Over 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.
Church website, communication and networking ideas 
34 comments
Comments feed for this article
3 September 2007 at 8:58 pm
Glenn
🙂 I can definitely say this is the case, our last Youth minister setup a facebook group last year, he has left and there isn’t a single current event on it(except the one I just added), but we have 37 Church members in the group. MyChurch, we have 7, and many current events are updated at that site.
Glenn
4 September 2007 at 6:45 am
David at freeChristianresources
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.
4 September 2007 at 5:29 pm
cynthia
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.
5 September 2007 at 8:54 pm
mickmel
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.
7 September 2007 at 5:23 pm
David
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.
13 September 2007 at 7:52 pm
Victor Kaonga
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.
13 September 2007 at 8:47 pm
David
Thanks for the comment Victor, but you appear to have signed up to Facebook twice! Which one should I ask to be my friend?
21 October 2007 at 10:35 pm
Josh
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
12 November 2007 at 2:55 pm
Facebook pages for organisations « Church website and blog ideas
[…] 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 […]
3 December 2007 at 7:43 pm
babalobi
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
5 December 2007 at 2:18 pm
David
@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?
15 February 2008 at 7:05 pm
Pete
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.
11 March 2008 at 2:23 pm
Michael
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.
19 March 2008 at 4:23 pm
Facebook Wants To Promote Your Church | NextChurch
[…] Churchblogger shares why he enjoys the potential of Facebook for churches. […]
7 April 2008 at 8:42 pm
Victor Kaonga
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!
16 April 2008 at 3:59 pm
EC
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.
1 June 2008 at 2:31 am
melissa
In response to the last comment by EC. This is a common struggle that churches and other groups for that matter deal with. You finally get a substantial number of fans on your page, but then how do you use that page to develop community. That is the big question. The administrators of the site need to look at the demographic of the fans and determine the interests of those people. If you have a bunch of fans between the ages of 18 and 25 they have different interests than those of people between the ages of 30 and 35. So once the fans have been analyzed and their interests have been determined then you can target your efforts to get them involved in discussions. For a group of fans in the 18-25 ages my advice would be to start with easy discussions. For example, a discussion starter could look something like this … “on the season finale of LOST Ben told Jack that the all the survivors needed to go back to the island to make things right. Do you think they will go back?” By starting with a discussion like this you are getting people into the habit of commenting on the page. Then you can progress to more deep discussions about faith, sermons, ideas to help the homelesss, how to make the church more effective, etc.
Basically, the key is to identify your fans and their interests and then get them in the habit of discussing on the church page. Hope this helps!
Melissa
Check us out…
http://www.koinoniasolutions.com
11 June 2008 at 9:41 pm
Josh
I actually posted about this concept a while back at http://www.hinutech.com/web/josh/home/blogs/22560
I am not convinced that the large-scale social networks provide a lot of value over time. People tend to use them in the early phases, but interest begins to die down because the big sites like Facebook and MySpace aren’t personalized for their particular congregational needs. Having a social network for a church is very important, and having one that *integrates* with Facebook is a good thing because so many people are already on Facebook. Relying on Facebook to do all of the heavy lifting, though, will probably wind up disappointing folks.
17 August 2008 at 7:04 am
VK
I just stumbled upon this site. I am looking to do confirmation class discussions online somehow with a group of high school students. I created a Facebook group to “test” it out with my Christian Education group.
What other options might there be for a “threaded discussion”. I did a second bachelor’s degree online at the Univ of Wyoming and enjoyed the threaded discussion option.
Ideas? Thoughts? for our rural Wyoming situation?
5 April 2009 at 8:12 pm
Anil George
My church uses facebook as a means to contact our church youth members and pass information regarding events and news regarding the church. It such a good way to get to everyone because everyone uses facebook now for all sorts of purposes.
21 April 2009 at 9:24 pm
Rob Dyer
We are using Facebook to announce events and generate some connections with members who are not regular attenders. It is amazing how many people are willing to connect over Facebook even if they are not connecting at church. More importantly, I see members connecting to each other over Facebook and I am jumping is as pastoral care opportunities arise. Facebook helps me see needs quicker and provide an immediate care response. It also helps the church members do the same.
