A lot has been written and reported about Facebook. Some say it’s on the decline, while others lament that the old folks are taking over.
I’ve spent some time on here, as well as in discussion with others trying to figure out the role of Facebook in the life of the church as well as in outreach.
Tonight, I was talking to a pastor who was strongly encouraged to join Facebook. He really didn’t want to, but did it anyway. He didn’t write much of a profile because he honestly didn’t know why he was bothering. But the Lord knew.
Within days, a couple of old friends found him and upon discovering he was a pastor began asking him questions about God and the Christian faith. The next week, some members of his church who hadn’t been around much contacted him and struck up an ongoing conversation. He told me he doesn’t have to post anything because people are coming to him with questions.
He serves in an isolated part of Canada, from a Lutheran perspective. There are people around who want to be part of a Bible study but the travel time is impossible. The pastor’s solution? Skype Bible studies. Every week the pastor and six others use the Skype conference call feature to study God’s Word. His only complaint is that the program doesn’t allow for conference video calls. (If someone knows how to do that, please let me know!)
We can never imagine the many ways the Lord can use the digital technology. We just have to be ready to follow His lead.
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About Me
- Ian Adnams
- Serving Lutheran Church—Canada as director of communications for more than 16 years, Ian Adnams is always looking for new ways for churches to connect with their communities and Christians to communicate the Christian faith.
4 comments:
oovoo (oovoo.com) is an interesting possibility for video conferencing. It works very much like Skype/Windows Live Messenger/etc. - video chat, text chat, send files, etc.
They have multiple levels of pricing (just went up as of May 11), but right now the highest is $17.95/month (US) allows for 6-person video chat. I haven't tested 6-way chat myself, but it sounds intriguing. The regular 1-to-1 video is good quality.
The other nice thing is that a subscriber can host a "video chat room" on a site, so everyone doesn't have to have ooVoo. All a host needs to do is give participants the link (provided to the host by ooVoo) and they can join him/her there.
Now, add multiple video chat to whiteboard features, and you'd have a killer app for sure.
Wow! That is such a cool use of Facebook! I have found the level of ministry I have been doing through Facebook has been incredible, but I'm just a parishioner. To be doing it in a purposeful, institutional way is exciting. It seems a perfect solution to reaching across the particular remoteness of our country.
Let's hope we can spread this info to other Lutheran churches and develop some new ministry channels.
Just heard an interesting bit on the CBC Radio the other morning. They were mentioning that Twitter may be looking for new ways of income to support their service (other than ad revenue) and mentioned the possibility of having it as a subscribed service. I think they were hinting at the idea of charging companies/corporate users for the service, but having it free for the end user (students, residents, etc..) and that Facebook would likely be keeping a close eye on what they do, and it's results.
I can't see Facebook ever charging personal users though, as they would likely migrate to a "free" social networking site.
If he was to keep the Ctrl button pushed down as he clicks on all those he wants in a conference together for a bible study, it .... should ... call all of them. I know that I have used this as a "typing" chat before with mulitple people
Great to hear that these gifts are being used to encourage & spread the Word.
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