I will be presenting a 3 hour Professional Development Seminar at National Youth Ministry Convention 2013 on REDEEMING SOCIAL MEDIA. In the lead up to NYMC I have a series of interviews with Christians using online mediums in a deliberate way for the Gospel. I have asked the same 4 questions to each guest and there are some fantastic posts coming!
The third guest is Steve Fogg. Steve has some really sharp thinking on how churches and Christians can use social media for the gospel. I enjoyed seeing Steve at work on twitter interacting with the world during The Bible Mini Series and benefitted from his recent blog post on part of his church engagement strategy.
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1) What church and/or ministries are you part of?
I’m the Communications Pastor (read Director) at Crossway church in Melbourne. I oversee all of the communications at the church which also includes leading the following teams creative video, graphic design, Web, PR, and of course my pet passion, Social Media.
2) What ways do you use online mediums in your ministry and witness?
Our website is our primary online ‘homebase’ if you like. All roads lead back to the site. [DM: Some correlation here with my DIGITAL SKATEPARK series. ‘Homebase’ has been covered in my HEADQUARTERS blog post and ‘All roads lead back to the site’ will be covered in part 9 of the series.
We use social media extensively on Twitter, Facebook and more recently Instagram. We are proactive in growing these social channels to tell the story of the life of the church. We do that in many ways. Here are some of the more creative ways we tell the story of what is going on from week to week at Crossway.
Our free church app for iPhone, iPad, Android and Windows phone also plays a big part in people’s lives. We’ve had 6,000 downloads and over 200,000 views since it was launched early last year. Our app video experience is exceptional (Thanks to the developers).
The video and audio sermons on our website are also viewed by hundreds of people every week. Especially on a Sunday. We know from our analytics that people view the sermons from all over the globe.
3) Why do you think it’s important for Christians to be deliberate in how they use online mediums?
We are all stewards of what God has given us. That means our time as well as other stuff.
I think it is really important to be yourself online. People can spot a try hard/fake a mile off. Don’t try to be something you aren’t. I simply share what is going on in my life which obviously includes my faith.
4) What advice would you give someone keen to be effective online for the gospel?
This is a hard question to answer because it is so broad! On a personal level I think it is just about representing Jesus well. That means in what you share and engage in, but also what you read. Who are you and what are you reading/watching when no one is looking?
From a church/ministry perspective on social media I think it is about engaging people where they are, not expecting them to come to you. I think social media is a real growth area for churches where most don’t do well in. Partly from a lack of people willing to do it, but also churches are very risk averse and conservative in nature. We need to voice what we care about more in the public space, that means in the social space too. I wrote about one way churches can improve recently on my blog. Most churches have this gap in their social strategy, if they have a strategy at all.
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Thanks Steve. Go check out his blog. Follow his tweets. Like him on Facebook. Feel free to interact below in the comments.