Discover how to leverage technology in your church

I have to confess. For a church season that is focused on anticipation and preparation, I don’t have the best track record when it comes to anticipating or preparing for Advent (and Christmas) communication efforts in the months leading up to it. This often results in a bunch of hurrying and scurrying in a time set aside to for reflection, repentance, and preparation to celebrate Jesus’ first coming and wait expectantly for his return. 

I know, I know. It’s not even Reformation Day and you’re supposed to think about Christmas? But once Thanksgiving and Advent arrive, you’re probably going to be far too busy to spend a lot of time managing quality daily, or even weekly, social media posting. Instead of relegating social media to one more burdensome chore on your long list of holiday tasks, prepare and schedule social media content now so you can make the most of people’s seasonal joy while not burning yourself out.

People love stories. Look around you, everywhere you turn you see a story being told. Your Facebook or Twitter feed is full of small stories from people’s lives. Books, movies, music; they all tell us different stories.

As Christians, our main focus is on communicating the greatest story ever told; the story of God’s redemptive work through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

VBS is done, there aren’t any holidays any time soon, and nothing exciting seems to be happening this week. You've heard experts say you need to post daily to keep interesting, but you are stumped. What can you post about to keep your church active in everyone’s social streams when you can't think of anything to share?

The Instagram app (sometimes fondly known as Insta) was originally designed with simple editing features. You selected a photo, applied one of a few nonadjustable filters, and posted. Done!

I like Twitter for many, many reasons. I follow some really famous people on it because, well, that is the point of social media – to connect us together. But, one of the people I follow is probably one of the most famous if not the most famous single man on the planet: The Pope.

As we find ourselves in the middle of an election season, you don’t have to go very far to find people expressing their opinions on a variety of topics.  This has always been true, of course, but in the last several decades a new forum has arisen, allowing people to have unprecedented reach as they express themselves about things they’re passionate about, and they don’t always agree.

I have a lot of apps on my phone. I’ve crammed most of them into folders and relegated them to the last page, since I only open them once in a blue moon. But Instagram? That little app sits in the bottom row on the front page (a place of honor, since it’s right where my short fingers can reach it when using my phone one-handed). 

It doesn’t really matter how large your congregation is, there will always be more work to do than your church staff can handle on their own. If you take a good look at thriving congregations, their church staff typically isn’t comprised of doers; it is comprised of equippers. Of course, staff workers will end up doing a lot of the work themselves, but to really get things done, they need to be able to equip their volunteers to assist them in doing the work. 

Hopefully my previous blog post got you excited about the potential for networking and using LinkedIn! In this post, I’d like to share how you can easily build your profile, build your network, and NETWORK.

If you already have a profile on LinkedIn, I’ve included some information for getting the most from it as well.