Your church and Facebook
3 September 2007Over the last few months I have been somewhat distracted by Facebook, and unlike almost all the other social networking sites I have tried, I have found non-techie friends are using it.
Facebook difference
Many people are raving about it, and I can understand why as I have caught up with people I haven’t spoken to for many years. Unlike email, there is a instantness of communication with people and no spam. Which means that short conversations can happen quickly, but without the intensity of instant messaging.
Also, unlike other social community websites, the privacy settings allow for close control of profile and information.
I had been using on-line photo sharing websites, but these don’t come close to Facebook in the social aspect of being able to tag friends and share photos with restricted groups of people.
But what about the church?
I have tried, unsuccessfully to coax church members onto mychurch.org (one member plus me to date).
I thought the reason for this failure was because people didn’t want to sign up for another on-line service that they might not use, and they couldn’t see a use for it.
However, after setting up a church group on Facebook, we already have 10 members. This is because church members were already users of Facebook, so joining a group was easy.
Using Facebook for your church
The other benefit is that non-Christian friends on Facebook can see what groups you join and so can see easily your affiliations. So rather than a closed Christian networking site, Facebook is a social networking site that better reflects your friendships and not just your Christian clique. It is obviously no substitute for sharing your faith in person, but allows you to create a profile that reflects your faith and to share this with your other friends.
With group events pages, we can better manage what is happening rather than a storm of emails and phone calls trying to arrange event.
How are other churches using Facebook?
Let me know in the comments how your church is using Facebook or other social networking sites.
Glenn
Yes, our church is the same.
We have 41 members on our church website but anything else remotely internet based always flounders!
I think it is because it so easy to use that many people like it.
I have had a similar experience. Although I haven’t added my church to Facebook yet, my personal experience is that it’s far easier, user-friendly, personal and viral than any other social networking I’ve tried.
Very timely article - thanks! I knew our church had a group or two on Facebook (youth and choir, I think), so I decided to dig a bit deeper.
I found that we had 6 different groups on there for various ministries, but none for the church as a whole. I just created a group for it, and we’re already up to 8 members. It’ll be interesting to see what happens.
Thanks for the responses. It is interesting to see and hear about how churches are using social network sites.
We have tried our first group event, and are hoping Facebook helps give it a little buzz and a push. It saves someone from phoning everyone up the night before to remind them what is happening.
David, this an interesting post. I have signed up for Facebook and still discovering how the network really works and especially its uniqueness. But certainly if church members want to utilise it, then go ahead and make maximum use of this fora for fellowship.
Thanks for the comment Victor, but you appear to have signed up to Facebook twice! Which one should I ask to be my friend?
We use Facebook and it helps to connect. We also use myspace (http://www.myspace.com/lifecitychurch) and have even added people to church as we frequent groups/forums etc. If done well it can be a zone to reach out not just create internal community.
4 Life,
Josh
LifeCity Church Canberra
http://www.lifecitychurch.com
[...] set up a Facebook group for our church, and managing to recruit some church members to join up (13 members at the last count), I thought [...]
I set up a face book web site for our On-line church Save the World, but could not find time to manage it. Been spending more time managing the blog at wordpress
http://christonline.wordpress.com
@Babaolbi
Facebook is mainly for social networking and (possibly) building a community of people. With the blog are you seeing contributions from church members or others, or is it more like a one-way conversation?
Our youth group has abandoned the church sponsored website we setup for them and has instead adopted Facebook as their meeting place. My concern is the “wordly” influence that is out there on this site. One of the students recently received a facebook app. that required the names of 15 of his friend for him to open. Then when he opened it he saw the survey titled “Would you rather” offered choices between some pretty vile things. Unfortunately he had now already forwarded this garbage to all the other members in our youth group who, in turn, forwarded it to 15 of their friends and so on…
How do you use the power of Facebook but also control and filter the garbage??
Pete.
Pete,
Facebook apps are NOT supposed to require friends notifications to open the application. There should be a way to skip that step, and add friends later. If an application is not allowing this option, it is in violation of Facebook’s TOS and should be reported through the “report a violation” link provided.
Hope this helps.
[...] Churchblogger shares why he enjoys the potential of Facebook for churches. [...]
Interesting idea. Since I always think about how to apply it in Malawi, I will see if I can throw the idea to some of our Church members especially my pastor!
My last church has several Facebook groups. The initial one was made by an ordinary congregation member and has about 220 members out of a church of about 400 people. One of the preachers created another group that also has the same role as the initial one but it has around 100 people.
Yet, both are really quiet/dead groups when it comes to wall posts and discussions! I really would have thought people would want to discuss more things particularly the sermons.
A friend of mine wants me to help him making a web site for allowing Christians to loan out their Christian books to each other but I am really hesitant to get involved now that I have seen the level of Christian apathy within this inner city group.