kellycain.coma place to explore…

I have appreciated so very much the particpation of everyone here at blogference! I’ve had so much fun blogging and commenting with you guys! I’ve even twittered about it quite a bit using hashtags #blogference and #cccbf.

These conversations on social media have caused me to think differently about how I blog and how I utilize my blog. I definitely want to be a good steward of my readership and of my webspace.

I’ve been looking for articles and even had some of you send me some good ones. I follow Relevant Magazine on Twitter and just today they sent this article: Twitter: What’s It Doing to Us? that gives some really good insights on how 140 charaters just isn’t enough sometimes. Which discusses the negative affects of Twitter:

There’s also some fairly disturbing indications that this growing self-absorption may be dulling our society’s conscience. Researchers at the National Academy of Sciences have found that the lightning pace of media brought on by Facebook feeds and Twitter has made the average person increasingly indifferent to human suffering. Constant updates give us little time to reflect upon the information we’re receiving. The study found that humans have the capacity to sort information very quickly, but complex reactions like compassion or admiration take much longer to process. When we’re constantly inundated with tiny bits of information, we rarely take time to think or feel deeply about it.

As well as some of the positives,

But Twitter can also be an amazing tool for news and community. In fact, the use of Twitter last year during the deadly Mumbai siege helped to coordinate police and emergency response. Victims and bystanders of the attacks used Twitter to give real-time updates of the events as they unfolded, and the on-the-spot reporting it provided helped to hasten response.

Why should we be surprised? Most things can be used for good or for evil depending on how they are used.

It seems as if there is a bottom line that is surfacing among this research and in our themes across the board. Truly loving people, and truly caring about others can’t be replaced. After all Jesus gave us the real model for this. And as it says in 1 Thessalonians 3:12

May the Lord make your love increase and overflow for each other and for everyone else, just as ours does for you.

I found this website called, Church Marketing Sucks (sorry for the title – but it’s just what it’s called) and this is what they have to say on the topic of using social media:

Your church will never be great because you figure out how to use Facebook and Evites. Your church will be great because you commit yourself to living the gospel in a radical way, and you can use social media as a balanced part of that gospel-centered diet.

While I agree with what they’re saying, and to some degree I can see where they are coming from. After all church marquis signs are sometimes embarassing for those of us who are trying to not come across like those signs sometimes do. But can’t these marquis signs be an analogy for what our ministry says to people as they drive by or notice us? What do people notice about your ministry? What do they know about you? Do they think you’re an outdated student organization? Or do they think you have something worthy of their time?

We’ve seen the trends, we know that social media is it, it is NOW, and we as the Church must embrace it as one of the ways that we use to communicate God’s love and forgiveness.

There is no doubt that social media can be leveraged to reach more people, we as the Kingdom, have a task before us to figure out how to do that and how to do that well. Brian Barela, wrote this on his blogference post today,

I believe that there is someone out there with the ability to produce a culturally relevant, massively popular, viral action, evangelistic tool that could affect millions. Unless we as an organization die to this premium model philosophy in not only evangelism but in other areas as well (a great topic for the next blogference), we should not be surprised at our lackluster results in spite of a high investment of resources.

Just as we trust God that within a certain number of miles of every campus there are the resources to reach that campus, we need to trust God for tools that are relevant, that use social media, that would be viral and spread like (umm…) fireseeds throughout the world.

Or maybe the tools are already out there and there just needs to be someone, or a group of people, committed to looking for them. As I was thinking on this, I just thought of how this video my church did for it’s Christmas series, called “The Arrival” could be used to drum up conversation evangelistically, [rss feed readers video embedded]

“The Arrival” Intro from PC3 on Vimeo.

You could ask questions to follow up from this video like,

• What do you think is going on in this video?
• Why are some captivated by the door and some are not?
• Who do you think is knocking at the door? etc, etc….

I have a few questions for us to think on. Let’s get the ball rolling here…

• Are there any tools that you know of that are out there that you’ve used to share the gospel that could be shared through venues like Twitter, Facebook, etc effectively? If yes, what are they?
  
• Do you have any suggestions for how you can “use social media as a balanced part of a gospel-centered diet?”
• What do you think is the Church’s biggest barrier when it comes to using social media – lack of knowledge, lack of willingness, or something else altogether?
  
• How do you think Twitter, facebook, etc could be an amazing tool for community? How have you used it in your ministry to build community?
  

Thanks for all of your comments on if they blog it, will they come? and on an online movement?. I would love to keep this conversation going even though blogference 09 is drawing to a close. Be sure to follow me on Twitter.