Here are a few notes from the Social Media workshop at the Sticky Church conference hosted by Suncrest last week. Countless media exist, and the experience of our group was varied, so we decided to focus on a few major SM ideas. Handout available here.
Why suggest the church use Social Media? It is a fact that being online has become a natural communication channel in today’s culture. Our approach is that we want to go where people are gathering, not just expecting them all to come to us.
A few ways the church can implement Social Media:
1. website
- Podcast your sermon
2. blogging
- Lead Pastor blogging tips from Greg Lee included: Find an Audience, a Groove, a Voice, a Conversation, a Partner
3. facebook
- Create a church facebook page, invite attenders to join in
4. twitter
- Microblogging tool that has grown over 1000% in the last year
- Similar to blogging except 140 characters or less
5. tokbox
- Especially good for online small groups – also demo’d at workshop to bring in 3 Panel members listed below.
Panel Interview – I met all 3 using Social Media
DJ Chuang (Upper Left)
Spoke on new technologies and helping church leaders become aware of them. He oversees Digital @ Leadership Network, a blog dedicated to this very topic.
Tony Steward (Lower Right)
Shared some powerful lifechange stories (from social media sources) he’s been able to hear in his role as online community pastor at lifechurch.tv.
Cynthia Ware (Upper Right)
Talked to us about social media traits/values shaping ministry. A few values she discussed were – Interactivity, Decentralization and Mobility of Social Media.
Social media is not an end in itself, but a tool that can be leveraged for Kingdom advancement.
Great stuff! I am so glad you did this for church leaders that attended. I wish I could have been there, it sounded like fun! For those that are looking for more I will be teaching a breakout on social media and community at the Group Life Conference this year. Hope to see you there!
Thanks Frank. Would love to see/participate in Social Media breakouts for GroupLife.
I attended Mary Beth’s seminar and really enjoyed it. Since then I’ve started using twitter and tokbox and joined an online small group. I’m enjoying learning some new applications. I’ve been using Facebook and a lot of people in our church are using Facebook and it’s been great to connect to each other in another way. Thanks MB
Mike – you get the ‘gold star’ for application!! So glad the workshop was helpful. I’ll be seeing you around the twitterverse.
This is great.
Wondering about hosting this sort of thing at our church
In my workshops, I teach that social media can be a great way to build the church within the walls – as that happens and the congregation grows closer by self-organizing (similar to the Twitter concept) they can then feel more connected and actually grow more loyal to the church community (especially in bigger churches).