Here is a link from Coca Cola’s marketing team. They are telling us exactly how they intend to double their business by 2020. That’s a lot of sugar water!
The techniques and strategies should interest every serious evangelist. Coca Cola has a story to tell and doesn’t mind telling us exactly how they plan to do it. Their marketing people are well paid and experienced story-tellers. Let’s invest our dimes wisely and listen in for free!
Here’s another answer to the question “Why don’t churches blog?”
Church leaders don’t understand the reach and impact of the internet or the new definition of community.
Congregations, by tradition, are geographically bound. For several decades, congregations which had support from people who lived some distance from the church building were criticized. Membership was considered “scattered.” The regional or centralized church didn’t care about this as long as offerings were flowing, but if there were any signs of fiscal trouble, a “scattered” congregation was in trouble with its judicatory.
Geography is no longer as important as it once was. There are definite benefits to physical community, but it is not the sole criterion.
Community is a group of people with common interests. People, today, are discovering people with common interests all over the world. Just because this was not possible from 35 A.D. to 1985 A.D. doesn’t mean it has no value in 2012 A.D.
Recognizing that the Church and its sense of community has changed WILL redefine Church and its structure of support and service.
2×2 is on the frontline exploring this new definition of Church. We are learning every day. Our effort, barely 18 months old, has taken our ministry to places we never imagined.
Our regional office considers us “scattered and diminished” and worthless.
Scattered? Not when they made this claim, but today, maybe. But now it doesn’t matter!
Diminished, not at all. 2×2 (Redeemer) is reaching more people every week than it ever reached on a weekly basis at any time in its history. We can prove it!
Some contacts are fickle accidents. Others are developing into true friendships. That’s really not so different than the neighborhood church that reaches many visitors with only a small percentage actually joining.
We made all of these connections by blogging daily on diverse subjects, analyzing the wealth of online data, and producing content that answered the needs revealed in search engine data.
We did it on a shoestring budget — less than $100 per year. We followed our own members’ interests and talents.
We’ve only just begun. We’re here to help and serve.
Contact us if you need help developing an online ministry.
The headline grabbed the attention of this Yankee.
Adopting the Piggly Wiggly View of Social Media
Piggly Wiggly? Isn’t that the grocery store in the movie, Driving Miss Daisy?
Piggly Wiggly, as a little research reveals, was the first self-service grocery store. Very few people are alive today that remember any other kind!
Back in 1917, an entrepreneur set out to change things. In those days, if you wanted a bag of flour, you walked into the local grocery with your own wicker basket and stepped up to a counter. The clerk fetched a bag of flour from behind the counter. You went down your list with the clerk turning to collect your desired items from the shelf and assembling your order on the counter before filling your basket and accepting your coin.
Clarence Saunders got rid of the counter. He stacked shelves with food and allowed customers to roam around and choose groceries themselves. He put prices on each item and provided a cart with wheels so you could buy more items, more easily. Revolutionary!
He met with resistance. All innovators do!
Stockholders feared customers would rob them blind. Sure, there are shoplifters, but for the most part, we all go to the grocery store today and select our own food.
Learn from this, Church. Get over your fear; trust the people.
Trust is not really very common n the Church. Much of Church tradition grew from distrust.
This is regularly displayed in the presentation of the Eucharist. One common method requires clergy to be the only hand to touch the host, placing the bread in the mouths of parishioners like a parent bird. The custom grew from the Church’s lack of trust in her people. If you allow peasants to touch the host they might not eat it like they are supposed to.
When trust is absent, control steps in. With control comes power. Power is a hungry beast that needs regular attention. Eventually, controls become so harsh that people no longer trust church leaders. Reversing established controls is difficult. Result: no one trusts anyone. Some church!
Social Media relies on trust. The Church has been very slow to embrace Social Media. No surprise! Social Media cannot be controlled top-down and that’s all the Church knows.
Social Media has arrived just in time. People’s trust in Church leaders has been shattered by scandal. The actions of a few can bring the downfall of many.
Religious groups must recognize that faith and involvement in Church is optional.
