The Vanilla Ice Plan

There are lots of different approaches to using social media. After giving presentations to many groups about using social media for ministry, I have come up with my own strategy for getting started with social media. And it works.

Whether you are a pastor getting started on social media or a church looking to start using social media for your ministry or an author looking to get the word out about your latest offering, it will work.

The plan? Listen to Vanilla Ice.

Yup.Vanilla Ice has some wisdom to drop. Namely: Stop, Collaborate, and Listen. 


Stop
Before you jump into social media, stop. Many people rush into social media, or move from one platform to another, without thinking about it. They want to be doing the latest thing, or know that they should be on social media, but they don't think about what that means. Rushing in most often results in ineffective communications efforts, and a mess that has to be cleaned up later. So stop.

Spend some time thinking about how you are going to use social media, and how it fits into your other communication methods. Think about which platform would be most effective for you, and where your audience is. Read up on social media strategy - I recommend The Social Media Gospel and Click2Save for people who are using social media for ministry.

Collaborate
You are not the first person to consider using social media for your ministry (or business, etc). Seek out the people who are doing it well. Sit down with them. Work together with them to develop a plan to help get you on your feet. Here's a secret: most of the people who are using social media for church communications want to help others do the same. And very often, this sort of experienced help from peers in the field is free or remarkably inexpensive.

Get together (in person or virtually) with others in the same field, people who share the same sorts of goals. Share ideas about how you can creatively and effectively use digital tools. If you are using social media for ministry check out the Church Social Media (#chsocm) community, where some of the best church communicators are collaborating and sharing ideas.*

Listen
Most people get on social media and they immediately start talking. "BUY MY PRODUCT" "COME TO MY WORSHIP SERVICE" "CLICK MY LINKS."

It's about as much friendly as the guy standing on a street corner with a bullhorn. Before you start talking, listen. Learn what are the people in your community are talking about. Learn how your church/product is perceived by others. Listen for the needs, desires, and hurts among the people you are hoping to reach. Before you can talk, you need to earn respect. And the best way to do that is by being attentive and listening.

Even once you have a plan, have collaborated with others, and have listened to the community, it is important to remember to listen more than you talk.

That's it. The "Vanilla Ice Plan" for social media. Stop, collaborate, and listen. 

Well, there is one more step. Repeat. Over and over again. Continue to revisit your plan and strategy. Continue to seek out the best practitioners to learn from an collaborate with. And continue to listen to your community.

Stop, Collaborate, and Listen.

Want to connect? Find me on twitter or facebook. I'd love to hear from you. 

*The Church Social Media conversation happens on Twitter on the hashtag #chsocm, especially on Tuesday nights at 9pm Eastern during our weekly chats. You can also find us on Facebook.

You've Been Hacked!

In my Twitter direct messages today:
"You won't believe what people are saying about you <link>"
"I recommend this resource for you <link>"
"Hey, check this out <link>"

And that was just what arrived overnight. Every day, thousands of Twitter accounts are hacked. Maybe it has happened to you: all of a sudden your Twitter account starts sending out direct messages and tweets that you never intended. Nasty links. Virus-laden links. And the same thing can happen on Facebook.

If you have been hacked, there are some simple steps you can take to get your account back under control.

Step 1: Remove the authorization of applications you don't recognize. 

In the course of browsing the web, we give permission for websites and applications permission to access our social media. Too often, we don't think about it. Some of them are trustworthy. Many are not. Many others start out as trustworthy and wind up being bought or taken over by less trustworthy operators.

On Twitter:

• Click on the gear box on the home page (top right)
• Go to "Settings"
• In the left-hand column, click on "Applications"
• Go down the list, clicking on "Revoke Access" on any application you aren't 100% sure of.

On Facebook:

• Click on the gear box on the home page (top right)
• Go to "Privacy Settings"
• In the left-hand column, click on "Apps"
• Go down the list, clicking on the "x" on the right hand side to remove any application you aren't 100% sure of.

Step 2: Change your password.

In the course of being hacked, your password may have been compromised. Better safe than sorry. 

On Twitter:

• Click on the gear box on the home page (top right)
• Go to "Settings"
• In the left-hand column, click on "Password" and change your password

On Facebook:

• Click on the gear box on the home page (top right)
• Got to "Account Settings"
• On the next page (under the "General Settings" tab) click on "Password" to change your password.