I am considering making Facebook a requirement for the deacons of our church. I believe it is that powerful as a tool to enhance our larger care ministry.
I am also looking to help other churches that are shy about making the leap into the Digital Age. Using my engineering background, I hope to make a difference with other congregations. Breaking the barrier from “not even email” to “online presence” is the process that I hope to enable.
30 April 2009 at 9:08 pm
David Hyson
I’m an Elder in my church. We belong to a fellowship of churches. They are all paranoid of using Facebook. Their fears range everywhere from someone taking our content and misusing it or Facebook “owning” our content. How do I launch a convincing argument that Facebook can be used effectively and safely for church purposes? Thanks.
17 June 2009 at 5:44 am
Patrick
I have tried for years to get online discussions going. The last one I had for our church that worked was back in the bbs days before the internet really got going. Since then it has been pretty dead. I see a lot of action on Facebook from members of my church including extended members who have moved away. Most of the communication is pretty light. I am not sure if this would work. One concern is people have to realize that if posts are public then anyone can read it. No personal info. Anyone have ideas how to wield Facebook safely? Public and private sections on Facebook?
3 August 2009 at 4:30 pm
JeannaMO
I recently set up a “facebook” account for our Church. Within 1 day, I had five members of the youth group (and leaders) signed up.
What are the laws for posting pictures for your Church on Facebook? Do we have to have signed permissions slips of the people in the photos?
I haven’t seen anyone talk about this on here.
So far, the kids love it and I’ve used it to announce special things about worship coming up (to try to encourage attendance!) It worked. Had so many teens that we ran out of grape juice in our communion trays and needed more (we serve wine and grape juice).
Awesome! And free!
16 March 2010 at 4:46 pm
David
JeannaMO, I guess the law is different in different places, so it would probably be best to seek permission. Also, I guess depends on context, e.g. homegroup prayer meeting vs large scale outdoor public event.
16 March 2010 at 4:02 pm
Jennie Lobato
We’d really love to post some of our music on our church’s Facebook group page. Does anyone know if this is possible? I’ve been able to successfully add a “music” tab to my personal profile but I think it’s blocked for groups? Does that sound right?
Name of church on Facebook: Atlanta Unity
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?v=app_2373072738&gid=30433803462#!/group.php?gid=30433803462
Thanks for any and all replies!
Jennie
16 March 2010 at 4:44 pm
David
Jennie, I am not 100% certain, but I think the reason you cannot do this is because you can only add applications (such as the music app you speak of) to personal profile pages or pages, not group pages.
I think this page summarises it quite well:
http://mashable.com/2009/05/27/facebook-page-vs-group/
Hope this helps.
25 June 2010 at 9:22 pm
Mandy
Hi,
I am trying to decide btn a group page (which looks pretty dead in terms of what goes on there) and creating a church FB profile, which seems a little more of a lively option…People will see status updates easier without me having to message everybody, etc. What do you think, which is better?
27 July 2010 at 5:49 pm
Lauren
If I were you, Mandy, I would create a Fan Page, it’s as easy for your members as clicking, “Like” and your posts show on their newsfeed!
5 October 2010 at 12:17 pm
mike
We did a facebook page using FBML for Alpha recently. We’re quite pleased with the results…
http://www.facebook.com/#!/ukalphacourse?v=app_148732151814176&ref=ts
27 February 2011 at 10:19 pm
Spring Hill Avenue Baptist Church
this article did not take me through the steps of joining my church to Facebook
18 September 2011 at 12:19 pm
I just want to open a group for my church 2day.
I just want to open a group for my church 2day.
30 September 2011 at 9:51 pm
Cheap Church Websites
So many churches make the mistake of trying to make their website do everything or create their own social networking within their site. Why? Go where your members are!
18 October 2012 at 1:11 pm
Interim Pastor: delay using Facebook pages for social media marketing
[…] Facebook and Your Church […]