Do Churches Get Social Media?

Hold up there Chris, one step at a time. I’m still trying to get my Church online, even if it’s the most basic of web sites.

Seriously though, Church’s need to understand the value a video podcast brings. Once you have something established in that vein, push the Church people into something interactive, starting small, maybe a Facebook fan page, then build into things like Twitter. It starts at the top though, if the Pastor doesn’t get involved, the rest of the Church won’t either.

i went to church a while back for a funeral. there was a lot of incense and holly water. i hope chris had the opportunity to enjoy incense during his church experience.

Interesting…I’m making that very presentation tomorrow to a planning group for our synod. I’ll let you know how it goes.

Funny you mention this Chris. I am trying to answer this very question. Hoes does the church use social media, and not tick anyone off in the process?

Problem is social media leans so heavily atheist most Christains are scared to say they go to church or believe in God, because they fear being shunned by the online community.

Whether churches “get” social media or not, there are small pockets of church people who try to make a difference on the Internet sphere. For the longest time I received a pretty cool Web Evangelism bulletin by email, and last year switched over to the RSS feed. I haven’t heard much from them lately.

My new passion is reading http://churchmarketingsucks.com on a semi-regular basis. Years ago I discussed the idea of http://truthmedia.com/ before it even existed, so it’s nice to see they have something going.

But then there are also individual churches (too many to mention) that “got it”, and are continuing to “do it”. It’s like a light popped on and they realized that TV and radio are expensive, pushy media, whereas Internet and social media are collaborative.

The problem with TV is that a church message only goes one way, and you can only measure response by the number of book and tape orders; this makes the program very “salesman”-oriented, which turned me off of church TV.

Social media, on the other hand, requires an invitation to participate–the user is in control; the user can choose to watch, choose to ignore, and choose to respond, almost immediately, and expect a response back.

Great post Chris. I hope you keep on speaking to churches.

I enjoyed your talk today at Plymouth. You should have stayed for worship, I think you would have enjoyed the sermon as it was about social networking from a biblical standpoint. You shoud take your wife up on her offer to come back for a visit.

My Seattle church that built their own social networking site. It’s pretty amazing.
http://www.onthecity.org/
http://www.marshillchurch.org

Why would I want to? So they can spread their narrow-minded bigotry further? I liked the Victor Stenger quote “Religion flies you into buildings. Science flies you to the moon.”

Ooh, reality check: Looking at Plymouth Church, UCC’s are far less bigoted than most. They might get it.

But back to your question. The “social media message,” in my limited understanding, is about relationship, cooperation, and co-evolution of ideas and involvements. Churches, in my direct experience, involve strictures, structures, and hierarchical dogma. I could share the “social media message” with churches, but they wouldn’t get it.

And why churches? Why not also synagogues, mosques, parishes, sanghas, and mandirs? Still, most all continue with the hierarchical nature of “revealed” — and absolute — truth. From there, well, see my rant in the prior paragraph.

The Catholic church started up a website after World Youth Day called XT3. It stands for Christ in the Third Millenium. It is a social networking site that all the youth from around the world use to keep in contact with eachother after going to World Youth Day. http://www.xt3.com .

God bless you
Paul

My experience has been that most churches do not “get” social media. As in they do not understand how technology can assist their organization.

Text messages to cell phones could update members as to changes in schedule due to weather conditions or emergencies. Pastors could use blogs to share ideas. Sermons could be available to homebound parishioners.

Churches are often controlled by a small group of individuals who enjoy the sensation of power via “knowledge”. They are “Info Hoarders”. And the scariest thing to them, (yes, even scarier than Osama himself), is openness. No idea what occurs at Mosques or Synagogs, no experience there. But Christian churches power structure is controlled by He Who Tithes the Most.

Just a few days ago while I was shopping, I overheard a conversation between two middle-aged ladies. They were discussing the seating decisions made for their churches newly renovated sanctuacary.

One lady sighs and says, “I just don’t like the chairs they chose. Who made the decision to go with chairs and not pews?”

The other responded, “Well the decision has been made. It can’t be changed now. We’ll just have to get used to it.”

If their church had a social networking site, the members could have discussed the options available. And maybe they would have decided to go with the chairs anyway once all the info was presented to them. But to have such a radical transformation sprung on them was shocking to the members. Perhaps that is why members split from First Baptist to form Second Baptist who then split to form Central Baptist and Westside Baptist which split two years later to form …….. You get the general idea.

I manage my church website. We are just getting into creating Podcasts of sermons. We are looking at a Facebook page, then maybe on to Twitter. There are a number of mailing lists for the UU (Unitarian Universalist) church geeks to share information across the US. So its already happening…

Hey Chris,
Many in our church use social media. We are about to launch our own “Social Ministry Media” application. It is called Unifyer. Check it out at Unifyer.com. It is a private system that lets us disseminate information quickly while effectively decentralizing communication in our church. It is our mission to get everyone in our church actively ministering to one another. Once they are active on Unifyer, I hope to get them more involved on other social media sites. It is time the church begins communicating in the same language as culture and that involves learning technology. Let us welcome the Church to the 21st century.

Thanks for coming and presenting. I enjoyed your presentation, though as a member of generation x, more for the comedy than tech details. We would love it if you took up your wife’s offer and visited us again.

Zandosh: “Why would I want to? So they can spread their narrow-minded bigotry further? I liked the Victor Stenger quote “Religion flies you into buildings. Science flies you to the moon.” ”

Wow. Great expression of open-minded non-bigotry there, Zandosh. /rolleyes

You don’t suppose any of the Mercury, Apollo astronauts, crews or engineers might possibly have had religious beliefs, similar to Isaac Newton, do you? (Read ‘The Right Stuff’ esp. John Glenn) Because that might kind of reveal the shallowness of your point.

“I was barked at by numerous dogs who are earning their food guarding ignorance and superstition for the benefit of those who profit from it. Then there are the fanatical atheists whose intolerance is of the same kind as the intolerance of the religious fanatics and comes from the same source. They are like slaves who are still feeling the weight of their chains which they have thrown off after hard struggle. They are creatures who—in their grudge against the traditional ‘opium of the people’—cannot bear the music of the spheres. The Wonder of nature does not become smaller because one cannot measure it by the standards of human moral and human aims.” -Albert Einstein, who although not a religious believer, anathematized atheistic bigots.