwide dynamics are going to change the church. Congregations no longer need to wait a year or two to hear a Temple Talk from a sponsored missionary home on furlough. They can follow the work and ministry daily online. This will be a strength of the emerging church. Ironically, it will weaken the structure of the church while it makes the church stronger.

photo credit: Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com via photopin cc

21 Mar 2012

Ideas for Churches to Blog About in April

Here are some ideas to help keep your blog active next month. Start writing now!

April begins with Easter but most of your writing about Easter should have happened in March.

Recap your congregation’s Easter. Include photos or video.

Explore weekly scriptures and themes:

April 15, 2012
Acts 4:32-35  •  Psalm 133  •  1 John 1:1–2:2  •  John 20:19-31

The theme of the second Sunday of Easter is fellowship. The first lesson deals with the distribution of wealth among the early Christians. The Psalm continues the theme: “How very good and pleasant it is when kindred live together in unity!” The apostle John also talks about the importance of fellowship in Jesus. His discourse shifts to a discussion on sin and includes the familiar words of confession used in many liturgies. The Gospel story is the Thomas, the Doubter, story which concludes with one of the first Christian creeds, “My Lord and my God!”

Write about your congregation’s fellowship outreach and how your congregation works together.

April 22, 201
Acts 3:12-19  •  Psalm 4  •  1 John 3:1-7  •  Luke 24:36b-48

The impact of Jesus and the Resurrection is a theme of third Sunday of Easter. Sin is overcome by forgiveness and Jesus’ sacrifice. The Gospel is another story about a visit from the resurrected Christ, one where he proves his return to human form by eating fish with his disciples.

April 27, 2012
Acts 4:5-12  •  Psalm 23  •  1 John 3:16-24  •  John 10:11-18

The theme for the fourth Sunday of Easter is Good Shepherd Sunday. Explore some art and poetry based on the 23rd Psalm. Several well-known hymns parallel the verses of the psalm. Write about the hymn history of these or other Easter season hymns. The sacrifice of the shepherd, founded in love and caring, can be explored. What examples of this type of love can you find in your ministry?

April 4 is the anniversary of the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr.
April 14 is the anniversary of Lincoln’s death. Tie the two together.

April 15 is the tax filing deadline in the United States. Tie the need to fund our government with the need to fund our church.

April is Autism Awareness Month. Explore ministry to families with autism.

April is Poetry Month. Feature some religious poetry. Hymn lyrics count.

April 22 is Earth Day. Write about stewardship of the earth. Tie it to service projects.

Look ahead to Pentecost. Will you have a confirmation or first communion class? Feature the class members.

School activities and celebrations peak toward the end of the month. Are there concerts, plays or picnics your members might like to support?

Does your congregation have graduates to honor?

Many churches/denominations have spring convocations. Include news or explore issues that will be discussed.

Start promoting your Vacation Bible School. Write about the theme or any events. Interview teachers about why they are willing to teach.

Start promoting your Church Camp.

Review the activities of various church committees and groups. Ask them to guest post!

20 Mar 2012

5 Ways Social Media Will Change Your Church’s Life

If your congregation wisely chooses to invest time and passion in social media, be prepared for many things to change. We’re not talking about self-centered Facebook prattle; we’re talking about online interaction that looks outside your parish to the community and, by the nature of the internet, the world.

This may be the hardest thing for the Church to grasp. The internet connects individuals with the world. There is no intermediary. No church council, no pastor, no synod or its equivalent, no bishop, no national church can control congregational interconnectedness.

This means that congregation’s must be more mindful of  things which may have been neglected. While it is easy to reach the world, one mission of the individual Christian community will become more intense—the care and nurturing of individual Christians.

  1. Congregational Education is vital. A congregation must be confident in knowing who they are and what thy believe if they are to engage neighbors or the world in their mission. This has always been a focus of parish life, but educational components of many churches have been dropped in the last few decades. As long as the focus of congregational life was local, it didn’t seem to matter. This needs a remedy. Education must be intertwined with every activity.
  2. Social Awareness must be nurtured. You will begin to hear from Christians from places you never considered as being Christian. Congregations must understand, for instance, the challenges Christians face in Islamic nations, where Christians can be ostracized from their families or jailed. While freedom of religion is taken for granted by many Americans, some religions maintain cultural holds on their people even IN America.
  3. The Church needs to become attuned to the minute causes of community as well as the big picture. We live in an age where anyone can bring a cause to the public’s attention. Yellow ribbons, pink ribbons, donation cans, something-a-thons become very focused. Keeping up with them will be an ongoing mission challenge.
  4. Personal faith must be deepened. Savvy companies teach every employee that they are a representative of their company culture. The Church needs to foster the same sense of ownership among members. Every member reflects on the congregation. Congregations will want their members to be knowledgeable and engaged as representatives of their church.
  5. The biggest change is that many congregations will be able to rebound from survival mode and see themselves as important. Their interconnectedness will give them energy, resources and renewed purpose.
19 Mar 2012

Make Way for the Non-geographic Future Church

We are polishing our crystal ball again. This is what we see . . .

