Hansen receives prayer requests via Facebook, uses his blog for sermon preparation and encourages parishioners to tweet during worship.
your goal is to reach people outside of the church, they won’t care if all you talk about is Jesus.”
Website as ministry Tracy Apps is director of communi- cations for the Greater Milwaukee Synod and owner of Tracy Apps Design.
Apps encourages congregational
Web committees to focus on mission by considering their website as a ministry. “It’s a tool for communi- cation,” she said, emphasizing the importance of using the congrega- tion’s website to tell its story. “We have 131 churches in our synod and some of them might be right down the street from each other and not know what the other is doing,” Apps said. “We need to be intentional about sharing our stories to walk in ministry together and with our partners.”
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He even encourages parishioners to tweet during worship. “At least half of my notifications of someone who is sick, or has a prayer request or prayer concern, or is in the hospital come through Facebook,” he said. Social media has made him a
better preacher, he said, because it’s helped him understand how ideas go viral.
“We’ll often talk about Sunday’s sermon during the week on Face- book,” he said. “I’ve occasionally crowd-sourced sermon ideas. I did a sermon a couple of weeks ago on John 14, so I asked people, ‘What does the word Christian mean to you?’ and I specifically asked my non-Christian friends.” Hansen’s blog was his first entrée
16 The Lutheran •
www.thelutheran.org
into social media (http://revdavidh.
blogspot.com), and he encourages other pastors to try it. “Part of our discipline is being idea-people and writing,” he said. “Blogging gives you a pretty safe outlet to test new ideas, to learn to write better, to fig- ure out what people respond to.” Through social media, Hansen’s professional and personal lives overlap. “Is it work or is it play? The answer is: ‘Yes.’ If you’re doing vocation, it should be both,” he said.
Hansen said listening and being
authentic are key. “You’ve got to be a real person. If you’re perfect and always happy and always just talk- ing about Jesus, no one will want to listen to you,” he said. “If part of
Although many congregations use volunteers to build their web- sites, Apps suggests professional design and development. “You get what you pay for, and you value it by how much you pay for it,” she said. When she works with congrega- tions that can’t immediately afford the websites of their dreams, she phases development so functionality can be rolled out as funds become available. Apps recommends that a team be responsible for content updates. “What I found works really nicely is to empower the youth and young adults,” she said. “Give them a pur- pose and a task, and that will keep them more involved.”
Download a study guide for this article (free to print/Web members) at www.
thelutheran.org (click on “study guides”).
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