Digital Evangelism Issues

Internet Evangelism Day is set for 29 April, as the culmination of Digital Outreach Month.

IE Day is both an annual focus day and year-round resource guide for digital outreach. It has always been our suggestion that churches build a digital evangelism focus into their events or service sheets on (or near) that day. In previous years, although this could be an eye-opening challenge, actual involvement in digital evangelism or ministry was not something that many church members were likely to take up. The options were somewhat limited, time-consuming, and needed technical or writing gifts.

No longer! Social networking enables any online Christian to naturally share resources that explain some aspect of the good news, and start conversations with those they are already linked with. So at last, an IE Day presentation can suggest practical ideas and opportunities that most church members can use right now. There is a hugely significant three-fold intertwined cord of social networking, video shorts and mobile phones.

However, we must understand the nature of social networking to use it effectively. If we think of it as one-way publicity, we are will be ineffective and irritating. Social networking is people and two-way relationships. Think ‘cafe’, not ‘pulpit’.

14 digital ideas to share with your church on IE Day

1. Announce or publish a short item about IE Day in newsletters/service sheets.
2. Download and project a short testimony demonstrating the effectiveness of the Web for outreach, eg. Kimberley’s Story | more videos.
3. Download and project a video about social networking evangelism on Facebook, and consider also this dramatic overview of the current state of social networking.
4. Demonstrate live on screen how to post video clips from eg. YesHEIs.com | GlobalShortFilmNetwork.com | Focus.org.uk directly into a Facebook page.
5. Showcase live the new Talking About Jesus iPhone app (you can plug an audio jack into the phone for a clear audio feed) and discuss/demonstrate other ways that mobile phones can be used to share the good news.
6. Start a discussion on whether your church could appoint a Digital Advocate to resource the fellowship, if you do not already have someone fulfilling this role.
7. Recognize and honor any in your fellowship who are already involved in some area of digital ministry, including the church website, and ask them to share their stories. Pray for them publicly.
8. Project a live online demonstration of using a Pinterest account and add content to it including appropriate evangelistic/conversation-starting material.
9. Encourage small home-groups to discuss and investigate various digital evangelism opportunities.
10. Suggest to the youth group the possibility of creating some evangelistic YouTube shorts.
11. Tell your church about IE Day’s free ebooks and key book recommendations.
12. If you only have time for a 5-10 minute spot using one or two of the above suggestions, consider regular brief spots on different days. Or even create an entire service or meeting around digital evangelism, and integrate some music and a short drama.
13. Encourage the leadership team to consider digital outreach initiatives that might be implemented this year, such as using social media to connect the fellowship with the community, and testing the outsider-friendliness of the church website.
14. If you have never done this, consider explaining the crucial issue of how members can stay safe and accountable online, and also highlight protection software for children. And why not create a few ongoing classes on how to use some of these 14 options, or even some basic web training for online newcomers?

March 13 sees the publication of a very significant book, available in paperback and Kindle:

Viral: How Social Networking Is Poised to Ignite Revival
Len Sweet
Waterbrook Press
229 pages paperback
ISBN 978-0-307-45915-2

What’s it about?

About 10-15 years ago, you and I were relocated from our comfortable familiar home to a new land. Not necessarily unwillingly, like the Jewish exiles taken to Babylon. Not necessarily a worse new homeland. Some of us ran ahead. But others left trails of a resistant struggle. A few may have barely noticed they’ve been moved at all.

It was … the huge move from print communication culture to digital. Len Sweet styles those of us who grew up in a print culture as ‘Gutenbergers’, and those who grew up in, or have whole-heartedly adopted digital, as ‘Googlers’. It’s an apt and helpful simplification for a social revolution as far-reaching as Gutenberg’s invention of the printing press.

His book is probably the best and most insightful explanation of these two communication cultures, the tension between them, and the huge implications for Christians, the church and especially the retelling of the good news. We just cannot continue doing the stuff we used to do, because it won’t work any more. So this book really is mission critical.

And – there’s a clue in the title – he believes that online relationships and social networking can share the good news powerfully in ways there were never possible before. It is likely to be the most significant book on digital ministry to be published all year.

For this reason, it is the chosen book recommendation for Digital Outreach Month.

You can preview 22 pages of the book below, using the arrows at the bottom right of the frame below:

Latest incarnation of Erik Qualman’s Socialnomics ‘state of social media’ video. (Follow his blog at Socialnomics.net.) It’s also available to download so you can show it in meetings or seminars to explain just how far digital communication extends.

Social networking means ‘people’ and ‘relational’. The potential to share good news worldwide is immense and growing. At the same time, we must not fall in love with the medium. It’s all about people!

