Tuesday, 3 September 2013

Growing Elevate Church: The Usefulness Of Social Media Tools

By Dexter Long


God has gifted us with so many wonderful things and, amidst a highly-technological world, social media and technology has become a blessing in more ways than one. Spreading the word to the most remote parts of the world is now possible; breaking barriers and geographical limits. The church's use of social media has been a helpful vehicle in reaching out to individuals and to the community as a whole. An article from Internet Evangelism Day talks about the church use of social media, its usefulness and impact.

Evangelism, counseling and other church-related activities are founded on relationships, hence the use of social media is such a helpful tool. It says there that there is an obvious difference between the traditional understanding of one-way evangelism and the "withreach"approach that uses relationships.

Never use social media as a way of trying to preach or teach. The main purpose is to have a two way communication wherein there is interaction between the two.

Social Media has tools to successfully utilize in bringing out a positive change in the community. In the same Internet Evangelism Day article, it talks about the significant use of social media by the Church.

The most effective way in using social media by the Church is to use them and observe how the way others use it.

Church Use of Social Media

Personal and church use of social media obviously differ somewhat. That which is published in the church's name represents the fellowship. Personal use relates more to an individual set of friends and followers. Check these challenges and issues:

A lot of churches and its ministries make the most of social media especially the young people of the church. This is really helpful but there should be a distinguishing factor that separates it from internal communication among young people and reaching out to the rest of the community. The internet has many users but the audience profile is so vast, you will not have a defined audience to target and there is no 'trickle-down effect'. This means that whatever you talk about within the youth group does not necessarily mean it is being liked and appreciated by the other people. Why should they be interested, anyway? Do you follow or perhaps press the 'like' button if you are not interested at all? Well, that can be absurd.

The Web is not a medium to announce to everyone. The user should be responsible enough to select its viewers. However, this can also include topics that would be interesting to them.




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