Social Media Boot Camp for Pastors

I believe all Pastors and ministry leaders need to read this, and then attend an event like this.

For the last year or so, I’ve been trying to get my Pastor to engage in social media and he has resisted, for all of the reasons that one would suspect.

Now, our small church has merged with a large church, and my Pastor is now one of seven or eight staff Pastors. They are all on facebook, but none of them really use it to any extent. I am always thinking of ways to use facebook for outreach and discipleship, but they don’t think that they have the time.

I feel that if you have a church of 1000 people, you could shrink the feel of the church and make is seem a lot smaller and feel more connected than it really is.

Social Media Boot Camp for Pastors

There are currently 400 million active users on Facebook. They’re sharing 3 billion photos each month, 5 billion pieces of content each week and 60 million status updates every single day. A whopping 83 million of them are active on Farmville each month doing whatever it is you do in Farmville. And that’s just Facebook. If you want to connect with people, social media is where it’s at.

Learning the ropes of social media can be intimidating, but it’s crucial for pastors and churches who want to connect to all those people. That’s where Pastors’ Social Media Bootcamps can help. These are local events held across the country to help pastors and churches sort out social media. The events are put on by Jopa Productions, a company started by pastors Doug Pagitt and Tony Jones. One is being held tomorrow in San Diego and there are five more coming this spring to Durham/Raleigh, N.C., Nashville, Tenn., Chicago, Washington, D.C., and Minneapolis.

We talked with Tony Jones to learn more about boot camp and the importance of social media for churches.

Read the interview at ChurchMarketingSucks.

Update: Of course right after posting this I came across the following article at Communicate Jesus. Some pretty interesting reading.

Seven articles on using technology to advance the gospel

I’ve been doing some research into ways technology can be used in the Christian life, for a seminar I’m giving at the church weekend away this weekend. I haven’t found much online on this topic – but I hope to change this by sharing with you the ideas I’ve had on this topic. I’m excited about these ideas and opportunities, and pray that these may be used well to grow us in our faith and our love for each other. Stay tuned – I’ll post about this next week.

In the meantime, here’s some articles I’ve come across on a related topic – using technology to advance the gospel. Again, I haven’t found much on this topic either, but one article I was particularly encouraged by is number two in this list – “Plugging the planet into the word”. If you have other links on this topic, please share them with us. I’d also like to write some reflections on this topic – social media and the internet are opening up some big doors.

Technology and the gospel – leaders share their thoughts on “How do you see technology (blogs, podcasts) as tools to advance the gospel?”. Interesting, but I’m not on the same page on a few of the opinions expressed.
Spreading the gospel through technology – links through to a wonderful article in the Washington Post, “Plugging the planet into the word” on how technology is assisting the spread of the gospel around the world.
The gospel according to electronic culture: what if the medium is the message? Reading this reminded me, I need to have a read of Shane Hipp’s book, “Flickering Pixels: How Technology Shapes Your Faith“. Here’s an interview with Shane.
Proclaiming the gospel in a wired world. This article serves more as a warning.
The wireless gospel. Described as “A case study in evangelicals’ love affair with communications technology”.
Technology transforms gospel for teens. It’s not long nor reveals anything particularly new, but does remind me of the changed world we live in, and especially how this affects youth ministry.
Gospel must be shared with technology and personal witness. The Catholic church and its reflections on the place of technology and the gospel. “The old technology of personal witness and personal encounter and sharing faith is essential to the Gospel.”

2 comments — post a comment

Grace — April 30, 2012 at 7:34 am

Tweeting is the same thing as texting and I don’t think pepole should be texting during church. Their mind is focused elsewhere as they’re trying to communicate with someone else. I think it’s rude too for pepole to have their heads looking down while the pastor is trying to communicate something to them. I’ve heard musicians complain about this as well when it comes to concerts. They’re on stage performing and they see a lot of pepole looking down texting messages probably like At the concert, it’s awesome! when they should really just be focusing on the concert at that moment and enjoying what they went there to see.I always find myself realizing deep truths and personal applications for sermons when I’ve been sitting still and focusing on the sermon over an extended period of time, listening to all the verses and points the pastor has about them.

Reply ↓

GaryC — May 7, 2012 at 6:40 pm

While the post never talks about tweeting in church, you make some good points, except that I think that taking notes and reading the context of the scriptures that the pastor is using could also be considered distracting.

I also think that with many pastors shortening their sermons to twenty minutes or so, deep teaching is becoming more and more rare.

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