• Free PDF ebook: The social media Handbook for churches.

• Many mobile subscribers across Africa and Asia now get free (or very cheap) access to Facebook and Wikipedia)
  .

• Check these examples of reconciliation mediated by Facebook. And see our other social networking posts.

One of the most significant digital evangelism initiatives of 2011 was the release of YesHEIs.com. The team recently released this Our Chance video to highlight social media opportunities that YesHEIs gives. You can easily download this video to show in church meetings or seminars.

See more on using Facebook and other blog posts about social networking.

Where to find video clips to share

As well as YesHEIs.com you can find sharable conversation-starting video clips at God: New Evidence, Global Short Film Network, and Damaris Culturewatch.

These videos can be shared with one click onto Facebook and other networking accounts, into Pinterest, or embedded in blogs and websites, or Tweeted. They can often be easily downloaded onto a smartphone to share face-to-face.

It’s a name getting increasing recognition across the Web. No, it is not a fan page for the late British playwright Harold Pinter.

Pinterest is the latest expression of social networking and sharing [introduction] and has been described as a visual bookmarking site. After its ‘closed beta’ launch in March 2010 it became one of the top 10 social networks by the end of the year. It is now claimed to be fifth largest source of referral traffic on the Web, even though it is still in ‘open beta’ phase. Although currently you must request an invite to join, confirmation comes through within hours. Pinterest has gained critical mass and in a way that no other previous bookmarking system (such as Del.ici.us, Tumblr, Stumbledupon) ever did. It seems to be much more than just a fad, and is ticking all the right boxes. For a slide presentation and short video explaining Pinterest, scroll down to end.

It defines itself as a ‘pinboard’ – somewhere to post and share images or resources you find interesting. Think of it as a cross between the original Del.icio.us online bookmarking concept, Twitter and Facebook, with Stumbledupon, Flickr, Paper.li and Blogger thrown in. Unlike Twitter and Facebook, where your postings are ephemeral and have an effective ‘half-life’ of visibility measured in 1-3 hours, Pinterest posts remain permanently visible on your personal pinboard.

You may have heard that it is only a way of sharing images, and indeed it is very image-led. But because you can link the image back to its original site, and also write your own comments, you are effectively creating a personal directory of categorized websites recommendations. (See tips about this lower down.)

How it works

You can…

• post any photo, graphic or video within existing categories provided by Pinterest, or (far better) create your own more-specific custom categories.
• install a one-click ‘bookmarklet’ onto Firefox’s toolbar for easy posting of what they call new ‘pins’.
• when using this bookmarklet, or Pinterest’s Add + link, you can choose any graphic from the webpage being ‘pinned’ (as you can with Facebook). However, it will not add a ready-made text description. You provide this yourself. So posting to Pinterest is much more intentional and curated than the frequent random posts we make on Facebook or Twitter. It is not a place to share ongoing personal news, like Facebook.
• click on ‘Pin it’ buttons that we are beginning to see alongside other one-click social-networking share links on websites and blogs. Using these, you do get a pre-chosen graphic and description (which you can edit), though you’ll still need to choose a ‘board’ ie. topic area.
• install ‘Pin it’ buttons on your own website or blog (example in footer of this blog post) using the code available on the Pinterest site. Currently, if you put their button coding into a site-wide include, it can only carry the generic site info with homepage graphic and URL, rather than page-specific details, as Facebook and Twitter one-click share links do. However, it would be an easy Javascript fix to make the code draw down an individual page URL and grab the title tag wording as a description, and this flexibility will surely come available soon, if only as third-party coding solutions. (I can’t currently find one online – do you know of one?)
• invite people to follow your Pinterest page by adding a ‘follow’ button to your website or blog.
• follow other Pinterest uses (‘pinners’) or if you choose, follow individual boards within their site. So if someone is active on Pinterest and is adding resources to, say, 10 subject areas, but only one of these interests you, you can follow that one alone.
• add your comments to anyone’s ‘pin’ (similar to commenting in Facebook).
• ‘repin’ someone else’s pin onto your own board, in the same way as you ‘share’ a Facebook posting across to your own FB Wall.
• Pinterest integrates with Facebook, Twitter and email, so you, or visitors to your pinboards, can share a pin with one click, or also use ready-made HTML to embed the pin into their own blogs. Your Pinterest activity can also be displayed on your Facebook page in a display box, or automatically tweeted.
• Pinterest lays out the ‘pins’ on your page in a 4-column layout (or one column in smartphones) with their graphics in full size (not small thumbnails), with your description below them. (This strong visual/graphic emphasis is a core value for Pinterest, as it was conceived primarily as a means to share images.) Your most recent pins are at the top of the page, so when a board get too big, it may be advisable to split boards into two or more related sections. (It is easy to ‘repin’ (move) a pin to a new board.) However, there is currently no way to ‘nest’ subsection areas within a single board topic. (When you have a number of boards, they are shrunk in size on your homepage, with thumbnail size graphics.) I suspect that as users build up larger numbers of pins and create many different boards, there will be demand for an interface that accommodates this.
• Final important issue: although you can include an URL to make a graphic clickable to reach the related webpage, it is not very obvious to users that this is the case. Although the domain of your link is displayed in gray beneath description, it is not totally clear that this is a full direct URL linking to that webpage rather than the overall site. Furthermore, if you click on that pin to find more, or comment, the visible link is not then displayed.

