By Amber Leberman Photos by Craig H. Hartley
echnology,” according to the quote attributed to artist and scientist Bran Ferren, is “stuff that
doesn’t work yet.” Chances are, you fall into one of two categories of people: those who love to tinker with “stuff that doesn’t work yet” or those who find it frustrating. When someone in your congregation mentions the church website or the latest social media platform, you get excited—or you tune out. Or perhaps you’re some- where in the middle—interested in emerging technologies but wary of the time and energy each new way of connecting demands. Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Pinterest have become the equiva- lent of the town square. “That’s where the public con-
versation is happening now,” said David L. Hansen, pastor of St. John Evangelical Lutheran Church Prairie Hill in Brenham, Texas. “The place where people are making sense of the events of the world is on Twitter and Facebook.” Meredith Gould, author of The
Word Made Fresh: Communicating Church and Faith Today (More-
Leberman is The Lutheran’s manager for the Web and ancillary art.
M make social media manageable ission-inspired strategies
house, 2008), started a weekly ecu- menical Twitter chat about church social media, including congregation websites. Participants stamp their tweets with the hashtag #chsocm (pronounced “ch-sock-em”). Gould also led social media work- shops at the Southwestern Washing- ton Synod Assembly earlier this year. “Time takes on an entirely differ-
ent dimension within social media,” she said. “My sense, as a sociologist, is that there seems to be a 3-to-1 ratio. Three months, three years in physical time equals about one month or one year in social media time. This changes the time frame for planning and requires adjust- ing expectations about how fast something will happen.” For congregations that don’t yet use social media, Gould said, “I’d like for them to start at the broadest possible level, which is to ask: ‘What are our goals?’ ‘What do we want to happen as a result of using social media?’ ‘What do we hope to happen?’ and ‘What are our expectations?’
“Unless they start there, they’re in trouble. Social media tools are not a magic elixir that will fix problems churches, synods or bishops may
14 The Lutheran •
www.thelutheran.org
have with communicating with the people. In fact, it will shine a spot- light on any problems.” Gould recommends that congre-
gations choose social media plat- forms that match their mission. “If your church is known for exquisite music, you’re going to want to have a YouTube channel,” she said. “If your church is known for its archi- tecture, you’ll want high-quality photographs of your stained glass.” She suggests that congregations can use Facebook’s time line feature to document their history: “The Facebook time line allows churches to share their organizational history and provide visual support for their story,” she said. “You know that closet you have in your church that has all the pictures of the church since it was first built? Teach vol- unteers how to use the scanner, have them scan the photos and then start populating your time line with images [and very short descriptions of what they are] to capture the his- tory of your church.”
Work or play?
Hansen uses blogs, Facebook and Twitter as part of his ministry.
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