Does social media have a place in the church?
When you hear the word ‘church’, what is the first thing that comes to your mind? If you are like me, then you may think of your church building or some mega-church that stands out in your mind. If this was the case, and the church was just a building, there would be no place for social media as part of the church.
Thankfully, the true meaning of ‘church’ is the body of Christ and its goal should always be to reach the lost and care for those less fortunate. When the average American spends 23% of online time on social networks, a vital part of the church outreach should be interacting with the community through social media. What does a church interacting through social media look like?
- Use social media to promote your church – By promote your church, I don’t mean post about how much better your church is than the one down the road. Promote your church by letting the community get involved through mission works, youth events, or sharing snippets of sermon podcasts.
- Grow new relationships – If a first time visitor comes to your church, do you reach out to them and try to build a relationship? Treat your church’s social media the same way! Reach out to new fans or followers, invite them to visit, or perhaps just ask if you can pray for them.
- Share the Gospel – At the end of the day the church should be fulfilling the Great Commission. If you believe God is truly in control of everything, then why not have faith that He can use social media to bring people to Him? While social media can be used as a starting point, I do want to emphasize that I believe it is important to become a member of a local church where you can grow your faith.
- Find new community needs – Remember that your church can use social media to proactively-not just reactively. Ask your fans or followers for prayer requests and other needs within the community. By reaching out to your fans you will not only find new needs, but will also be able to show the love of Christ through the church.
Conclusion: If your church is part of the 40% of churches that don’t use any social media, I encourage you to start today! Not only can social media help to grow your church body, but it can help grow the body of Christ. Be personal when posting, grow new relationships, and be an integral part of your community on a daily basis, not just on Sunday!
This is a guest post from Michael Cornett, the founder of Church Website Design.Co, a Christian web design company that helps churches share the Gospel through websites and free social media training. Michael can be reached at support@churchwebsitedesign.co or on Twitter @website4church
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And He gave some as E-postles, E-prophets,
E-vangelists, E-pastors, and E-teachers
for the E-quipping of the saints for the work of
service,to the building up of the body of Christ.
~
Ephesians 4:11, 12
E-Ministry to an E-generation?
~
“If Facebook were a physical nation, it would now be the third-most populous on earth.”[1] If we included all other social platforms in addition to facebook, the E-nation of the E-lectronic social realm, might in fact, be the largest nation on earth. The way we E-xecute the Great Commission may necessitate a closer E-xamination. We should not so easily dismiss the idea that Jesus would also want us to Make E-sciples.
Certainly, there can never be a complete disconnect from brick & mortar ministry, the one to one personal E-xtending of our hands in fellowship, but the E-world is a reality. How we minister to one another and those outside of the church, must include E-vangleism.
If we are all gifted, and all have individual predominant ministry characteristics, then for those of us who are active on the internet, socially speaking, doesn’t it make sense to carry that ministry into our E-spheres of influence?
Doesn’t the vast opportunity of ministry to those E-thnicities and cultures demand our attention? I am not suggesting that our E-ministries replace serving others or incarnating ourselves and being a physical Christ presence within a community, but that doesn’t mean completely ignoring the Mission E-field either.
For me, as a Missionary in the Cloud Forest Region of Ecuador, we have an abundance of face-time with the people of the region. Our “real-word” activities include, but are not limited to: weeping with those who weep, providing clean drinking water to those without, being witnesses to Jesus, encouraging and equipping the saints, and making disciples. Also, and quite naturally, as an adjunct to those activities, our social network (on-line community) has grown significantly. While some may have issue with spending time on the internet while I’m “supposed to be” out doing “real” things with “real people,” I can assure you that the latter would be impossible without the former. My E-xperiences out in the real world feed my somewhat E-ccentric online ministry. This could, and sometimes does, get out of balance, but thankfully I have E-xhorters to keep me on track.
Ephesians 4:11 is certainly multi-purpose in scope, but it’s principle components are service to others, equipping the saints, and the unity of the church. Certainly these components are not relegated to the physical world. They must, in our culture, be applied to our E-lives as well.
If you our gifted for ministry in E-vangelism, then you should be heralding the good news online as well. And if you do have the gift of E-vangelism, then, like in “real-life,” you should be helping others by E-quipping them and E-ncouraging them in their E-lives to E-vangelize others.
Likewise if your predominate Ephesians 4 gifting or characteristic is in the Prophetic, Teaching, Pastoral, or Apostolic, then those gifts should quite naturally E-xtend into your E-world where you can E-ncourage and E-quip them for the service of E-ministry.
Where formerly Nations or Countries were considered “closed” to ministering in Jesus’ name, they are wide open via Social Media. That’s changing. Don’t burry your social talents! The original article where I wrote this can be found here:
http://www.pathwaysinternational.org/2012/03/e-phesians-411-e-ministry-for-e-quipping-the-church-through-social-media/
Excellent article. I completely agree that your church is not connecting with others to it’s fullest potential without social media. Author Jason Caston, who has helped ministries like T.D. Jakes and Fred Price, writes about this in his book, The iChurch Method: How to Advance Your Ministry Online. The author provides an easy and effective way for ministries to establish a global presence online, which is vital in today’s social world. You can find his website here: http://www.theichurchmethod.com/