And hey - while your're at it - feel free to connect with me on Twitter and Facebook! 

6 Objections to Online Church Communications

I have been privileged to be able to help congregations and pastors work on how they communicate. In particular, I often teach about social media and online tools for ministry. And in doing this, I have heard the same objections many times.

Here are the 6 most common objections to having an online presence that I hear from leaders in congregations, and my answers to them.

1) People just use social media to avoid real relationships.
This is far and away the most common reason I hear for churches avoiding an an online presence. It also comes in the form of "I don't care what you had for lunch."

It's true. People talk about some pretty inane stuff online. Things that we may not care about, or which we might think are pointless or meaningless. But this is true of every mode of communication!  Traditional print publishing has giving us both the works of William Faulkner and trashy romance novels. The same medium gave us both the Washington Post and the National Enquirer. And in the same way, along side the trivial conversations on social media are very deep and meaningful conversations about faith, community, and the world.

And even more importantly, some of the most important conversations are built on these "trivial" conversations. At the end of the day I spend time with my spouse, and we talk about our days: what we had for lunch, who we talked with, the things we did at work. Those so-called trivial conversations are often the mortar that bind together the relationships in our lives.

2) No one in our community is online.
I don't believe you. Period.

It's true, some communities are more wired than others. Communities that are near large cities tend to have better connectivity; younger communities tend to be online more than older communities. I get that. I live in a rural area. High speed internet access was not easy to come by when I moved to this community. But mobile connections have changed everything.

As of 2012, 78.6% of the North American population is online. 50% of all Americans have a smartphone. More people in your community are online than you think. The number of older adults online (and on social media) is growing exponentially.

Even if the people currently attending your congregation are not online, the rest of the community around your congregation are. The people that you want to invite into your congregation are online.

3) Social media is just a fad.
Next year, Facebook (the current social media leader) will turn ten years old, and it continues to grow every year. The world's first website is 20 years old (and still online, an archived info page about the CERN "world wide web" project). The first BBS (bulletin board systems, an early form of online community) came into being 40 years ago!

Social media will change. New platforms will become important, and others will fade away. But people will continue to use online media to build community and communicate with one another.

4) We can't afford to be online. 
You can't afford not to be online.

The days when you could just be listed in the phone book or put an ad in the newspaper and be done with it are over. 60% of people start their searches for information online. If someone in your community is looking for a new place to worship, the chances extremely good are that their first stop will be online - either a google search, or via a friend's recommendation on social media. You want to be there.

More to the point, it is very easy to develop an online presence with little or no budget. It is free to develop a presence on all of the major social media platforms. FREE. There are many ways to build a website for free, or on a very limited budget. FREE.

5) Social media is just for ________ (large, suburban, wealthy, young, etc) congregations 
Some of the best social media ministries that I have seen come out of smaller congregations. In truth, larger institutions often have trouble with new ways of communication - it has to go through the proper committees, and be voted on ten different times, etc. Smaller institutions tend to be more nimble and able to adapt to new ways of being.

In addition, smaller congregations need online media more. The large, wealthy, etc, institutions have lots of resources for building a community and raising awareness. It is smaller communities that are often looking for the low cost alternative (see #4).

6) Online interaction will never replace face-to-face interaction.
You are absolutely correct. There is no replacement for face-to-face interaction. But nobody is suggesting that congregations and pastors abandon face-to-face interaction! It is not an either/or choice.

Your newspaper ads do not replace face-to-face interaction. Your phone line does not replace face-to-face interaction. Your print newsletter does not replace face-to-face interaction. They are all tools to help facilitate good face-to-face relationships, and help your congregation proclaim the Gospel.

And the same is true of your online ministry. It is one tool (among many) to help facilitate communications in your congregation and your work of proclaiming the Gospel and building community. It does not replace anything. It works alongside other tools.


If you are just getting started using online communications for your congregation, I highly recommend the books The Social Media Gospel and Click2Save as a starting place. 

As you get online, I would love to connect with you on Twitter. 

"Real" and "Virtual" Relationships

As someone who teaches about social media, I have heard the common refrains of worry and caution about living life online. Especially among people in ministry, there is one concern that surfaces again and again.

"You can't establish real relationships online."

Or, people will ask me, "How many people do you really know, and how many do you just know online?"

There is an assumption that online relationships are qualitatively different than in-the-flesh relationship - that relationships that are developed online are in some way deficient. We (people in ministry) are in the community-building business, so this is an important concern. 