By the way, the modern grocery story opened many doors. Sellers of products could now get the attention of the consumers without relying on the grocer. Consumers, by roaming around a well-stocked store, became familiar with cooking and cuisine from all over the world.
Think what opening the windows and doors with Social Tools of the Church might do!
Trust is a responsibility. There was a time when dialog in the Church was one way. This was back in the day when authorities made the rules, published the books and held the key to the treasury which was kept full by exerting power.
Today, it is two-way. It is likely that a lot of dialog will happen before the Church actually starts to listen. But people do have a voice and will learn to use it.
If this is not recognized, the leaders in the church will become reactionary, doing whatever they can to hang on to old-fashioned power structure even as the congregations they serve fail.
In dozens of churches near Philadelphia and hundreds or even thousands of churches across the country, hard-working pastors stood before their congregations this morning and delivered sermons to fewer than 50 people.
A conscientious pastor probably worked for days on that sermon. He or she probably spent the same amount of time on his or her sermon as far fewer pastors who delivered sermons to larger congregations.
Preaching is a major investment for every congregation whether they have 50 members or 1000 members—probably half the annual church budget.
Yet churches resist using the tools the modern era provides to preach the gospel to every corner of the world.
2×2, the web site that grew from Redeemer Lutheran Church’s exclusion from the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, began with little experience with the internet. We had only a static web site which we rarely updated — just like the vast majority of churches who are concentrating on paying a pastor.
2x2virtualchurch.com became our new site.
2×2 studied the medium and followed recommended practices. We had no money to invest in outside help, so we learned how to do this ourselves.
Perhaps we were the perfect candidates for this evangelism frontier. We discovered that a small church can swim with the big fish!
Here is a mid-year report from the congregation SEPA Synod claims doesn’t exist (because they say so).
Every DAY 106 followers read our messages with our posts delivered to their email addresses. Huge potential for growth here!
Every WEEK an additional 250 or more come to our web site for information.
Every MONTH more than 1000 new readers find our site.
We’ve had 7000 visits this YEAR (in addition to our daily readers) and are on track to double that by the end of the year.
(Editorial update-Jan 16, 2013): All of these numbers have doubled since this was published five months ago!)
2×2 started strong in the Middle Atlantic states and California. In recent months our readership in Southern states is spiking. We’ve had readers in every state and regular readers in a dozen countries. Six congregations write to us weekly and share their ministry challenges and successes.
Topics which draw readers to 2×2 are (in order of popularity)
Object Lessons for Adults
Social Media
Small Congregation Ministry
Broader Church Issues
Vacation Bible School
We’ve learned that it is impossible to predict the popularity of a post. We had a Whoville theme party last January and the post about that still attracts search engine traffic several times each week. A post about a visit to a small church in a Philadelphia suburb and its pastor’s “brown bag” sermons for adults began attracting new readers daily, which led us to develop object lesson sermons.
Several seminaries have sent students to 2×2 for discussion topics.
2×2 has established both a mission voice and reach that rivals or surpasses mid-sized churches. We’ve done it on a shoestring budget. Another year to 18 months will no doubt add to our reach.
We will continue our experiment in modern evangelism.
How many people heard the sermon your church paid for this morning?
The fourth, final, and greatest obstacle for congregations and the Church in implementing Social Media into ministry is Lack of Leadership.
This may sound odd, but true leadership in the Church is a rare commodity. Church structure is self-perpetuating. There are varying systems for identifying leaders, but generally leaders are chosen by the status quo for the purpose of maintaining the status quo.
The Church is stuck in a feudal model of leadership that has long-outlived its purpose.
A reading of Scripture reveals that God, quite regularly, challenged status quo leadership. God chose game-changing leaders from the most unlikely places.
Noah, the nut who built the ark.
Joseph, the boy sold into slavery by his jealous brothers.
David, the shepherd boy.
The list of leaders who defied hierarchical succession is quite long. But such challenges are rare today.
Church leaders, whether at the national, regional or congregational level, like to feel that leadership is their domain. Lay leaders are validated by them. And while their stated goals may be to build God’s kingdom, the focus is on making sure the system continues to support life as they know and enjoy it.
