After I got acquainted with blogging and then Facebook, a new face showed up in the social media community—Twitter, which now has 150 million subscribers. It took me awhile to figure out what “tweeting” is all about. Basically you can type a “tweet” (a short message of 140 characters or less) and post it on the Web—something like a quick telegraph message. The beauty is that you can use Twitter to send links to friends, followers, Facebook and elsewhere. It not only goes to one person or group, it goes in multiple directions at once, broadcasting your thoughts and Internet sites rapidly and widely.
What do you say on Twitter? Anything, if don’t mind being concise. For example, when you find a website you like or a blog post that inspires you, just hit the tweet button and that automatically creates a post on your Twitter page. All your Twitter followers can see it when they log on to Twitter, and all your Facebook friends can see it as well if you link your Twitter account to Facebook. This sounds like a lot of work, and it does take some time to set up, but once accomplished it works well, with minimal effort.
I spend 15-20 minutes a day on sending and reading tweets. Twitter is a fantastic source of ideas and other resources. Sign up and just watch the tweets go by for a while. Once again, when the time is right, you will find things to tweet to others.
Websites
It’s been said that if you are not on the web these days, you don’t actually exist. That’s an exaggeration, obviously, but it makes a point. People are choosing which church to attend by the look and feel of its website. Young folks are choosing where to go to school based upon the appeal of its website—which is actually an extension of the institution.
Websites are your greeters. When they send a welcoming message to large audiences, your church or school gains positive notice. When your website is lame or stale, that sends its own message.
One of the greatest initiatives of the North American Division is Adventist Church Connect (ACC), now augmented by Adventist School Connect (ASC). Every Adventist congregation and school in the United States and Canada has its own free and supported website, version 1.0. If you want to take that beyond its most basic level, advance to version 2.0 (still free!). Appoint a local webmaster or team to learn the Content Management System—which makes possible a church email newsletter and photo gallery, an automated content feed of top-notch news and inspiration, and all sorts of additional information modules. This might sound like a lot to keep up with, but amazing advice is available through a toll-free support line (operated right here in Mid-America at AdventSource in Lincoln, Nebraska).
So if you get excited about your local church or school website and want to see it become the best it can be, the ACS/ASC staff stands ready to help you make that happen. It might take an hour or two to set up your 2.0 site and then some time each week to keep it maintained, but the effort is well worth it.
Why not make your local church or school site all it can be? To see what some other churches and schools are doing with their websites, I’m listing to the right some excellent sites. Visit them for ideas and inspiration.
Mobile Operating Systems
The latest digital invader of my life is the iPhone Operating System (iOS). Several mobile operating systems exist—Android, Apple, Microsoft, for example. They all do similar things and you can choose whichever one you want—but that choice also comes with a hardware decision. For many years (since 1984) I was a PC (personal computer) guy. Now I’ve switched over to iOS-driven Apple devices. Why? They connect you like crazy. Apple’s iOS connects your iPad and your iPhone and your computer and your laptop and your family—and your church and friends and on and on. Apple excels at connecting and I think they will only get better at this.
Digital connecting is starting to enhance the study experience of some Sabbath school classes. Recently a teacher asked the class to turn to a passage in Revelation. Everyone used touch screen phones and mobile devices to call up the passage. I began wondering what this new way of searching Scripture would lead to, and what it would feel like week after week when people carried their Bibles in metal and plastic casings rather than in leather bindings.
As for me, I doubt I will ever let go of my leather Thompson Chain Reference Bible, King James Version. (I might even arrange to have it buried with me in my casket, if they still allow that sort of thing!) And yet I must acknowledge the stunning possibilities of Bible study and searching on mobile computing devices. So I carry both types of Bible to church, digitized and leather bound. I still read from a paper Bible each day, but I have moved over to studying in an electronic format.
Through time, knowledge and effort, all my digital invaders—blogs, Twitter, Facebook, Mobile Operating Systems and websites—have become good friends. They are useful and productive tools in ministry, and they help me make new friends for Jesus.