So let me be clear: Whether online or in the flesh, relationships are relationships. Period. End of sentence. 

In our lives - in the flesh - we have acquaintances. People with whom we have countless superficial interactions, and no meaningful interaction. All of us have these casual relationships.  We all also we walk past countless people every day without really seeing them. They are there, right in front of us, in the flesh, and we barely acknowledge there existence. Not every in the flesh relationship is automatically a profoundly deep and abiding relationship. 

But the relationships that we invest in, the relationships that we spend time on and that we care about can become deep and abiding. If we care. If we put the time and the work in. 

And what is true in the flesh is also true online. It's true: many online relationships are superficial and have little affect on our lives. The same sort of casual relationship that we have in the flesh. But if we invest time and effort and care, we can develop real and meaningful relationships that include online  interaction.

My good friend and frequent collaborator Meredith Gould (whom I have never met in person) often says that who we are in "real life" is who we are online. If we have superficial relationships in which we don't invest time and attention in the flesh, we will have superficial relationships online. If we care to invest in deep and lasting friendships and community, we will find them both in the flesh and online.

Last week, an adolescent in my community was severely injured. We offered prayers in our community, and ministry in our community. I also posted about it on Facebook, inviting prayers for her healing and recovery. Messages of prayer and support and love flooded in from all over the world. From Lutherans and Catholics and Baptists and Pagans and Agnostics. And they have continued.

And not just messages typed on keyboards. Phone calls. Text messages. Real prayers, offered up by real caring and loving people. A congregation in Florida (none of whom know me in "real life") who spent the entire Sunday School hour crafting handmade cards to let this young girl know that she is not alone and she is loved. All thanks to social media. 

This is community. Real community. 

Whether online or in the flesh, relationships are relationships. Period. End of sentence.

(PS - You should all go tell the intergenerational Sunday School of Trinity Lutheran Church, Pembroke Pines how awesome they are)

Scheduled Social Media?

Buffered tweets. Scheduled Facebook posts.

Almost every social media guru you consult suggests it. I get why. Sit down and do all that sort of stuff at once, then schedule it to come out at the best times for your audience (which may or may not be the best times for you as a content creator). I get all the very good reasons why you should schedule your social media.

But I don't. I won't. Here is what often happens during and following a crisis when people have scheduled tweets:

(This is not a one time occurrence. Someone does this every time - it just happened to be @ArtieDavis this time).

There are lots of good reasons to schedule tweets. There is one exceptional reason to not do so: It is called social media. Your audience can't have a conversation with a post scheduling app.

Do you want to excel at social media?
Quit talking at people, and starting talking with them.

Making the Most of Facebook

After my recent post about churches who use social media in anti-social ways, my inbox was flooded with requests. "What does good social media look like?" "How can we be more social?"

For most congregations, Facebook is the primary social media. Most of our members are on Facebook and it is the logical way to reach them.

First of all, we've all figured out that Facebook pages (for organizations and companies) do not work the same way as Facebook profiles (for individuals). With a page, you cannot comment on the status updates of posted by other individuals, so how do we keep the church Facebook page from becoming a virtual bulletin board?

Here are my best practices.

1) Profile Picture: This will be the widest-reaching impact of your page. Every time a post of yours is shared, this image will show up. An image of an empty sanctuary or of the outside of your church building will not tell me anything about your congregation. A (well-designed) logo is slightly better. But the best is to show people involved in ministry. The church is the people -- show the people!

2) Cover Image: Facebook has given us a huge piece of real estate to take advantage of - use it! Use that space to give some insight to your ministry. A collage of images, info about the most important upcoming events, or an image that shows us what makes the congregation unique. (What size is your cover image? Here is a quick guide sizes for all sorts of social media image sizes.)

3) The Basics: How quickly can a visitor find your website and worship times? There are some natural places to put them in the "About" page. Forget about that. Get this most important information on the very front page, so that a visitor sees it without having to click through to a second page.

Ok. That's covers all the layout set-up issues. Now comes the fun part. Be social! You are a little bit limited on a page, but your hands are not tied.

1) Share information & images from other connected organizations. Whether is another local congregation, the local chamber of commerce, or a local business, use that share button. If someone else is posting information that is helpful community information, share it. Use the share button, so that your post shows where it comes from. The economy of social media is one of generosity -- the more you share your influence, the more influence you gain.