The Church of tomorrow will have only two sociological geographies — the local church and the worldwide church. Intermediary layers will be defined by local congregations as needed — not by hierarchies.

Denominations and regional authorities will become expensive drains on local churches with waning benefits.

They and national church offices — at least as we know them today — will become archaic, outliving their purpose and mission. Once the hub of thought leadership, educational/resource publishing, and social ministry implementation, they are already being phased out by economic realities. Any congregation can form alliances with a multitude of social causes locally, nationally and internationally. Any congregant can publish.

Congregations will become identified by their works which will make them more relevant and help them grow. If they are to survive they will find vitality — quickly!

Congregations will soon realize that the dollars they are sending to regional bodies are better spent in ways they can monitor and become involved with directly. Giving will improve when results are more visible.

This is all the result of the internet.

Every congregation has the same power at its fingertips. Soon churches will realize they will get more help and better advice if they bypass the systems of the past.

Part of this is driven by economics of scale. Business has a saying: “Go big or go home.”

The church will discover this, too.

In the past, each individual judicatory duplicated similar services supported by its own 100-200 congregations. Better services will be supplied by pooling resources of more churches than one regional body can support. Local churches will bypass judicatories and go directly to enterprising thought leaders who no longer need denominational affiliation to gain an ear.

The economic failure of judicatories will return talent now stagnating in management to work in congregations.

The best ideas will be too expensive for regional bodies to implement. They will, for a while, keep trying to do things the same way . . . and fail. Frustration will turn the tide.

Denominational lines will blur as the internet helps ideas cross traditional lines. Congregations will find their own sister congregations . . . and they could be anywhere.

In the past, denominations might have worried that doctrines and traditions would be compromised without layers of oversight. No longer! Everyone has access to the same technology. This will create its own checks and balances.

Turf wars are likely at first. They could be ugly. But the realization that hierarchies are no longer needed will begin to set in.

For a while, middle management judicatories will flex muscles, trying to rein in congregations as their power weakens. There will be casualties that will be an enduring shame…but a new church will emerge.

The local congregation will become more important than ever. It will be the local hands-on expression. They will display renewed vitality as they tap resources beyond the offering plate. They will identify mission and form alliances with like-minded organizations.

We’ve spent decades in interdenominational dialogue to achieve what the internet will achieve in just a few years!

The coming Church is going to be exciting!

photo credit: frompandora via photopin cc
17 Mar 2012

LinkedIn Can Help Church Pros Connect . . . If They Use It

LinkedIn is a powerful networking tool similar to Facebook but with a professional focus.

It packs a powerful punch for anyone wanting to connect with people in a specific sphere of interest. You can use LinkedIn to find professionals who might be willing to help you. Say, for instance, you are looking for someone who has worked in ministry with disabled people or who can preach in Arabic. You can look for people with those specific skills.

Conversely, you might have a skill you feel is underused. You can feature your special interest in your profile.

LinkdIn is an “opt-in” medium. The user chooses to particpate in the online community. Users can look for connections, accept referrals, and ask for introductions.

LinkedIn users can join groups . . . also entirely opt-in. Professionals can only connect by getting someone they already know to introduce them. Even then, the person of interest must accept and initiate any resulting communication.

It’s a fairly safe way to form relationships with peers that can be helpful in your work.

One would think that anyone going to the trouble to complete a LinkedIn profile would be serious about using this amazing networking tool. Most groups are filled with names willing to be found or to help others in their searches.

2×2 found a very odd exception. We looked at a group formed around a Protestant denomination. The group had hundreds of members with very detailed profiles. Most of them had their identities shielded!

What a waste of communication potential!

Again, the Church fails to understand how the tools of today’s world can be used in mission. What are church LinkedIn members afraid of? Why bother joining a professional network and then back away from any ability to take advantage of its potential?

It’s crazy! Back to the cloister!

photo credit: JeremyMP [Catching Up] via photopin cc
15 Mar 2012