A Disturbing Trend

I am sorry to report a disturbing trend that I am seeing in blogs, facebook, twitter and other social media and I wondered if it troubles you? It seems to me that more and more people are voicing opinions through new posts, status updates and comments that are filled with bitterness, envy, criticism, anger, and self-pity.

Don’t speak evil against each other, dear brothers and sisters.sIf you criticize and judge each other, then you are criticizing and judging God’s law. But your job is to obey the law, not to judge whether it applies to you. James 4:11 NLT

The bible is clear on this issue of criticizing and judging others. That is why I believe that using any social media platforms such as twitter, blogging or facebook to criticize others is a sin. So why do people do it? I think some do it for the traffic it generates to their blog. I also think that it is much easier to criticize someone online. We don’t often get into yelling matches in the hallways of our local churches. We don’t criticize or humiliate our neighbors or friends when we invite them over for dinner or small group in our homes. Because in social media online we don’t have to look the person(s) in the eyes, we can pretend that they don’t hurt.

I continue to wonder why other Christians look on and even support those who behave this way and don’t say anything. Do we not have the nerve to speak up? Maybe it’s that we don’t recognize what is happening, or that it is just happening so much. I just doubt very much that we would just stand by as a brother or sisters property was being vandalized? Why is it that we stay silent as someone vandalizes the sites and esteems of others?

“In the Epistle of James, the author says no one can tame the tongue because it is a restless evil (James 3:8). In our day and age, we could say the same for our fingers as we write blog posts and leave comments online. Fingers can tap out to their fair share of destruction, effectively tossing Jesus’ Golden Rule into the desktop recycle bin.” -Ed Cyzewski We each have a choice to make. Will we continue to attack one another online or will the next time we witness an act of e-vandalism we will respond by trying to bring peace, clarity, and inspire meaningful conversation, or keep our flamethrowers ready?

-Portions of this post were inspired & taken by reading Collide Magazine’s January/February issue.

Connect with your church online pt. 2

In the previous post I discussed ways to drive traffic to your churches website by “giving the people what they want”.

Well, in today’s post I want to share some additional insights on connecting with your church online. Tip #2: Go to where your people are already at! Again seems simple, that’s because it should. Social networking sites like facebook, twitter, & flickr have already done the work for you. They already have the appeal of your people. Most likely you already have an account on one of all of those social networking sites. One of the most popular has to be facebook. Facebook makes it easy to create groups and fan pages. What’s the difference? Facebook “groups” in my opinion are best used for smaller and often shorter lifespan “groups” of people. Fan pages give you all of the same features and more then groups. Fan pages are also better recognized in search engines and now you can even create your own “nickname” just like you can for your own personal public profile.

First step is to have the administrator of the facebook fan page to go here. Once you create the facebook fan page invite your facebook friends that are a part of your church to “become a fan”. Also promote your fan page on your website and through email newsletters etc. This will now act as another mode of communication for your church body. Instead of expecting your church to come to your website to get news on events etc. Give them the news in a way that they already know and use on a nearly daily basis. New updates to your facebook fan page will appear in the followers stories section which allows them to comment and share the news with others. Go ahead and give it a try today!

Twitter & Flickr: At my church (Pequea Church) we have created accounts on the popular flickr photo sharing site, as well as the growing service known as Twitter. The great thing about both of these services is that they are so easy to use and are recognizable. With our flickr account I can have our missions team uploading photos that automatically appear on our flickr photostream. The flickr photostream can update our website automatically with the latest photos from events at our church. Even though we don’t have a lot of followers on our twitter page it is just another automatic way for followers to receive updates on new blog posts from our website. With a simple wordpress plug-in new posts are automatically “tweeted” to our followers!

Leave your comments and ideas below!

Connect with your church online!

If your looking for a way to get your church body involved with what is happening on your church website, give them something they want to read. Seems simple right? Well I find that many church websites tend to be just a web version of the good old tri-fold brochure. No offense to those types of websites (it is better then nothing at all) but your people are looking for community online! For many years Pequea Church has been publishing our sermon audio online. We have even experimented with sermon video. If you have dynamic preaching, your congregation WILL want to hear the message a second time, share it with friends, or catch up on messages while they were away on vacation!

Send-off prayer for missions team!

Another great way that I builds community online is by receiving direct updates from our missions teams traveling around the world! At Pequea Church we are a local church with a global vision. 10 years ago this Pequea Church was inward focused. Today, that has changed this summer alone we are sending around 80 people to places around the United States and to La Montanita Brethren in Christ church in Nicaragua. Missions teams build excitement within our church body. We celebrate each time our church sends a missions team! Our church body supports these trips financially and through prayer. When people invest in something the love to see the rewards. Our team is currently in Nicaragua and they have been sending back daily stories and photos as they work in Nicaragua! Our website traffic has nearly tripled since the trip started and the photos have been viewed thousands of times! Family members and friends of the team have been able to keep up with the progress as well as share the story! You can follow the story and see the pictures on our church website by clicking here.

What are ways that you develop community online? What are ways we as the church can do better? Give me your thoughts!