2) Share posts that are just plain fun. Yes, we are a church and we take seriously our task to proclaim the Gospel. Be we are also called to be joyful. Have some fun with it.

3) Pictures. Lots and lots of pictures. Don't tell us about your congregation, show us! Show us pictures of people involved in mission and ministry; show us joyful people, worshiping people, working people, singing people.

4) Questions. What is the best way to get people to respond to something? Ask them a question! It really is that simple sometimes.

Use Facebook as your page.

5) Comment. Yes, you can comment as your page. Not on individual profiles, but on other pages. Click on the top right gearbox to "use page as" and use it as your church. Now go forth, and comment on the same sort of community and connected organizations as above. The more you comment, the more visible your page will be.

6) Post. Post. Post. I have found the sweet spot to be 2-4 posts a day. It might be different on your page. But remember -- every day that you do not post something, you lose some of your audience. So try to post at least one thing every day.

Here is the question to ask yourself: If I was not a member of this church, would I follow this page?

Your goal is to provide quality, engaging content for the wider community. That is how you build the audience, who will then be there to take notice on the occasions that you post an announcement about your ministry.

Is Your Church Media Social?

Social: Marked by pleasant companionship with friends ... tending to form cooperative and interdependent relationships. (Merriam-Webster)

As one who teaches about social media, you would think that I'd be happy that more and more churches, religious leaders, and organizations are using social media. They have heard the stats (1 billion people on facebook! 1/2 a million tweets every day). And so, realizing the capabilities of these platforms, they have jumped on board.

But once on social media, they've done nothing but talk about themselves. "Come to our event! Buy my book! Visit our website! Read my blog!"

Here's an analogy to help see that this looks like.

Let's go to a party. A big room full of people, talking about shared interests and getting to know one another. As you walk into the party, you notice that there are three types of people. There are the people who are standing on the wall, choosing to not talk to anyone. There are the people having a great time, moving from group to group and enjoying one another. 

And then there is the guy (it's always a guy for some reason) moving from group to to group, talking about himself. He has a story for every occasion - he is the hero in these stories, of course. If you know about something, he knows more. And if you manage to get in a word edgewise, you can tell that he is not really listening - he's thinking about what he will say next. 

Social

No one likes "that guy" at the party. He will go home, likely convinced that he was the life of the party, but in reality he caused everyone else to have less fun.

Too many churches sit on the sidelines of social media, refusing to join the party - and that's not a good place to be. But once convinced to jump in, many become the loud guy just talking about himself. Not listening to what others are saying, always talking about ourselves. That is not social media - that is broadcast media. And if there is one thing people love about social media, it is that it is not broadcast media. 

So who are you / your church / your orginazation at the social media party: the wallflower, the loud guy ruining the party for everyone else, or the ones enjoying the social interaction? 

Is your social media social?

(Up next: Signs that your social media might really be broadcast media)

Interest Lists - How To

You've decided to use interest lists to help streamline your facebook experience. So, how do you use interest lists? (Here's why I like them!)

To create your own interest lists, go to a page you want to add to a list. Click on the gearbox symbol to get a pull down menu, and select "Add to Interest Lists." All your interest lists will show up, and you can select the one you want to add the page to. If you don't have any lists yet, you can "Add New." (This same method works to add people to interest lists). As you are setting up interest lists, Facebook will ask you whether you want the list to be visible only to you, to your friends, or to be public.

Often, other people have already organized awesome news and information into interest lists that you might like to follow - For example my awesome Brenham, Texas and ELCA News lists. Click on the lists, and then click the nice big button at the top right that says "Subscribe." 

Now that you have subscribed to some Interest Lists, or made some of your own, you can view the news feed of all the posts from the pages/people on that list. On the Facebook homepage, you will see a category in the left-hand column titled "Interests." (If you don't see it, you might need to click on the heading that says "More" in that column, then it will show up). Once you click on the Interest List, you will see a news feed of every post from the pages and the people on that list:

How are you making use of lists? What are some great lists that you have found to follow?

Interest List - Who Cares??

Over the last few weeks, maybe you've seen something about "Interest lists" on facebook. If you are remotely like most people, this has produced in a you a giant shrug of the shoulders and a big, "So what?" I am an social media user, and even I didn't care.

The reason for interest lists is simple - organize the information that you are receiving through facebook. I already use lists on Facebook - lists that I created for myself. So I didn't see a need for facebook's interest lists.