Social Media turns this thinking upside down.
Leadership in Social Media is going to come from lower rungs in the hierarchical ladder. Those perched near the top will not buy in until they see a benefit. They won’t see a benefit until it somehow makes their lives easier or more secure.
It is still worth doing.
Expect skirmishes with the hierarchy. The pope recently chided American nuns for not towing the line. It backfired. The nun’s responses were quick, well-reasoned, public, unapologetic and revealed that the Church does not understand today’s world.
In the corporate world success is measured with bottom line results. Their epiphany took only a few years before virtually all of corporate America cut back traditional marketing in favor of Social Media.
The corporate Church is going to be a tougher nut to crack. Failure is tolerated much longer in the Church.
Leadership in Social Media in the Church is going to come from the lay sector.
Lay people will bring their knowledge from the corporate and social worlds that are part of their experience.
We wish we could give you step by step advice, but 2×2 has been working at this for almost two years, reporting our results regularly. Our regional body dismisses our web site as existing to solicit money. There are no solicitations for money on 2×2, nor is there a mechanism for collecting money. We very recently joined a couple of affiliate marketing programs for the experience, so we could advise more than profit. Full disclosure. We have made $50.
Here is our sad but heartfelt advice for overcoming the lack of leadership.
Don’t go into Social Media expecting help from Church Leaders.
Tap your lay leadership. Support them.
Make your Social Media work a team effort, inviting clergy to participate.
Use the statistics to guide you and build support among your people.
Eventually, professional leaders will take notice and you will have done a great service. Be prepared. If you are successful, clergy will line up to take credit.
The Church often has a hard time looking outside its monastic walls for advice. In this case it may be necessary. There are models to follow; they may not be created by Church organizations.
A wonderful thing about Social Media is that it forces you to work a plan. We have published a basic plan to follow in crafting a Social Media Strategy. We adapted it from information shared in forums held for corporations. If you don’t want to work a plan, you can keep holding monthly meetings— trying one disconnected and ineffective idea after another. This can certainly keep you busy!
Here are a few models worth reviewing. There is something to be learned from each. Churches can mix and match to suit their demographic and particular needs. Most of these are examples of blogs, which is where we think congregations should start their Social Media exploration.
Pastoral Leadership in Blogging
Expect resistance until the power of the blog is understood. Pastors will be tempted to republish their Sunday sermon—which no one is likely to read. Pastors should consider a new art form in preaching—short, concise thoughts with an appealing twist that readers will come to anticipate. Aim for 200 words. The model to study: Marketing Guru Seth Godin. His daily blog offers an insight on many topics. Every so often he points readers to a longer document or even a book. He looks at things people in his field see every day and instead of just reporting them, he analyzes them, making his readers question the accepted.
Did we say this was new? It is actually a big part of the New Testament! We call them parables.
Community Building in Blogging
Jason Stambaugh of heartyourchurch.com teaches how to use Facebook to create community in the church. He uses examples from his own Facebook work in his small Maryland community church.
Teaching Through Blogging
Here is untapped potential for leadership training in the church. The model to follow is Michael Stelzner’s socialmediaexaminer.com. In just a couple of years, Mike built a business around teaching social media and is respected worldwide. His model taps into internet scalability. You can join his clubs and get advice from thousands of people.
Thought Leadership Through Blogging
2×2 attempts to engage readers in analyzing the mission of the Church to find ways to serve that complement traditional church ways but not to the exclusion of innovation. There are enough people who do little but complain that things are failing in the Church. We try to find the reasons why things are going wrong. This is hard for the Church, since tradition is important and leaders rarely like to be seen as mavericks. Questions are not likely to be raised by church-sponsored employees or media. We try to do the job they can’t—or won’t.
Inspiration Through Blogging
One of 2×2’s member churches publishes a Bible verse daily. Nothing more. Just a Bible verse in their followers inbox each day. Seems so simple. It is often very comforting to start the day with a Bible quote. These can be scheduled to go out automatically, so it isn’t as hard as it might sound. Just pick out a month’s worth of favorite quotes and schedule them using a service such as HootSuite. You can always add an insight or prayer as in devotional books.
