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This is the first in a series of articles that will explore how Web 2.0 is changing the effectiveness of ministry within the church.
We are going to take a look at the social networking site Facebook. This site, a competitor of Myspace, was originally targeted at college students. However, now it is open for anyone to join. Facebook has become a great platform for connecting with people and it is not littered with all of the garbage that you can get bombarded with on other sites.
Lets get into what Facebook can do to change your ministry.
It connects you to friends and family: Once your profile is setup you can add others as friends. They might be family, friends or people from your church or past. Once you are friends you can connect by sharing photos, sites, and personal information. Facebook also has a chat feature that allows you to chat with friends who are online, I’ll talk about this in a moment.
It connects you to others friends: This is the interesting part of social networking. You are connected to other people through your friends. You friend might know another friend who knows Chris Tomlin and now you have social access to that person. This kind of networking is fantastic as a resource.
Groups: In Facebook there are separate pages you can setup for groups or organizations. If your church has a ministry that wants to have a page on Facebook, it can. If you have a band that wants its own page you can do that as well. The church I attend has a group as well as groups for both of our youth ministries. People can make themselves friends of the group and recieve updates from it.
Events: Once you have a group setup you can send messages to all members about events that are coming up. Even better you can set up an event. The event will be set up with graphics, date and time, and any other information you need to add. Friends and anyone you invite can RSVP if they are attending, not attending, or may attend. This is a great way to get the word out about events, but also give you a head count if needed.
Messages and chat: I am a huge fan of streamlining things to be more productive. and Facebook does just that for me. I can send a message to everybody in my friends list, within my group pages and I can also set up custom message lists. Facebook just added a chat feature and it is great. It lets you know when anyone on your friends list is online and you can chat with them live. I have found myself using this many times to talk with the kids in my youth group.
For me Facebook is a networking site all churches need to be utilizing to streamline how they do things and to help connect people. Connected people = more effective ministry
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