Is your church on Facebook?

[lauriepop]

We are thinking about getting a Facebook page for our contemporary service at our church. Although the church has a website, we think this might reach more people or at least develop more of a sense of community for those who attend. The majority of people who attend our service use FB and other networking sites, and this might be a great opportunity to keep in touch with people outside of the church building throughout the week.

Is your church on Facebook? Any suggestions or pitfalls to watch out for? Any specifics we should avoid? I am fairly new to FB and would appreciate any advice.

Thanks

Laurie

[waynehoskins]

Our church isn't on Facebook, no. Pretty much everybody in the church is (including our pastor and all of the staff), but the church itself isn't.

Reach more people? Maybe, maybe not, hard to tell. With people on there from my high school days, college, theatre, church, past church, and Churchmedia all together, it's really cool to see people from different parts of life interacting.

[tedanderson]

Exactly. For catching up/keeping up with old friends, it's great. Sometimes it's even fun to find out that you and a friend of yours are mutual friends with someone else and you had no idea that this was the case. But as a witnessing tool, you are better off touching people with your own FB page and then leading them to your church.

I would come to Laurie's church if I interacted with her on a regular basis more readily than I would if I just happened to stumble upon the church's page. People that you invite to church will decide to come based on the personal relationship that they have with you. It's not very likely that a non-person's site is going to attract someone when social interaction is what people want.

[riafekim]

I too have been thinking about this but had a few concerns.

1. How much time would somebody have to devote to it?
2. What happens when people put derogatory information on the page. Which is bound to happen...

I like the idea not so much as a witnessing tool but more of a communications tool. I have seen a couple churches that do it well.

http://www.facebook.com/inbox/?ref=m...ing?ref=search
http://www.facebook.com/newspring?re...329?ref=search

There are more than those two but those are the ones I have seen.

They are able to communicate what is going on in the church. If I were looking for a church I don't know that Facebook would be the first place I would look for information but I may do a cursory search. If I found something and was able to see what people were saying about the church then great!

All that to say no we haven't put ourselves out there but I am intrigued by the idea...still praying.

[pianomandan]

My church has a FaceBook page. It is private, and everybody who wants to join must be approved by one of the admin's. Honestly, I don't like it as a communication tool. People are less likely to visit a F/B page than a web page. The F/B pages do not allow sub directories for pictures or videos, so you just have a big unorganized mess. After a certain number of 'fans' you aren't allow to send messages to all. Bottom line, the good old mailing list is still the best way to use the internet for communications.

All that said, many folks think it's 'cool' that our church has a F/B page.

[jksbc]

YES, we are on Facebook. I disagree with some of the comments and agree with others. Facebook has been around a while but is all of a sudden becoming a new phenomenon. There is a church plant in Atlanta that used Facebook and Twitter to promote their launch service. I don't know about not reaching people because they launched with over 600 people in attendance. If you know how to utilize the tools they work. I started a Facebook page for my church and within two days had over 100 fans. It's still growing. The social network is an amazing thing. Yeah, someone might not be likely to seek out a church by visiting facebook but how many lost people are actually seeking out a church to go to? Facebook pages pop up on one's profile as an invitation to become a fan. This huge network of friends encourage each other to check it out. Then once they become a fan they are drawn to photos, videos, discussions, etc. Another neat tool is events. Our page doesn't have restrictions. Anyone can become a fan. Once you're a fan you can post photos, start discussions, etc. Plus you recieve event invitations. The amount of time isn't a big deal. You can add as many administrators as you need to and assign tasks and responsibilities to each individual. Our admins are me, pastor, and the youth pastors. I recommend it. It's free so what do you have to lose?

[tedanderson]

It's free so what do you have to lose?

Not to negate anything you just said because you make very valid points. But as a general word of advice, we have to carefully evaluate everything that we do and we cannot be so quick to think that doing something is a good idea simply because it's "free".

Like when Riafekim raised the question, "What happens when people put derogatory information on the page." it was exactly the same thing that I had going through my mind. The stuff on your church site could be clean but lets say that one of the church's "friends" is into something ungodly? Or lets say one of their friends is into something objectionable. That can be percieved as being directly associated with your church.

One thing that I warn people about when it comes to these social networking sites (e.g. myspace, facebook, etc.) is that you have to be very careful about who you associate with and what you accept for free. One of the praise leaders in my church has a myspace page and he subscribes to one of those free custom add providers. One thing that he was not aware of was that the beautiful picture of the cross was also morphing into beer and porn ads.

One day I was on another church member's myspace page and I saw his add with the picture of the liquor advertisement right beside it and the first thing that I thought was "Wow! So this is what he REALLY does outside of the the church." Even though he was completely unaware of it, it sure looked like he was saying, "This is my favorite alcoholic beverage! You should buy it too!"

[lauriepop]

Thanks so much for sharing your thoughts and your experiences...I agree with both the positive and the negative comments listed here and hope this "dialogue" will continue.

jksbc...can you send me a link to your church's facebook page? When I did a search it came back with 500 Real Life Church results! I would like to see as many church pages/groups as I can for ideas.

As far as negative content, I believe that as an administrator you can remove any objectionable material, just as you can remove items from your personal feed (?) Of course that would not prevent it from being seen before it is removed, but I guess that would be just one thing that would need to be monitored regularly.

[MediaGuy]

Your approach to Facebook will determine your results. If you're centered on the church membership and building community within, then you'll approach it one way and certain results. If you try to use it as an outreach tool, you'll have to approach it differently, expecting different results.

Yes, you'll get some eye-opening revelations when your church begins to link together in social networking. I would hope that the church in general would begin to police itself, with members calling members to righteousness and away from sin when they see it.

The nature of social networking is inherently dangerous for and, in the end, decidedly opposed to, people and organizations wanting to control information - like a church afraid of it's image being tarnished. The whole concept is the decentralization of information. So, in order to implement tools like Facebook, you have to give up a little authority of what information is put out about your church (reality check - it's already out there, whether you have a Facebook presence or not).

What is a good medium is to get a Fan Page for your church, run by a staff member. That way, you can more easily control that information, and restrict negativity, much easier than with a standard Facebook page.

[jksbc]

The free comment was made in reference to the fact that if you try it you won't lose any money. I'm not promoting it just because it's free. I talked about this in another post. I went to a conference in Birmingham, AL hosted by ARC and Church of the Highlands. This conference is called Bug and is about how to use social networking to virally promote your church. www.bugconference.com These guys have proven that it works. Yes, there will be negative things posted on the page. No, we're not asking for that but at the same time, we're serious about the name of our church. Real Life. We are about real life. In real life there are people who choose to make derrogatory comments. Our page is monitored closely. Like I said before, we have three admininstrators who are able to remove anything that needs to be removed. Not only that, we also have many members who will report something as soon as they see it. Negative information is not a bad thing just because it's negative. Some negative comments, etc. can be a positive thing when handled publicly on the page.

[jksbc]

Oh, yes Laurie. I will send you the url. I can't now because I'm at work and the computer I'm using has filters that don't allow facebook. If you want to search again it's the Real Life Church with a neon sign on the thumbnail.

[lauriepop]

Thanks, Joe...will look for it later today.

Laurie