Making the most of Facebook

Wales online reports that Welsh chapels struggling for members are swapping prayer books for Facebook, hoping that younger people will be attracted by the social network site. Twitter is also being used. (I think this reported line might be a tad metaphorical; have the prayer books actually been ditched as yet?)

Some Welsh congregations have launched their own online TV station in a bid to salvage dwindling attendances. Annibynwyr TV is possibly the first internet channel of its kind launched by any denomination in the UK.

In the last three decades the average Welsh chapel congregation has gone from just under a 100 to around 50, and only around 60% of the chapels that existed 30 years ago are still functioning.

The Rev Andrew Lenny, president of the Union of Welsh Independent churches, says:

“We as a denomination are working towards utilising new media in order to engage with communities who we might not otherwise reach. While our key messages remain the same, we recognise that we have to embrace these new and vast means of reaching out to people.”

Samaritans and Facebook; Self-harm and You Tube

From a report released on Sky News:

The Samaritans and Facebook are teaming up to allow users to get help for friends they think might be having serious problems. Facebook has 30 million users in the UK and anyone concerned about people struggling to cope or with possible suicidal thoughts will be able to get help through the Help Centre.

The feature enables users to report specific content, like status updates or wall posts. For instance, typing the word "worried" into the help centre search engine will bring up a list of places to find advice as well as the option to report suicidal content. Once a report about suicidal content has been processed, the distressed person will be sent a message with information on how they can contact the Samaritans if they need help.

Samaritans chief executive Catherine Johnstone said: "We want to remind people that if a friend says that life isn't worth living, they should always be taken seriously. "Facebook is a part of daily life for so many of us and we must make sure that people online have support when they need it."

And connected to this, a brief report has been published called: The Scope of Nonsuicidal Self-Injury on YouTube. Early in the report they state:

The top 100 videos analyzed were viewed over 2 million times, and most (80%) were accessible to a general audience. Viewers rated the videos positively (M _ 4.61; SD: 0.61 out of 5.0) and selected videos as a favourite over 12 000 times. The videos’ tones were largely factual or educational (53%) or melancholic (51%). Explicit imagery of self-injury was common. Specifically, 90% of non-character videos had non-suicidal self-injury photographs, whereas 28% of character videos had in-action non-suicidal self-injury. For both, cutting was the most common method. Many videos (58%) do not warn about this content. [My italics]

Sorry, who killed the church?

In the middle of last year Richard Beck wrote a post called How Facebook Killed the Church, which has just taken off on the blogosphere again. It's a provocative title, and it's true in relation to what he actually says in the article, where he talks why people who went to church primarily for the social element find it's no longer necessary when there are umpteen technological ways to make contact. I quote:

No doubt, the vast majority of the people in a friend list on Facebook are strangers, acquaintances, or old school friends you haven't seen in years. But no user of Facebook is confused enough to think that she is "in relationship" with any of these people. These are just the penumbra around the core of our Facebook interactions, connecting with people we actually know and are friends with.

In short, Facebook isn't replacing real world relationality. Rather, Facebook tends to reflect our social world.

Beck isn't saying that these people who no longer go to church were thoroughly involved in being disciples - at least I don't think that's what he's saying. There are a great number of very comments to this post, and these clarify and deepen the discussion in a variety of ways. These are as much worth reading as the original post.

Congratulations

Christianity Today has published its annual Book Awards for books that in their judges' opinions best offer insights into the people, events, and ideas that shape evangelical life, thought, and mission.

I'm especially pleased to see Bradley Wright's Christians Are Hate-Filled Hypocrites … and Other Lies You've Been Told: a Sociologist Shatters Myths from the Secular and Christian Media on the list, and not just because the author sent me a copy for free!

As someone who works with [religion-focused] stats a good deal, it's heartening to see an author get to grips with what the stats have actually said rather than what someone thinks they've said, or wants them to say. He's not alone in this, of course, (Ed Setzer seems to do a bit in this regard), but his book is the first to focus on the issue - at least as far as I know.

Interestingly enough, just this week on Facebook, a very regular participant on that site (the pastor of a large youth-focused church in Australia who I will leave unnamed) posted one of his typical updates, and quoted stats - without any source. As he's now deleted the original post and its many comments, I can't quote directly, but he claimed something along the lines that in the States 3500 churches close their doors every year (?) but 4000 other churches are planted each year. He was saying it was a cause for rejoicing that the net profit was 500 new churches.

