Here is an article that says what I have been saying for six years now, social media is not optional if the church intends to reach youth and young adults. We must be willing to meet them where they hang out, and that is on the internet. While they go to the internet for one reason, the church must go for another and that is to share the Gospel. After all, the church is called to go into all the world, teach, baptize, and teach (Matthew 28:19 &20). Well, now that world has to include cyberspace.
While social media evangelism is not optional, I believe though that "face time" with real human beings is not optional either. I have said so in the Saving S.O.U.L.S. group in the post entitled, "Where Is A Good Streetwalker When You Need One?" The church is not on her j-o-b. Non-believers are out there outreaching believers with activities, walks, and runs that don't have anything to do with God.
To be critical of social media, it is too isolating. It is easy to sit behind a computer screen and talk a good game. It is much harder to look someone on the eye ball and mean it. The lost and backslidden, or the "unchurched" and "dechurched" as we call them these days, come with baggage, varying personalities and real issues, addictions, mental and physical illnesses, and the like. Many of us don't have time to deal with that. Blogging, tweeting, and facebooking leaves too many more of us with sore backs and stiff joints from hours and hours of immobility and little exercise.
But with all of its drawbacks, social media is still not optional if the church really intends to reach today's youth with the Gospel of Jesus Christ. In far too many churches there is no crying, no giggling, no laughter, and no pitter patter of little feet. There is no nursery, nor children's and youth Sunday school for that matter. The church needs to get "linked in" or she's going to get left out.Off the Agenda: Social Media Is Not Optional!
I wonder, though, whether the main obstacle to people communicating their faith via Twitter. I think that's cool.
ReplyDeleteSocial Media Management,
ReplyDeleteI see your point. Twitter is less time consuming that some of the other forms of social media. For the busy church leader, that would be the way to begin. Most "internet evangelists," (my new term) don't use Twitter solely as their internet communication medium. I know people who spend a considerable amount of time tweeting. That can have a negative effect particularly if people are following your tweets via phone. A relative use to send me a gazillion spiritual e-mails a day. I love my relative, but her over-the-top emailing got on my last nerve! I believe church leaders who use Twitter solely might end up undermining the effects of their tweets if done to excess.
I agree, though that Tweeter can be an easy, effective way to share your faith.