I wanted to share with you one post in particular that I found interesting titled “10 Reasons Your Church Should Be On Facebook“, and I would definitely recommend you have a good look around Franks site, as there are plenty of great articles to read and check out.

In the opening paragraph Frank pretty much sums up his entire argument and also supports why I believe Churches and Christians in general should be using sites like Facebook as part of their outreach and ministry.

Just in 2009 Facebook has grown 276% in users aging from 35-54, So you can’t ignore this communication tool.

Frank goes on to list his 10 Top Reasons Why Your Church Should Be On Facebook, they are listed below in summary, check out the original post for the full descriptions.

• Effective Communication – People are already using it.
• Share Photos – People love to see pictures of something they were a part of.
• Share Video – Facebook makes video so easy.
• Connection Point – Church websites are great, but lets face it, a church website is a one way conversation. (Unless It’s A Blog Frank )
• Easy Invitation – Since facebook makes it so easy for a conversation in an online environment, it can also be a great way for your people to invite others to church.
• Staff Visibility – As churches grow larger, it can be challenging for the average person that attends church to know who does what on your staff.
• It’s Fun – If you make the choice to have fun with it, you can have a great time on facebook.
• Celebrate Success – Sometimes in ministry I feel like we spend so much time focusing on areas we need to improve, that we forget to celebrate what we’re doing right.
• Rally The Troops – After you’ve got a good following, facebook can be an easy way to communicate a need quickly.
• IT’S FREE

Go and read Franks post and leave a comment if you have any other suggestions on how your church could be effectively using Facebook.

And while your at it, Follow frank on Twitter and join him on Facebook, this guy is definitely on track when it comes to using the web in ministry.

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• How To Create A Facebook Fan Page.
• How To Link A Facebook Fan Page To Twitter.
• What Do You Do With The Time You Spend Online.
• My Top 5 Ways For Churches To Use Twitter

As a Christian and especially someone who is trying to promote building ministries online, I found the information in Darren’s article very interesting, so I thought I’d like to share with you some ideas on how you can use your website and or social media accounts to accommodate the members in your church or ministry.

I think if we look outside the box and try to think about how we can best serve our brothers and sisters, there is a valuable lesson to be learned from what I’m about to share with you.

The image below is a screen shot taken from www.ruderfinn.com, What your looking at is simply a graph explaining what people do with their time spent on the Internet.

If you look at it closely, you will notice some very interesting stats.

Basically, the darker areas, closer to the edge of the wheel are the more popular reasons why people go online.

Here’s a breakdown of the top 10 reasons for people spending time online…

• Pass Time 100%
• Educate Self 96%
• Connect 92%
• Research 89%
• Share 86%
• Be Entertained 82%
• Keep Informed 79%
• Discuss 76%
• Be Part Of A Community 72%
• Escape 66%

If these stats are correct and I’m assuming they are, how can we use this information as a means to serve in our own online ministries and outreach?

With the exception of “Passing Time” which is a fairly vague description, the remaining reasons give us some information to work with.

First off, lets take a look at “Educate Self 96%“, the second highest reason why people are going online.

How can we promote Self Education in an online church environment? I know that my church runs various courses throughout the year, Could we have an online version of those courses that we could run in a membership site format while the offline course is not being actively taught in a class room environment.

This would help open up the ministry to a global audience, and not just limit the teaching materials to the local church members, it could also become an addition source of income for the ministry.

The next on the list is “Connect 92%“, People want to stay connected, can we give the members of our churches a safe environment where they can connect and be in fellowship with one another?

One idea could be, have a forum set up on your site, another could be, have a direct link to a Google or Facebook group, Or you could let people add their twitter I.D’s to a particular part of your site, sought of like a who’s using twitter directory, so any one in the church can find and follow each other using Twitter.

You could add an entire category to your site about “Research 89%” and it could also tie into the “Educate self” idea, ask for feedback from the members in your church about specific products and resources they have found useful and list them on a blog post, or in your forum.

By having an environment where the members of your church can tell others about valuable resources, you are also providing an opportunity for them to “Share 86%” any good resources or products that they find helpful.

Entertained comes in at 82%, so how can we entertain? Video, Audio and Pictures, are all great ways to share entertaining content. I know I get a laugh out of those humorous church signs you see pop up from time to time, and every one likes a good joke, So why not throw in a joke or two to help people lighten up and enjoy a good laugh every now and then.

Keeping informed is next at 76%, how are you taking advantage of the web when it comes to keeping your church members up to date and informed, This is why I love the idea of using blogs for your church websites, it is so easy to add new post’s each week about what’s happening in the life of the church, and especially with RSS already inbuilt into your blog platform, it makes it even easier for you to deliver the weekly church newsletters out to your members, giving them the option to stay up to date with the latest church news via an RSS reader.

Another great way to keep people informed is through Twitter, and of course email.

And the remaining three, Discuss 76%, Be Part Of A Community 72%, and Escape 66% all alude to being involved with fellowship and having the abilitry to communicate with others.

Is there any wonder why Facebook and twitter are becoming so incredibly popular, the creators of these sites have learned what people want and are giving it to them, How can we do the same, the information is there, we just need to sit down and figure out how we can give people want they want.