When I asked for a source for the stats, he ignored me, but when another writer got rather shirty about the issue, a considerable argument (as opposed to a debate) ensued. Helpfully a third writer actually posted a reasonable source for the original stats, although not one that really confirmed anything. Some insults passed by, both from the original poster, who lost his temper at length (and later came back more apologetically) and from one particular other person. As I say, the whole discussion was deleted - perhaps after the original poster realised that some of his remarks sadly didn't do much for his image.

I tell this story just to prove that the world of statistics isn't all bland and boring....

Official closing

Today, the National Mission Office officially closes. John Daniel and I stay on for a period, tidying up lose ends, but in an official sense we're 'not here.' (It's debatable, according to some lights, whether we ever were, but that's another story.)

So for the time being there will continue to be blog posts. The Service of Recognition was held last night for the Team - you could take the word 'recognition' in a number of ways, I suspect: recognition for the work done, recognition that we actually existed and did do some work (in John's case, a heap of work); recognition that the National Mission team will be greatly missed; recognition, belatedly, that perhaps it shouldn't even be departing the scene - but that's a done deal.

More than one person, in presenting their tribute, gave the impression that my main work has been to blog. That's not quite the case, although I believe that the blog has been one important aspect of the last three years in the life of the NMO. I've done quite a few other things while I've been here, from admin work to running errands to making coffees to cleaning up to writing up information I've researched (mainly for John, but also for other people) to doing a heap of reading online (the distillation of much of which has appeared on here or in the ezine).

Peter Cheyne, (the current Moderator for the Presbyterian Church of Aotearoa NZ) who was leading the Service last night, invited me up to speak, along with John and Heather. When I demurred, not being a person confident to speak on such occasions, he said, with a grin, Well, I guess we'll hear about it on the blog tomorrow.

Which means that there are people who read it. And one good thing about Facebook is that the blog posts published here also get published there....and get a wider readership. Considering that most of what has been presented here has been the wisdom of other people rather than mine, that's only as it should be.

Faith from different angles

Just for a bit of a laugh check out Steve Martin's 'Atheists don't have no songs' video. (Incidentally, his movie, Leap of Faith, from 1992, still stands as a surprisingly good 'discussion' about faith, real and fake.)

On another tack, I received an email from Rowland Croucher yesterday in which he explains how an introvert (like him) uses Facebook. If you're not already a Facebook user, you won't be able to access his page - and you may not want to - but he provides some examples of ways in which he's started discussions recently, all of which have got people thinking about faith, and the spiritual dimension of life. It's another positive way of using what some people think of as useless Internet flotsam and jetsam. Here's the list:

* What does one say to a sad-looking lady, who obviously has some mental health issues, who stops you in a shopping mall and asks: 'Excuse me, can I ask you a question? Is there anything wrong with my face?' (She was 'wall-eyed', and she would not have won a 'beauty contest', but... ')??? Two key responses: 'Why not ask why's she's asking?' And: 'Were you looking at her to prompt the question?' (Answer: no: the pedestrian traffic was fairly heavy!).

* If you were to put a brief 'Statement of Faith' together, what would it look like? Here's one I wrote about 20-30 years ago. Should I update it? (http://jmm.aaa.net.au/topics/missions_evangelism?p=8057). Most people picked up on the women/men in leadership section!

* When/what was the last verifiable miracle you witnessed? Then a link to an article about 'Weird Christians' here - http://jmm.aaa.net.au/articles/25441.htm . One response: 'I prayed over a couple in our Church in 1998 who just been told by doctors that they could not have children because of the man having a non-existent sperm count. She fell pregnant within two months and they have three children now. He went for a sperm count check after the first child was born and it still registered zero.'

* Addiction: “Just 'cause you got the monkey off your back doesn't mean the circus has left town.” “You do anything long enough to escape the habit of living until the escape becomes the habit.” “Why is it drug addicts and computer aficionados are both called users?” One response: 'I have a theory that someone who is addicted to self harm is doing it so they can feel. There is a real sense that they are emotionally numbed to the internal pain, there is a need for an external pain source to allow them to feel...'

* (WWJW - What Would Jesus Wear?) - A man has been kicked out of a church in the US - for dressing like Jesus. Neil Thompson dresses up like Jesus and goes to a new church every week. But when he got to St Paul's Church in St Louis, Missouri, police were called and he was asked to leave. Response: 'Obviously Jesus wasn't up on security plans when in the garden of Gethsemane. He was such easy prey to the mob and rejected the offer of a sword. We are so paranoid. Jesus deliver us from our preoccupation with our own safety rather than loving the outside even if he does prove to be our enemy and a threat to our lives. "He who tries to save his life will lose it".'