As the manager of many pages on Facebook, I'll let you in on a secret. You are only seeing a fraction of the posts from the pages that you have liked. On my pages (which have pretty engaging content, of I do say so myself), only about 20-30% of the people who like my page see the things I post. So I decided to play around with interest lists. And I like them.

If you are making a list, you have the same privacy options that you have for any Facebook post. That means that you can create a public list, and share your information sources with a broad set of people. Or you can adjust the privacy, and conveniently connect your friends together. Or, you can make it only visible to you as a way to organize your newsfeed.

Regular lists on Facebook are nice. I have all of my facebook friends neatly organized into them. But the option to easily add pages - and to share these lists by making them public - is a great way to adding a new layer to the connection provided on facebook.

What do you think? Have you tried out the new interest lists?

Social Media Basics: Facebook Post Privacy

Unlike Twitter, where your posts are either entirely public or entirely private, Facebook allows you complete control over how visible your social media life is to the world. You can decide for each post just how public it will be.

When you post your status from the Facebook website (or from many mobile apps), you have the following pull-down menu available to you, from which you can decide exactly who to share your update with:

Facebook remembers your selection, and your next post will default to the same audience. If you regularly change between making public posts and posts only for friends, remember to double check this setting when you post.

If you accidentally post to public, meaning to share with only your friends or a list, this is easy to fix. Simply go to the post on your timeline (in my experience, you cannot do this from mobile apps. You need to be on the full website). Go to the post, and you will find the same pull down menu next to the date that you posted the status or picture:

From there, simply select your intended audience, and voilà, problem solved.

Facebook asks: Who is Andy Williams?

Wow.

Sitting in a meeting today, I glanced at my Facebook newsfeed (It's ok, it was a meeting about communications and social media, browsing is allowed). As happens whenever a celebrity dies, I expected there to be a glut of stories about the death of Andy Williams - pictures, videos of Moon River, obituaries. You know, the usual. So imagine my shock to see this.

Apparently, according to the brilliant minds behind Facebook, Andy Williams - the former drummer from Casting Crowns - has died.

This is what we call an "Oops moment"

I'm Talking to You

Dear Denominational / Institutional Leader:

I get it. Really I do. Your schedule is demanding and extremely full. Lots of meetings, travel, phone calls, and correspondence. You don't have time for one more thing. I understand.

You haven't had the time to learn about social media. Maybe you're interested  - but who has the time?! Maybe you're not even interested. It just doesn't make any sense. I understand.

However, sooner or later you are going to be forced to deal with social media. Perhaps a crisis will arise in how a member of the clergy interacts with members of the congregation on Twitter. Perhaps someone under your care will have their marriage publicly implode on Facebook. Perhaps members of a parish will use social media to slander their leadership. Sooner or later you will have to deal with social media.


The question is: Would you rather learn about social media now, or in the middle of a crisis?

"Dear Leader"

There are people out there already thinking about social media and ministry. Questions are being considered like how clergy should interact with members, what does public ministry look like online, how can church leadership deal with privacy concerns, and many more. 


Check among your leaders - maybe there is someone who can guide you through this conversation. Go to the Church Social Media blog, the hub of an ongoing conversation about social media and ministry. Read up, and send a message to any of us who write for the blog or who regularly contribute to the conversation. We want to share what we know. Find people who use social media well, and ask them to be your guides. Host conversations within your synod/diocese/presbytery/organization about how people should best use social media.


At some point - most likely very soon - social media will find it's way into your ministry, even if you would rather have nothing to do with it. It is better to prepare yourself now.


Come, learn with us. 


(Image: Dear Leader, by Telstar Logistics)

Social Media Basics: Quit It!

I am privileged to get to teach about social media from time to time, helping pastors and other church leaders to understand how to better use this medium to communicate the Good News. I love it.

And yet, from time to time I get frustrated as I watch people living out their lives on social media. I just want to yell, "Quit it!" when I see people behaving in unhealthy and unhelpful ways on social media. This unhealthy behavior takes many forms, but one in particular has caught my eye lately.

Spouses & significant others -- quit complaining about each other on social media. Just quit it!

Social media is a bullhorn. Would you go to the center of town, grab a bullhorn, and say those things about your significant other? Would you post that complaint on a poster and put it up around town? Because that is exactly what you are doing.