Networking Through Blogging
Blogging excels at building networks. If you start a blogging ministry, you are likely to be surprised by the people who find you and follow you. It takes a some time but soon your congregation will have friends all over the world. 2×2 is a model for this, too.
Church Ministry Help Through Blogging
Pastors can turn to workingpreacher.org, published by Luther Seminary, to kickstart their thinking of the weekly scriptures. There is no reason why this concept can’t work for congregations and lay people too. Pastors can turn to sermons4kids for ideas for children’s sermons. Both lay and professional church workers can be part of a community serving children’s ministry. We didn’t set out to make this our specialty, but we noticed in our statistics that the number one search term which brings people to our site is “object lessons for adults.” We have responded by posting an object lesson once every week or two.
Be A Pioneer
Create your own model and share it. That’s the power of the internet!
You’ve heard the stories of the worst in Social Media.
Teenage girls lured by older men.
Bank accounts raided.
Private moments broadcast to the world by someone with a grudge.
The potential for greatness outranks the use by the criminal element.
Personal stories of inspiration abound.
Information is available to anyone, anywhere, anytime.
Dictatorships have toppled.
Long-lost friends and family members have been reunited.
The gap between classes is blurred.
Most of what is wrong with the internet was happening before there was the internet. Meanwhile the potential and effect of good has grown beyond the exponential.
Social Media is a tool. It is can be used for good. It can be used for evil. One thing is certain. It is going to be used. Better to be in the game than watching from the sidelines.
What do people in the Church fear?
We fear that someone will criticize us.
What else is new!?
We may fear that we may not meet expectations or do something wrong. Everyone makes mistakes. The online community is actually pretty good about tolerating typos and grammatical errors. We learn very quickly how easy it is to hit the send button by accident. The online community tends to be gracious about correcting one another, too. So, if a mistake is made, you can take it back.
The Church may fear that our weaknesses will be exposed. This may very well happen, but there is a good side to this. We can address concerns early and directly. This has improved the business environment. Corporate leaders know they no longer operate behind closed doors. If it has been good for corporate America, it will likely be good for the corporate Church, as well.
We may fear the exposure of our most personal concerns. This is something the world is coming to grips with. Any notion of privacy in the world is pretty well shot. Worrying about this is yearning for the past. Better to learn to be prepared to react to criticism. (This will be a new skill for many church leaders.)
We may fear not being able to predict the outcome. Well, we can predict the outcome of most of our usual evangelical efforts — and it is pretty dismal! Serendipity is a delightful part of the internet. Where’s the old pioneer spirit?!
Using Social Media is like learning to swim. You have to get wet. You have to lean forward and let yourself fall to take your first dive. You have to swallow a little bit of water. You’ll splash some of the people around you and get splashed by others, but if our hearts are in the right place, we’ll all be good-natured about helping one another keep our heads above water. Don’t be afraid to be part of the wonderful digital world God has blessed us with in the 21st century. You’ll have plenty of company!
Did you notice in yesterday’s post how the four obstacles to integrating social media into ministry are interrelated?
Lack of knowledge leads to Fear. Fear leads to hesitance to experiment and the Absence of a Model to Follow. The Absence of a Model results in a void that might be filled by Leadership. Leadership is preoccupied following more acceptable, time-honored ministry techniques that have far less potential.
How does the Church enter the same world we share with members and people we hope to reach?
How do we train Church leaders in Social Media?
First, we talk. Talking opens the door to acceptability.
Second, we let lay people lead the way. Lay people are “all over” this new media. They have to be. Business, including nonprofits, are embracing it. Five years ago, marketers were dipping toes in the water. Today marketing budgets have shifted away from conventional advertising. It is being received with enthusiasm from both the corporate and consumer side. Both are empowered. Both see benefits. All can be engaged.
Corporate users see benefits in reaching more people. They see customers coming to them already informed resulting in a shorter sales cycle. They feel closer to their clients resulting in better services and responsive innovation.
