Social Media in the Church

It seems to me that the idea of a social media strategy for a church might sound like another lame attempt for a church to be hip, another popular fad to chase. And I suppose that, in fairness, that is sometimes the case. What I have in view with the concept though is not another way to bow to the idol of "relevance," but a biblically informed strategy for utilizing technology to aid in the church's mission and goals.

If you were to poll the people in your church, I'd bet a significant portion of them are engaged at some moderate to heavy level with social media, predominantly Facebook and Twitter. In other words, that's where many people are, and that's an obvious place to connect with them at some level. You see that happen organically in certain ways. For example, in a time of medical crisis, Facebook can become a very useful way for relevant information to get out to others who can pray for or serve a family in need.

I have in view a particular strategy that seeks to generally draw people deeper into the life of the church, which ought to have the deeper goal of drawing them deeper into the Gospel (which is to say, a life marked by a deepening engagement with, affection for, and application of the Gospel). How is that accomplished? Here's my suggestion:

One key purpose of the Facebook and Twitter feeds is to summarize/tease and link to new content in a central blog (this doesn't have to be fancy - a basic Blogger or Wordpress site would do). The blog serves several purposes. It alerts folks to what's going on in the church (in the old days we called this "announcements" -- think of it almost like an online bulletin, if you will, without the 10% discount at Golden Corral). You could tell stories of how God is moving in the ministries of the church or in mission projects.

But the blog also becomes a place to remind, reinforce, and send people deeper into the content of the Sunday sermon, the principle teaching mechanism of the church. Here you might post a short summary of the message with a link to video or audio if available, you might post links to articles or books cited as well as material for further study (and why not tag it to an Amazon affiliate account?). I'd also suggest some application questions that would stir people to think about how to apply the message and fuel good discussions in homes and small groups.

If we could visualize the strategy, it looks like this:

Social Media --> Blog --> The life of the church --> The Gospel.

I'd be interested in hearing any feedback or related ideas.