In fact, not just spouses and significant others -- let's just make the rule other people in general. When it doesn't happen on social media, we have a great word to describe this sort of behavior: gossip. Simply put, we (people of faith) do not (should not!) talk about other people that way in public. And social media is public.

And church workers - you should know better. All of us have sat through a homiletics class, where we were told that we should not use real people as sermon illustrations without their permission. If you are going to mention something about your spouse, or a member of the congregation, in Sunday's sermon, then talk to that person beforehand and make sure it is acceptable to them.

What a great rule for social media! After all, social media is essentially a pulpit - a place to make proclamations in the middle of the public square. So here it is: only talk about others on social media in ways that would be acceptable to them.

Or, to make more specific, ask your spouse or family member if it is ok if you post a given comment about them on social media.

And So It Begins ...

In certain circles I am known as a bit of a social media enthusiast. I think is is an important way for churches, clergy, and others to communicate not just with each other but with the world. I live out my life in the public eye: both in real life as the pastor of a congregation in a small town, and on social media.

And yet, last week I was scooped on social media. On Thursday, Megan Dosher (@megateer) and I made our engagement official. She also is an avid user of social media in various forms, but it was not her. No, it was Megan's mother who had posted the news of our engagement to Facebook within minutes of getting off of the phone with us. 

And thus began what will be a very public engagement and wedding. Megan and I followed her mother's suit, and shared the news on both Facebook and Twitter (our primary social media networks). And we plan on this trend continuing. We have every intention of using social media to the fullest as we plan and celebrate our marriage.

Why? There are two primary reasons. (1) We both live very public lives. Certainly in regard to our chosen professions, we are in the public eye. Especially in a small town. And we embrace that facet of our life - it is a part of who we are. In fact, it is a good thing! Living life publicly (with good boundaries, of course) encourages a life that is transparent and authentic. 

(2) We believe that a wedding is a public event. It involves not just the couple, but as an act of the church it involves the whole body of Christ. In Christian marriage, we call on the faithful to support, pray for, and hold accountable the relationship that is blessed in marriage. And for Megan and I, that is not just the people who gather in our congregations on Sunday mornings. It is also our friends and loved ones on social media - with whom we converse, pray, learn, and worship. We want to include them in the public witness of our marriage.

And so, the journey begins. There will be updates here, on our respective facebook and twitter accounts, and who knows where else. Please feel free to follow along, join the conversation, and share in our joy!

Last fall, I had the privilege of being an advanced reader on Meredith Gould's Getting #Married: Using Social Media to Celebrate the Sacred. Megan & I have both read and earmarked this book, and recommend it to others considering using social media in planning and celebrating their wedding.

Why I Love (Hate) Social Media

Those who know me, know that I am a fan of social media. I use social media in my own life in a variety of ways: in my personal life to stay in touch with family and friends, to keep connected with members of my congregation, and to discuss ministry with colleagues. My real passion for social media comes among colleagues, talking about how this resource can be used by the church to further the kingdom.

The potential of these new forms of media was brought home to me in a surreal way this last week. Late Wednesday night, I logged on to Facebook, only to discover that they had changed up the appearance of the newsfeed. I saw a couple of complaints from friends about the new look, and I new how this would go. By morning there would be a flood of complaints about the new timeline. So I looked through my pictures, and found an image from someecards that I had posted from the last time Facebook changed the look of the feed, reposted it, and went to bed.

Now, I have had a few things I have posted become popular before. Mostly among other church folks, I've had a couple of posts from this blog get shared by as many as 100 people on Facebook (I thought that was pretty impressive!). Thursday morning I woke up, and the image had been shared 2,000 times. I was shocked. By the end of the day, it had been shared 5,000 times. It even had been shown on the Houston afternoon news and WGN in the evening. Yes - my post to Facebook was on the news from Houston to Chicago.

Let's do some quick math. Round down the average number of Facebook friends to 100. At 5,000 shares, this image was seen by at least half a million people. To put that in perspective: On an average Sunday, I preach to around 170 people. I serve a congregation of about 500 members, in a town of 14,000 people. With one post, I had reached 1,000 times more people than there are in the congregation I serve. By the next morning, I had friend requests from across the US, from Britain and Ireland, Germany and Austria, Australia and New Zealand.