  So in your descriptive text below the graphic, include words such as ‘please click picture to read more’. (It is not possible to embed HTML links into the descriptive text, or into the comments section about a pin.)

  Don’t however write this if the illustrative graphic from a pinned webpage is a YouTube video, because clicking on a video always takes you to YouTube itself.

Sharing the good news appropriately

There are a growing number of online guides to using Pinterest, and some specifically relate to using it for marketing:

• Hubspot’s Marketing with Pinterest.
• WebProNews’ Marketing Your Business with Pinterest and How to Use Pinterest.
• CopyBlogger’s 56 Ways to Market Your Business on Pinterest is an essential and clear guide.
• Social Media Examiner’s 26 Tips for Using Pinterest for Business – more useful tips for anyone, not just business users.

While appropriate relational evangelism is not exactly the same as secular marketing, their practical tips are hugely helpful and apply to any Pinterest user.

Pinterest etiquette demands that most of your pins are not self-promotion for your own website (this is true of Twitter too). Your page will only have credibility if it contains a wide variety of carefully-chosen third-party pages. You will also gain respect by demonstrating that you are following a number of other ‘pinners’ and functioning as part of a community.

Pinterest is an ideal platform to create a page of community resources for your town or area.

Churches can use Pinterest: see articles by Center for Church Communication
and Social Media in the Church though see Angela’s comments on church strategy. I’d strongly urge a church Pinterest page to include many mainly-secular boards relating to the local town/area/community, sports and hobbies, family, health etc. But not, please not, contentious social and political issues.

Here are 10 examples of non-profits and other business/charity examples using Pinterest.

As an individual, you can set up a Pinterest page and share your faith appropriately. Here’s how it might look:

• Choose a number of ‘boards’ from Pinterest’s ready-made secular-interest topics, or preferably create others of specific interest to you. (Your own chosen topic areas should be also linked with Pinterest’s own default topics. They do not currently have one for ‘faith’.)
• Consider a non-confrontational title for any specifically Christian-content boards, eg. ‘faith’.
• In your secular-topic boards, post the best secular web resources, including videos, that you can find. Your board should be genuinely valuable to readers, and demonstrate your enthusiasm for the topic.

• However, there may also be Bridge Strategy Christian pages available on secular topics. These could be videos clips, blog posts, or pages from, for example, Power to Change. The availability of topics for which there are good ‘bridge’ pages could influence your naming of ‘boards’, by covering ‘felt need’ and life issues, or hobbies/sport.
• Like Facebook, you can post YouTube video clips. This gives you the opportunity to choose conversation-starting video clips from YesHEIs.com, GlobalShortFilmNetwork and God: New Evidence, Damaris Culturewatch and elsewhere, including outsider-friendly life-stories. As explained above, there can be no clickthrough link for a video, except to its own YouTube page.
• As with Facebook, people can comment on your pins, so there is the opportunity for you to enter into sensitive non-preachy dialogue.
• Often raise questions rather than posting answers.

Tell your story

Are you a Pinterest ‘pinner’? Please share your story with us using the Comments section below. And are there good Pinterest guides or other resources that you recommend?

Pinterest is a major new opportunity to share faith appropriately. It’s also very easy to use. If you’ve struggled, for instance, to install apps on Facebook, or even work out byzantine levels of FB privacy, you’ll love the intuitive and simple operations.

Not another network!

Don’t think, “Not another social network to get involved in!” No one surely wants to run more than one network, two perhaps if you count Twitter. (This is probably the reason that Google+ may not succeed in the end.) Think instead, “A free website for me, networked and searchable with thousands of others, and easier to use than any other web creation system, even Blogger. And which requires of me minimal writing!”

