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.