I love the potential that social media has for reaching people. The church is called to carry the Gospel to all nations - to all corners of the earth. Just over five hundred years ago - the printing press made that mission more feasible than ever. Now social media has made it more practical, possible, and probable for the church to carry the message of the kingdom to the ends of the earth.

And yet ...

What gets shared on social media? I have posted about ministry, about politics, about the Gospel - about all sorts of things. Out of all those posts it is a silly post, about Facebook that went viral. Some of the most popular Twitter feeds are the ones that dole out sarcasm or pop culture commentary. Social media shows the truth of who we are: it is not the meaningful, deep conversations that move us. As a species, we are infatuated with the inane. And I hate that social media exposes our shallowness.

How do we, as people of faith, overcome our infatuation with the inane and use social media's potential for communication to share the good news?

Social Media & the Church: Multiple Personalities

There is an epidemic among church leaders! As social media (facebook, twitter, google+, linkedin, etc) has grown in use, an ever increasing number of clergy and other leaders have developed multiple personalities. But wait, don't call in the American Psychological Association just yet. let me back up. As I pointed out in a previous post, the social media use of ministry leaders can be divided into five general groups:

1. Only for personal use, only connecting with friends and family
2. Only for professional use, everything they post related to their ministry, congregation, etc.
3. Separating personal from professional, with a personal account for friends and family, and a professional account for congregational members.
4. Integrating the personal & professional with one account
5. Not at all (more clergy than you might expect, or perhaps not, given the church’s record for adopting new things)

I am interesting in talking about those of us who use social media for ministry - groups 2-4. There are some very good arguments why ministries should engage social media, already addressed by many folks in many places. But for now, I am going to stick to those of us who agree that we should be using social media for ministry purposes. Let me be up front: I fall into group #4. I think there are some very compelling reasons to have an integrated online persona, and I will get into that a little bit later.

Those who fall into groups 2 and 3 can be lumped together - their social media use is more less identical from a ministry perspective. Group #3 may post cute pictures of their kids, or complain about their day, but it is separate from their ministry account, so people following their ministry will not see it.

There are some very good, and some less good, reasons for pastors and others in ministry to use social media this way. Most importantly, it provides very clear and well defined boundaries. Not everyone who follows the ministry of the congregation wants to see pictures of the Pastor's vacation (especially not pasty Lutheran pastors on the beach!). Sometimes pastors need space to be honest about the congregations they serve - to vent a little bit - and it may not be a good thing for the whole congregation to see that private venting. Occasionally, a pastor may worry that what is said or implied on facebook - even if it is entirely unrelated to ministry - will be used as a weapon in next week's Council meeting (certainly no one in your congregation would ever do that, but in some of those other congregations). In general, this social media practice allows for a bit of differentiation between the pastoral office and the ministry on one hand, and the person who holds that office on the other.

Let me be clear: Although it is not how I use social media, I respect this position. I have colleagues who have been burned by not having clear boundaries, and they now try to avoid those pitfalls. I get it. But I do think there are some very good reasons to use social media in a more integrated way. First, a story.

A couple of weeks ago, my satellite receiver started acting a little strange. As a hopeless TV addict, this was unacceptable, so I put a call in to DirectTV. After walking through all the automated steps, I was on the phone with Lisa. Lisa was exceptionally friendly - we talked about my TV problems, and also about her family that lives in Texas and what shows she watches with her toddler. Lisa was not just helpful, she was friendly and personable. She scheduled a maintenance call for me, and in a couple of days James stopped by my house. James and I commiserated about driving in and around Houston, and about this horrible summer we're having. After those experiences, DirectTV is not just some brand name to me - it is Lisa and James. People do not relate to brands; people relate to people.

And social media is ultimately about relating to people - it is about community. If your whole facebook feed is updates about your congregation's worship services, people will begin to tune it out. If all of your tweets are links to to the ministry website or blog, other users are not going to engage your twitter account. People relate to real people, who live real lives.

In addition to opening  up your social media following to a larger community, being personal also opens up a pastor's life so that parishioners can see him or her as more than just the person in the pulpit. As we share on social media sites, those who are involved in our ministries get to know us more and better -- and that draws us into more effective ministries in their lives.

Finally, I believe that it all eventually comes out. In the age of digital communication, there are no assurances that information will not get out. An email sent just to the congregational council can easily be forwarded on to someone outside the group. A status update posted to a private facebook account may be copied and pasted to someone else's profile. A protected tweet may be retweeted by someone else. It all comes out.