The ideas expressed in this article are only Ideas, I can’t guarrantee they will work for every single church environment, but if we stop to think about what these statistics represent and how we, the church are addressing these obvious human desires, i’m sure we will start to see an improvement in the way we communicate and build relationships in this everchanging world, because we can’t continue to ignore the power of the web in terms of connecting and staying in touch with one another.

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• Why Your Church Should Be On Facebook.
• My Top 5 Ways For Churches To Use Twitter
• Finding Your Own Voice
• Using Twitter For Your Charity Fundraising

All this week I have been receiving regular tweets from my Pastor and a few of the brothers I follow on Twitter and Facebook, with news from the Hillsong conference, and although I wasn’t there I could still get a feel for some of the teachings and ministry that was going on.

The motivation and excitement was obvious from the tweets I was receiving on a day to day basis, encouraging quotes and scriptures where being shared as regular as clockwork.

Which makes the rest of this post so relevant and applicable.

Today I was casually browsing through my Google reader, checking out what’s new in the blogging world and I came across this post from Communicatejesus.com about Twitter.

The post title “15 Ways For Churches To Use Twitter” Immediately caught my attention and I thought this was a great post to share with you, as it highlights some very good ideas on how you could be using twitter in your ministry.

I won’t cover all 15 of the points in this review, I’ll just give you my top five. You can check out the post for yourself to see the remaining ten uses your church could find for twitter.

My top five in no particular order are…

• Tweet to ask if there are any prayer requests, or share answered prayer.
• Tweet to let people know when the church website is updated.
• Tweet passages of Scripture.
• Tweet links to articles that will encourage growth in godliness.
• Tweet about upcoming church activities.

I would encourage you to check out the post and make sure you also read the comments, there is a couple of churches using twitter you may want to follow

More On This Topic...

• Why Your Church Should Be On Facebook.
• What Do You Do With The Time You Spend Online.
• Finding Your Own Voice
• Using Twitter For Your Charity Fundraising

The author of the post Michael Reza Aulia, started the article with a quote from the book of exodus, where God asks Moses “Whats In Your Hand”(Exodus 4:2)

Through a simple wooden stick, Moses was able to display the power of god to set the Israelite people free, part the red sea, make water flow out of a rock and stave of plagues.

Michael is basically talking about Blogging, but if you stop for a minute and take what he’s saying and apply it to your ministry then there is a very valuable lesson to learn.

The point Michael is making is, you have gifts and abilities of your own, God has given you these capabilities to prosper and grow your ministry whatever that may be, So in terms of your Online ministry, it’s so very important to find your own voice, recognize your own vision and where your true potential lies.

I know from my own experience that not all people are called to the same ministries, It talks about that in the bible, we are all called to be one body but different members, (Romans 12:4) For example I wouldn’t make a good Missionary, Because I don’t like traveling all that much, But that doesn’t mean that someone who really loves this type of ministry is any more or less talented than myself, Or I should try and be like someone who has a gift for this type of ministry.

The article points out 7 key points that you may want to stop and think about for your efforts online.

They Are…

1. Your Passion.
2. Your Writing Style.
3. Your Personality.
4. Your Knowledge.
5. Your Time.
6. Your Friends.
7. Your Traffic.

This is a good post that I recomend you read, think about the lesson and tie this in with your own vision and purpose for serving our god.

More On This Topic...

• Why Your Church Should Be On Facebook.
• What Do You Do With The Time You Spend Online.
• My Top 5 Ways For Churches To Use Twitter
• Using Twitter For Your Charity Fundraising

I had a tweet come through this morning from @problogger who sent through a link to an article on using twitter to raise money for your favorite charity or fundraiser.

This really opened my thinking as I have never thought of using twitter as a means of fundraising before.

It was interesting to read that a non-profit organization, devoted to bringing clean drinking water to developing nations raised over $250,000 for charity.

The article mentions that one of the reasons twitter can be effectively used is because of Twitter’s viral, real-time nature allows for a fast (and relatively low-cost) way to raise funds.

Some other ways people are using twitter to raise money is by setting up challenges and competitions, one example of this is where Lance Armstrong’s Livestrong Foundation recently found a donor who was willing to give $25,000 if the Foundation’s CEO, Doug Ulman, could reach 25,000 followers in three days (he started with roughly 10,000 followers at the beginning of the challenge). Ulman was able to surpass 25,000 and reach the goal.

Another example is where Hugh Jackman recently issued a challenge on Twitter to give $100,000 to the any charity that is best described within the 140 character limit.

The article also provides some details on two other services that are effectively using twitter to raise funds for charity and non profits, such as Twollars and Tweet4Good. So it seems it’s pretty clear that there are many compelling ways to use Twitter’s viral nature as a valuable fundraising tool for charities

In closing the article (Tweetraising: The Potential For Charities On Twitter) points out that there are some that may argue that the thousands raised through social media sites doesn’t match the millions raised through traditional tactics, including direct mail and events. But when you look at the cost comparisons you begin to see a new perspective come into the mix.

More On This Topic...

• Why Your Church Should Be On Facebook.
• What Do You Do With The Time You Spend Online.
• My Top 5 Ways For Churches To Use Twitter
• Finding Your Own Voice