Those on the receiving end feel like they are no longer “being sold.” They are part of the sales process. They can reach the top CEO with a 140-character tweet and get responses when they are really fired up. They are engaged in the companies they patronize and become “evangelists” as they share their experiences.
Creating evangelists—isn’t that what Church is about?
So how does the Church create modern internet evangelists? Somebody has to start experimenting, measuring results and developing best practices. 2×2 has been doing this for about 18 months with fascinating results worldwide. Our work is a snowflake on the tip of the iceberg of the medium’s potential, but we’ve started and many larger churches with greater resources haven’t bothered.
Last week, 303 new unique readers read our web site. Another 100 received our posts in their inbox every day. That’s more than 1000 reads.
How many people heard the sermon preached in your sanctuary yesterday?
2×2 has a few suggestions.
Seminaries MUST teach Social Media.
Congregations MUST create a Social Media presence. There is much helpful information on this web site for exactly how to do this. Starter advice:
Don’t wait for the pastor to do it and don’t wait for the regional or national church to create a program to help you get started. Pastors, unfamiliar with the territory, are not likely to take the risk. The field changes too quickly for church hierarchy to keep up with it themselves much less teach others.
Start with blogging as opposed to Facebook, etc. Blogging is more thoughtful and focused and helps you create the discipline to keep your efforts in line with your objectives — telling the Good News. You can set the pacing and community rules. People will feel safer. Other outlets have their value, but could derail your efforts if you are not prepared to monitor and engage frequently.
A recent study of social media reveals that there are four main barriers to the implementation of Social Media in organizations.
They are:
Lack of knowledge and understanding
Fear
Absence of a model to follow
Unprepared leadership
The Church as an organization should study these barriers if we are to overcome them.
Each fear can be overcome. We will address each fear broadly now and later in more depth.
Lack of knowledge and understanding
The Church is no different that any other organized entity. We are facing a new world with enormous potential. We are all novices at how this new media works and we are uncertain as to how it will affect us and our mission. Scary!
Fear
There is always the fear of abuse. This is nothing new. Religion has had abusers in the past and the Church has moved forward regardless. Social Media may actually overcome some of this. It is entirely open platform. Participants lay their hearts on the line and others — anyone — can respond.
The biggest fear is not about abuse but in facing the changes that are necessary to implement Social Media. Are we prepared for the changes that are likely to happen? How do we proceed?
Absence of a model to follow
There are models to follow, but they are not necessarily in the religious realm. Until the Church adopts Social Media as a viable tool, it must follow the models of the secular world. (We might learn something in the process.) There is no way around the fact: someone has to create the first model.
Leadership
Church leaders are busy being church leaders the way they were trained to be church leaders—anywhere from one to sixty years ago. This new tool is outside the experience and comfort level of many.
The Church must recognize that leadership in Social Media may come from the bottom up. Lay people are likely to have mastered these skills while clergy were studying Greek! Both are valuable! It doesn’t do much good to understand the Gospel and then ignore the tools that will help you share your understanding.
The Christian Church has recently focused on the Gospel account of Jesus sending his disciples into the world 2×2.
Jesus’ concept of mission was built on exponential growth. If two people are each successful in reaching two people — for a total of four — and they in turn form teams of two reaching four more— that’s exponential growth. The effort and cost must be repeated again and again. The church will grow with hard work and dedication.
This was remarkably effective. Within a few hundred years, the Gospel spread to the farthest borders of the known world.
Scalability is a bit different. It is a term that centers on the power of technology. How can teams of two reach a thousand or more people using the same effort it takes them to reach four?
The answer is incalculable—and entirely possible. The tools are in our hands to make mission work scalable beyond the wildest dreams of the early Christian apostles. The same work required to reach or teach 100 people can also reach or teach a million for basically the same outlay of resources.
So why aren’t we doing it?
Roadblocks to Scalability
Sadly, the church is not set up to take advantage of scalability.
Try this, for example. Take an idea to a religious institution. They will have a great deal of difficulty thinking beyond their own constituency. “But don’t you see,” you might argue, “you have the power to reach beyond your congregation, beyond your geographic territory, beyond your denomination.”
They will respond with confusion. “But it’s our job to serve our constituency. We work for [name the regional entity.]”