I live in a small town and if I am having lunch with someone downtown, there is a very good chance that anything I say may be overheard by an unintended audience. I treat social media like I do living here. Don't say things you wouldn't want everyone in your congregation or in the rest of your life to hear. Of course, this has been a great for my spirit as well -- If I wouldn't want someone to hear it, maybe I don't need to be saying it in the first place.

Ultimately, to quote someone much smarter than myself, I am who I am. I am the same person on Sunday morning as I am in downtown Brenham as I am on social media as I am in a small group Bible study. Pastor David is not a different person than just David.

Social Media & the Church: Who are Your Friends?

Over the last few months, I have been a part of numerous discussions about how the church generally and clergy specifically use social media – Facebook, Twitter, Google+, etc. It has been a great discussion, and I have learned a great deal from my colleagues. There, however, one question where I find some disagreement (What?! Pastors disagree with one another?). I will come to that in a moment.

Generally, ministry leaders use social media in one of five ways.

1. Only for personal use, only connecting with friends and family
2. Only for professional use, everything they post related to their ministry, congregation, etc.
3. Separating personal from professional, with a personal account for friends and family, and a professional account for congregational members.
4. Integrating the personal & professional with one account
5. Not at all (more clergy than you might expect, or perhaps not, given the church’s record for adopting new things)

For what I think are very good reasons, my social media usage follows model 4 more than anything else (more about that at another time). But, if pastors and other church leaders are going to use social media in any way as an extension of their church or their ministry (models 2-4 above), one question comes up fairly quickly: Should you initiate contact with members on social media? That is, should you friend them first on Facebook, or wait for them to friend you? Should you follow them on Twitter before they have followed you? Should you add them to a circle on Google+ if they have not circled you?

To be clear: this is a new issue in ministry. These are not questions that anyone could have imagined asking ten years ago; we are treading new ground here. The “accepted wisdom” – insofar as there is any – is that it is unwise for pastors or other church leaders to initiate contact on social media. I am not sure that I agree.

I get the reasoning. There is a power imbalance between pastor and parishioner. Members of the congregation may feel uncomfortable declining a friend request from their pastor, even if they do not want “the pastor” to see what is said on their wall. Church leaders (pastors, other rostered leaders, deacons, youth ministers, etc), should maintain healthy boundaries, and not insert themselves into the online lives of their members.

Really???

I wonder why this line is being drawn at social media. If you join the congregation that I serve, I will ask for your email address, your home phone number, and your cell phone number – and I will give you mine. You are welcome to decline to give me that information, but I am going to ask for it. I hope you know that you can trust me – as your pastor – to use such information responsibly and as is appropriate to our shared ministry and my call.

As a pastor, if I hear that a member is sick or in the hospital – whether that member tells me or I hear it from someone else – I am going to invite myself into that members home or hospital room. If it is at home I will probably call before I come over (not always), but I am going to initiate the contact and invite myself (the member is welcome to say no, but I would hope that they would trust me – as their pastor – to know that the visit is a part of my ministry and my call).

As pastor of the congregation, I may invite members into my home. Often for an open house or another congregation-wide, but sometimes (less often now that I am a single pastor) to share a meal. Those members are welcome to decline the invitation, and some do, but I am going to initiate the contact because it is a part of my ministry and my call to the congregation.

As pastors, most of us would see no problem “initiating contact” in these ways. We would view it as a part of our ministry, a part of our call to the congregation.

These illustrations, while imperfect (all illustrations are), get at the issue for me. Pastors are called to care for the members of the congregation that they serve (and other ministry leaders as well, in other ways). We are called to be a part of their lives – to help them to see the Gospel in their lives and to “care for their souls.” By calling me as their pastor, the congregation has initiated the engagement that we will then live out together. By calling me their pastor, members of the congregation have initiated our engagement together.

Our call to serve the congregation is our friend request. Our call to serve the congregation is our follow request. Our call serve the congregation is our invitation to be a part of the lives of the congregation.

Ministry leaders should be involved in the social media lives of their members. But we should do so with the same sense of responsibility that we use with every other aspect of our members lives. Mindful that we are being trusted not to abuse that relationship, and to only use it insofar as it is appropriate to our ministry. What that looks like is different in various settings and ministries, and we should be wary of one-size-fits-all solutions to using social media.

What do you think? Should pastors friend members (or otherwise initiate social media engagement)?