Social media resources:
www.twitter.com
Twitter enhancing platforms:
www.tweetdeck.com
www.twitterrific.com
www.hootsuite.com
IOS
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IOS_%28Apple%29
http://www.apple.com/iphone/ios4/
Websites on social media
www.drupal.org
www.joomla.org
www.squarespace.com
Interesting Blogs
http://mike4tune.blogspot.com/
http://martythurber.com/
http://michaeloutlook.wordpress.com/
http://outlookmag.org/category/bloggers/
Interesting Websites
www.capitolviewchurch.org/
www.collegeviewchurch.org/
www.denverfirstsda.org
www.allonchapel.com/
www.atlantabereansda.org/home.html
www.cpcsda.org/
www.paradiseadventist.org/
www.houstonsda.org/#
www.joshuasda.org/
www.pompanobeachsda.org/
www.downeychurch.org/
www.calimesasda.com/#
www.pucchurch.org/
www.visaliasda.org/folders.asp?uid=1
www.kelsoadventist.org/
www.outlookmag.org
This is second in a two-part series. To access part one, click here.
Besides pastoring New Creation and Capitol View churches in Lincoln, Nebraska, Marty Thurber ministers through the social media.
i am just thrilled altho there are some things which i do not understand.
Informative and helpful. Would like to see more on this genre. Thanks, Pastor Marty.
I agree!
thank you!
As you indicated in your article… without the support and input from your fellow church members, any on-line media efforts are DOA. Considering this is the age of communications, it staggers me that folks don’t wish to apply today’s capabilities towards spreading His word at the local level. They’ll use the time and effort to post pretty much meaningless stuff on Facebook but won’t take the time to investigate or participate in using this technology for the bigger picture. Yes, there’s the occasional posting of a Bible verse but for the most part, other subjects carry the day. Even after being repeatedly reminded that input is being sought for posting on the church’s web site, no response is received. And, why would I want to use Twitter, Facebook, etc.. to draw attention to a web site that portrays a dead church?
Thankfully, organizations like Amazing Facts, Amazing Discoveries, 3ABN and others are taking advantage of technology but the local level participation is depressing.
Yea, I tend to agree with you about Facebook, it has to be waded through for me to get much use out of it personally. I think it is still valuable up to a point in some communications, but it has become largely useless as a source of good information for me. Once in a while something pops up that I can use. I think that is the nature of signing up with friends like that though. If you come to Facebook to hang out with friends and whittle away some time or catch up with family, it might still be really good for some folks. Twitter and Google+ go in another direction by allowing you to follow other people who may not choose to follow you back. That one little difference makes Twitter and Google+ more interesting to me because there are some really interesting people out there that I can have some access to now. You probably already knew that but a lot of folks reading this for the first time are still trying to figure out the differences.
As far as help at church, I don’t know what to say to you that will help you overlook the absence of help you must be experiencing. I think you are not alone of course. Perhaps you can start visiting with the pastor and see if he or she has the beginnings of an idea or strategy about Social Media and the Church website. See if you can work with him to help bring attention to it’s value and how it might be used to make a difference for your church. You could ask Lonny at Advent Source to come out to your church or region and put on a training session for webmasters. You could encourage your conference to offer a training session at campmeeting perhaps like we did in our last conference. I tend to believe that as people see the possibilities they also become more inspired about diving in to help. I know it doesn’t always work that way, but you gotta start somewhere.
The feeds that are set up to provide your website with content are part of the solution and they can be changed to fit your church more closely, just check with Lonny at Advent Source. And the Sermons can be podcast if they are being recorded in MP3 format. Lonny can also set up that module for ya’ll. I would think you can get some basic information to put on your church calendar like who’s preaching and when the next social is, etc. You can start your own blog if you can’t get much interest from others, and maybe they will see some good from that over time.
Anyhow, If God calls you to serve in this are, He will empower you as well. Blessings.