They will try to be helpful. Scratching their heads, they will suggest, “Take your idea to [another territorial constituency that might be a bit bigger]. Maybe they can help you.”
Any denomination can reach congregations and clergy of all denominations all over the world with truly helpful information—all for the same effort that they might put into a local symposium or workshop which they would charge 50 people $25 each to attend. They won’t, though, because tradition outweighs potential.
Oddly, the efforts to take advantage of the power of the internet are not coming from the higher echelons of the Church. Many regional web sites are of poor quality and virtually all are self-focused. Some of the flashiest regional web sites focus on only their own work—not the work of their members. They are ignoring the potential to strengthen community. They are also ignoring the potential to reach the unchurched — which is their mission.
Church leadership is accustomed to publishing and teaching coming from top down. There was a time when this was necessary. Not everyone owned a printing press and distribution system. There grew to be a comfort in the control which was part of this outdated system. Because control was once possible in publishing they mistakenly believe that it is necessary. It is not only unnecessary in today’s world; it is impossible.
The system of the past is clumsy and archaic, but the Church’s entire structure is built around it.
Smaller entities—individual institutions, small congregations and even individual church members are making stronger headway.
Examples
One example, www.workingpreacher.org, a project of Luther Seminary, features guest theologians from many backgrounds, analyzing the weekly lectionary. Directed towards pastors, anyone can study the week’s scripture guided by the insights of a seminary professor.
Another: ministry-to-children.com is a web site started by Tony Kummer, a youth/family pastor. It is a lively, interdenominational exchange of ministry ideas and resources that has a large community participating and helping one another. A small church in Africa asked for 2×2’s help in finding affordable educational resources. We directed them to this web site and they were delighted!
Jason Stambaugh writes a blog, www.heartyourchurch.com. He is an individual layperson who works in social media and is a member of a small congregation. He writes about social media in the church and other church issues.
A college student in Texas, Virginia Smith, has used the internet to help small congregations access used Vacation Bible School resources. She’s just one young person passionately engaged in mission, armed with the web. (www.vbs247.webs.com/) Virginia has been very helpful to 2×2 in networking.
And then there is this site, 2×2, the project of Redeemer Lutheran Church, East Falls, Philadelphia, a church the Lutheran denomination (ELCA) determined was too small to fulfill its mission (the old-fashioned way). Three years after locking our members out of our church building, 2×2 is reaching more than a thousand readers a month with a significant local readership with global reach. (And we are just beginning.) We offer ideas for small church ministry and attempt to prompt dialog on small church issues.
Scalable projects are our passion—not to make vast amounts of money, as is often the aim of online enterprise, but to build an new infrastructure that will provide hope and help for neighborhood ministries that we believe are the strength of the Christian Church. We believe there is fiscal potential that would provide the hands-on resources to neighborhood churches that can’t afford them the old-fashioned way. (And this is a large number of churches!)
Meanwhile, denominations concentrate on building Christian communities of a certain number so that they can afford a pastor/building and support their regional and national denomination.
This is not scalable. And it is failing. But it’s still how the Church measures success!
Join Bishop Ruby Kinisa as she visits small churches "under cover" to learn what people would never share if they knew they were talking to their bishop.
Undercover Bishop will always be available in PDF form on 2x2virtualchurch.com for FREE.
Print or Kindle copies are available on Amazon.com.
For bulk copies, please contact 2x2: creation@dca.net.
Contact Info
You can reach
Judy Gotwald,
the moderator of 2x2,
at
creation@dca.net
or 215 605 8774
Redeemer’s Prayer
We were all once strangers, the weakest, the outcasts, until someone came to our defense, included us, empowered us, reconciled us (1 Cor. 2; Eph. 2).
2×2 Sections
Where in the World is 2×2?
On Isaiah 30:15b
Be calm. Wait. Wait. Commit your cause to God. He will make it succeed. Look for Him a little at a time. Wait. Wait. But since this waiting seems long to the flesh and appears like death, the flesh always wavers. But keep faith. Patience will overcome wickedness.
—Martin Luther
