social media Archives - Page 7 of 13

How to Act on a Calling

1 missionary for every 216,300 people – The Traveling Team

How can a pastor of a 300 to 5,000 member church give quality time to each congregant member? How can a missionary possibly give quality time to 216,300 people? How can a famous online Christian with thousands or millions of followers develop individual relationships with strangers? In a recent conversation, someone wanted to give a lead on a new believer to a missionary. Instead, I encourage every church member to tap into the resources available, the guidance of mentors at your church, and available missionaries or pastors to ask for help in answering the call to an unbelievers questions about Jesus. That’s what I do…one of my jobs as a worker with WorldVenture is to empower the believer to answer God’s calling in their own lives through social media.

Here are more stats from The Traveling Team.

MISSIONARIES PER RELIGION:

Tribals – 714,108,000 population with 11,900 Missionaries: 1 for every 60,000
Hindus – 984,532,000 population with 5,500 Missionaries: 1 for every 179,000
Unreligious – 831,267,000 population with 11,700 Missionaries: 1 for every 71,000
Muslims – 1,703,146,000 population with 4,200 Missionaries: 1 for every 405,500
Buddhists – 520,002,000 population with 2,000 Missionaries: 1 for every 260,000

With Social Media and technology, the church congregation can partner with their church’s mission and vision to reach their community, and the church can partner with their missionary organization to work directly with available missionaries in building local churches and local fellowship of faiths greatly reducing the above stats; thereby answering a calling.

Imagine if a believer in our own country took the time and trouble to build relationships on and offline with a non-believer who may not agree with them politically, culturally, and who may have come from another country. Imagine if that non-believer became a believer and was taught to share the Gospel with friends and family members via Social Media who live in their home country in their heart language?

But first, the congregation needs individual training on how to answer God’s call on and offline. It’s harder than it sounds. It’s much easier to give in to insecurity and pass on the opportunity to our pastors and missionaries. Developing those online and offline relationships can be acutely frustrating, challenging, but worth it. Learning about the culture, understanding the language (even while using Google Translate), and learning to care about the person you are speaking to in person and online is an important part of a church congregation partnering with their church in online outreach teams.

Just imagine…

To learn more about me, go to worldventure.com/nhahn. Support me in empowering a worldwide media movement.

How the Church Needs Facebook’s New Update

The Church Communication’s Facebook group had a post that said, “So is anyone else freaking out about Mark Zuckerberg’s announcement about Facebook Pages yet or is it just me?”

This was in response to Mark Zuckerberg posting here about a major update coming in a few months.

“One of our big focus areas for 2018 is making sure the time we all spend on Facebook is time well spent. We built Facebook to help people stay connected and bring us closer together with the people that matter to us. That’s why we’ve always put friends and family at the core of the experience. Research shows that strengthening our relationships improves our well-being and happiness.” Zuckerberg posted today (emphasis mine). “But recently we’ve gotten feedback from our community that public content — posts from businesses, brands and media — is crowding out the personal moments that lead us to connect more with each other.”

In a recent workshop for pastors and ministry leaders held on Tuesday, January 9, 2018, hosted by Southwest Church Connection and led by me, two people shared the frustrations they have with their congregation. The efforts of creativity go unrewarded when they post on their Facebook page. One person shared how the congregation only reacts to the page posts. They never share or comment. Another said, people in their congregation are inspired by what they post, but never give credit to the church Facebook page. In other words, if a church inspires you to add to the conversation on your personal Facebook, help promote your church by tagging them in the post. When Zuckerberg’s new update goes into effect, the church congregation will need to participate more in the church’s postings and online conversations in order to keep their church page from becoming irrelevant and keeping their budget down (pages and posts would need to be “boosted” to show up). Think of participating online as part of your stewardship and giving of your time. Is this an unfair decision from Zuckerberg?

Zuckerberg is absolutely correct in making this change. It’s a business decision, the radio reported earlier today, and very risky. He could lose advertising dollars, but the radio host is predicting that this decision will bring more signees to the already 2 billion people on this social media platform. It’s also an opportunity for the church to recognize their congregation as part of their marketing platform. When I say marketing, it’s a distasteful word, but when I say it, I mean it as marketing as ministry; or authentically connecting in meaningful ways using marketing techniques that work for business. It’s also important to note that this change backs what I have said many times to people–people don’t want to connect with a brand name; they want to connect with people. This is why a church should consider creating a social media team that they train on cross-cultural communication, story, evangelism, false cults and religions, and technology.

One person on the Church Communications Facebook group suggested a Facebook 101 class, but that’s not enough. I agree with one who said we shouldn’t share just Scripture all the time, but stories of our faith. I take this one step further; we should SHOW how we are living our faith through every day encounters, sharing our life with others we friend online through recipes, gatherings, online Bible Studies and life groups, etc. The face-to-face and online communities do not have to operate separately; it can operate together. After all, my philosophy is using technology and social media to bring people into meaningful conversations that lead to face-to-face encounters.

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“You Bring Your Phone to Church?” #Christian

“You bring your phone to church?” John asked me somewhat surprised and cautious.

“Yes, and so do other people.” I launched into great detail as quickly as I could due to a lack of time. “One person invites people to sit with her at church. She brings her cell phone to follow along the live sermon. Our church does a live sermon and a handful of us work to inspire deeper conversation about the sermon in the comment section of Facebook. I have a new phone, and this means, it can go total silence so I can have the live video playing and be there to serve the community online without disturbing others around me.”

“How do you focus on what you are being taught?” John looked troubled.

“Before the live sermon, I used to Facebook and Twitter my sermon notes. I can easily follow along the sermon. I even use my YouVersion Bible on the same device so I can keep up. So many times, when one does handwritten sermon notes, they go into a Bible or a notebook and never are used again. Why not share what I am learning with my community? If I am wrong, people can talk to me online about that, and I continue learning; and if an unbeliever is watching my notes, it allows for the possibility of more private conversations. The whole idea is to build a community inside and outside of church. Being available to pray for and answer questions during the live sermon is no less serving than handing out bulletins on Sunday or manning the Welcome Center. Some children workers can’t even hear the sermon most Sundays because of their service.”

When I had this conversation with John, I wanted to explain so much more, but we had to part ways. The most important thing one can remember when thinking about how social media impacts missions and evangelism is how we should use it to serve each other online. You can arrange for teams of people to serve on Sunday and some to serve during the week. All online and all using their own social media. With today’s technology, you can even do so while sitting in the service (tip: if your phone doesn’t have total silence, plug in head phones or go to the cry room of your church; you don’t have to wear your headphones; it’s just a way to keep the sound off).

Let’s reflect Jesus in our conversations as it is not about growing the church, but inviting people to participate in meaningful conversations so we share the Good News with people in our communities.

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