10 reasons why social media matters for church websites

Love it or loathe it (and most of the time, I personally loathe it), social media networks such as Facebook and Twitter are here to stay and have become a dominant way of communicating on the net. With these platforms, a whole variety of online conversations are taking place with a level of connectivity that would have been unthinkable thirty years ago.

All these developments mean that we as churches have to start thinking about how we respond to the presence of the new kid on the block and connect with these tools in a way that is life-giving and useful in mission.

1) Social media matters because people are using it

In the book of Acts, we see a church that was committed to going out to where people were and starting a conversation with them. A lot of the time, Paul and others preached in the market place or the town square. Peter was asked to go to Cornelius’ house (the house of a Gentile). The apostles went out and started the conversation where people were willing to listen rather than expecting people to come to them.

For a lot of people, things like Twitter and Facebook are the market places of today – churches need to be there embracing them and being salt and light.

2) Social media matters because it is a conversation

It’s often tempting to think of things like mission as being a one-way sharing of information. We present the gospel and let people make up their minds one way or another. However, I reckon that if you look in the gospel accounts of Jesus, there is a lot more focus on two way conversations.

Conversation matters because we’re not selling double glazing but talking about a new way of being alive – and that is something we share through interaction, not something we present as information.

3) Social media matters because it is interactive

This is building on the idea of social media as conversation, but interactivity is something that is becoming ever more important in the use of the web. People expect an organisation to be dynamic and to have a ‘face’ to talk to. Part of making the gospel relevant means we need to engage with people on a level that meets their expectations.

4) Social media matters because it is how people use the web.

Now, there is always a danger with this one. You see it in some areas of life – the desire to get the latest and the greatest in life precisely because it is new. However, with something like social media, the time investment is well spent. A church that doesn’t use social media risks looking stale and out of touch with the expectations of people.

5) Social media gives a more informal, chatty tone.

Put yourselves in the shoes of someone who is wondering whether to go to church for the first time. You are nervous, you don’t know what to expect and you are worried you are going to stick out like a sore thumb. The church website you looked up looked pretty and seemed to be attractive, but the writing was a bit formal.

For someone like this, a Facebook fan page, blog or Twitter account gives a human face that static information just can’t give. It shows that people in churches are also generally (generally!) normal human beings who converse on a rational, human level. The psychological relief of this can be enormous.

6)  It fits into the history of how churches have always engaged in mission.

Paul reasoned to the philosophers on Mars Hill with their own philosophy. The Bible used the universal nature of Greek to spread its message across the known civilisation. Bach used music at the time to speak of God. Dostoevsky, Marilynne Robinson and C.S. Lewis all used novels. Cathedrals and churches used stained glass, architecture, sight, smell and sound to communicated their message. And Jesus used simple bread and wine to tell the mystery of the incarnation, cross and resurrection.

The church has always used the culture around it to share its message and has rarely felt bad about plundering from the Egyptians. Social media just happens to be the latest medium to come our way, and we should embrace it as such.

7) Social media needs Christians.

Now, don’t read this in an alarmist way. That’s not the intention. What I am not suggesting is that we mark all social media tools on the map with ‘Here be dragons’ in large, bloodshot letters. But, as with any sphere of life, good tools can be corrupted and polluted by human stupidity and selfishness. Social media needs Christians to be salt and light and to share the message of God’s love for humanity in a situation that can too often become introspective, harmful or egotistical.

8) Social media can be a tool for change.

Think of how sites such as Youtube and Twitter have been used in the Arab Spring to connect disparate groups of protesters and give them the feeling of being part of a bigger movement. Think of how charity tweets on twitter can get many hundreds of thousands of re-tweets, resulting in greater profile for the charity and, ultimately, greater income.

Now scale that down to your own community. Imagine how social media can help rally people in your town around a common cause. For instance, when the semester ended at St Andrews, my church there used a combination of blogs, Facebook and twitter to arrange a collection of food for the food bank we run that resulted in a collection of over 24 boxes stuffed full of food. This will all go to families and individuals in need and make changes to people’s lives. It’s worth doing.

9) Social media undercuts the idea of ‘successful’ mission.

This one may seem strange. Surely we want mission to be successful? Well, we definitely want to have an impact on people’s lives. However, there is too often the temptation to see ‘numbers’ as being the measure of success, where we measure the success of churches in terms of the number of members or conversions.

Social media undercuts this. By its very nature, it is elusive. Facebook, blogs and Twitter all focus on conversation. There are no measurable results to a conversation – that is not the point of it. The point is to have a quality of interaction and discussion. Social media undercuts our expectations of what it means to be successful and pushes us back to the importance of being faithful.

10)   Social media reminds us that our primary calling is to be human.

Not to be doing mission, preaching the gospel or helping the poor. Important as all of these things are, social media reminds us that our primary calling in life is to simply be still and know that God is God. To remember that we are loved and to share that love with others through relationship.

I hope that this article has inspired you to get your church a Twitter account, Facebook page or blog. I’d love to hear stories about how your church has engaged with social media – please do feel free to join the conversation using the comments box below.