Finally, infographic from Sandbox

Is ‘change’ the same as ‘ruin’, as the infographic below might suggest? It is certainly the contention of Nicholas Carr in his book The Shallows, and some other commentators, that our brains are being rewired by the Web and social media, and not always in a good way.

However, as Len Sweet points out in his forthcoming (and excellent) new book Viral: How Social Networking Is Poised to Ignite Revival – when the printing press first came in, some Christians opposed it because they felt it would inhibit people from memorizing stuff.

In any case, we are where we are. Older people will recall similar concerns two generations ago about the insidious effects of TV. Our task is to manage our media, not let it control us. And more than that, realise its huge potential for the Kingdom. Check our page about using Facebook, and our other blog posts about social networking.

Distractions

There are strategies we can use to reduce distraction so we can stay focused on one thing at a time. See How to Deal with Distractions in a Web Worker’s World. Leave Skype switched off if you have not pre-arranged a call. Disable instant messengers including Facebook. Disable any audible alerts of new emails. Hey, even switch your wifi/network connection off for writing projects. There are even software solutions and browser add-ons that you can set to prevent access to certain time-wasting sites (eg. Farmville, or Facebook entirely) within your choice of time limits. You can also use software to limit children’s time online (or on the computer at all) within preset limits, so they can do other things vital to their development. Like playing, sport, reading.

Please add your thoughts in the comment section below.

Thanks to AssistedLivingToday.com for this graphic

Spielberg’s latest movie is getting rave reviews. And rightly so. The popular children’s book by Michael Morpurgo has been faithfully adapted: read story of the film and its making. (Trailer below.)

And there are many redemptive echoes embedded in it. Here are a few (spoiler warnings):

• Joey the horse is sold into, essentially, slavery on the Western Front, for the biblically-resonant 30 currency units (Zechariah 11:12-13), having already been bought – extravagantly – for that price by Devon farmer Ted. This brings huge pain to the farmer’s son Albert, who has trained the horse and has a deep master/horse relationship with him.
• Joey’s desire for home and his master survives ‘slavery’ on both sides of the war. His escape across no-mans land is stirring. By now, Albert has volunteered for the army and is being treated for temporary blindness from a gas attack in the trenches. Joey’s ability to respond to his master’s call (a simulated owl call) saves his life, and hastens Albert’s healing.
• Albert then attempts to buy him back at the end of the war for the same 30 pounds, but is outbid at 100 pounds by the French farmer whose now-deceased grand-daughter had previously found and cared for Joey and stablemate Topthorn when they escaped from the German lines. In a gesture of extravagant grace, after learning of Albert’s deeper claim, he gifts Joey to him.
• In different ways, the horse also brings bravery, reconciliation, healing and resolution to other characters in the story.

Damaris study guides

Culturewatch ministry Damaris has produced a study guide and analysis of the film. Join to subscribe to their email newsletter and receive regular commentary on movies and other resources, eg. Iron Lady. (Advance notice: they will soon be publishing free resources for the February release of The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, starring Judy Dench, Bill Nighy, Maggie Smith, Tom Wilkinson, Penelope Wilton, Celia Imrie and Ronald Pickup.)

Using movies as a ‘good-news discussion starter’

Movie themes are a great way to start conversations, whether on Facebook or face-to-face. They also work very well in a planned group situation, as Krish Kandiah (UK Evangelical Alliance) recounts in relation to a recent student discussion of Shawshank Redemption. This approach works equally effectively in a poor inner-city area of London, where Pastor Michael Kosmas has made a film discussion club integral to his church-planting strategy.

Check Tony Watkins’ excellent guide on running a film discussion evening.

And see our other posts on movies.

It’s amazing what a difference 60 seconds make.

Go-Gulf.com has a range of infographics on web facts and trends, here are just two of them:

Infographic by- Shanghai Web Designers View graphic fullsize

Infographic by- GO-Gulf.com Web Design Company View graphic fullsize

Dizzying stats about the extent of social media usage. And a few figures are already out of date: YouTube now uploads 48 hours of video per minute, and delivers 3.5 billion daily views!

Video can be easily downloaded for seminars etc.

Many people spend the majority of their online time within Facebook. It is truly a ‘web within the web’. as this short story illustrates. But how do they precisely use their time on Facebook?

Jess3 Media has created this infographic to draw it all together and Mashable has commented on these figures:

Facebook has become THE way to sensitively share the good news in a conversational dialogue with those who want to opt-in and engage, across pre-existing relationships. This includes using the ready-made one-click links to post video shorts from YesHEIs.com in multiple languages.

Check our other blog posts about Facebook.