Digital Rivers Newtown - a short story

The Internet Evangelism Day website has given permission for the following 'short story' to be republished.

It’s not often that a completely new town is built on unused open land. But that’s where Digital Rivers Newtown was constructed, in a previously undiscovered valley. People soon came flooding in to live, moving from surrounding settlements such as Printville and TVtown.

A new ethos of communication quickly developed, with its own dialect. The immigrants took a little time to learn it, but for their children born in Digital Rivers, it was as natural as breathing.

Alongside the new housing came shops. Quite soon, the Broogle store developed into the biggest and most popular on main street. Its biggest competitor, the BingHoo mall, had a smaller share of the market.

Broogle had little interest in selling food and drink, and allocated no space in their building to such a frivolous pursuit. So everyone was pleased when a student started selling coffee and fruit drinks from a coffee cart on the other side of the road. Mike Zuckerbook’s Coffee became wildly popular and he was soon able to rent a new cafe opposite Broogle’s. His unique selling point was the layout of the tables, enabling customers to talk to a wide range of friends over their drinks. Mike was continually extending the cafe floor area to cater for the growth.

Then came developments that shocked Broogle’s owners. Mike started to sell some of the same products that they did, as well as others they had never thought of. No longer did residents merely drop in to Zuckerbook’s for a quick coffee after shopping at Broogle’s. People could often be seen walking down the street towards Broogle’s, notice their friends popping into Zuckerbook’s – or smell the coffee – and quickly cross the road. After an hour or so, they might emerge from Zuckerbook’s and perhaps cross over into Broogle’s for five minutes, if at all.

Digital Rivers was changing fast. Its residents were finding their own new incarnation of the interactive grapevine that has existed within communities for millennia.

This story, of course, references Google and Facebook (Google’s founders were Brin and Page; Mark Zuckerberg started Facebook). The phenomenal rise and rise of Facebook seems set to continue. Perhaps half of all web users will have Facebook profiles within a year, certainly the figure is already near 100% for younger ‘digital’ people.

Increasingly, Facebook is becoming a ‘web within the Web’ – a one-stop resource creating less need to go into the wider web world so frequently. (This is a reflection, in some ways, of the proprietary content that AOL and Compuserve used to offer to their subscribers in the early days of the Web.)

Recent developments by Facebook are enabling more types of third-party content to be integrated into Facebook profiles and fan pages. Expect to see further dramatic developments in this area, making Facebook even more of a one-stop universal resource. The opportunities for FB fan, community pages and groups will continue to expand.

Despite its various quirks, Facebook is now a powerful yet easy opportunity for any web user to share faith online: read how.

Congregational Websites

A website...is an increasingly strategic tool for congregational communication. One of my sons, who is 30, calls websites “our new front door,” and he says most people in his generation would never consider visiting a place they haven’t read about online. Money spent on website design and maintenance is well spent.

From Lynne Baab - in an article called Electronic Communication and Congregations in the Presbyterian Candour magazine (unfortunately I can't link to it!) Lynne recently finished writing a book on friendship in the Facebook age.

Facebook growth

Thanks for Bosco Peters for the following information. (Bosco is a great user of the Internet - his Liturgy page recently reached the million-reader mark - which goes to show that it doesn't matter where in the world you live, you can make an impact. Bosco's in Christchurch, and has been Chaplain at Christ's College for as long as I've known him.)

[A fortnight ago] there were 1,248,360 people on Facebook in New Zealand (population about 4,268,900 – ie about 30% of all Kiwis are on Facebook). The proportion is not much different to other first world nations.

Checking a couple of weeks later, there are now 1,375,560 Kiwis on Facebook (32%): 127,200 have joined within the last fortnight! In New Zealand! 10% increase in a fortnight!

You may not think this is as exciting as Bosco does - I'm in agreement with him that it's significant at least - but it does show that Facebook has enormous value for a large number of Kiwis. Yes, many of those who join don't go on to do much with Facebook, but their name and the links they've made to others remains until they finally decide to close down their membership.

Leaving Bebo

On his Liturgy blog the other day, Bosco Peter pointed out an article from his local newspaper which described the probable closing down of Bebo. He quoted the following from the article:

The site has lost members to Facebook, MySpace and Twitter.

Kaila Colbin, of Christchurch social media consultant Missing Link, compared Bebo to a party that people wanted to leave.

“You go to a party, everyone’s having a good time, but suddenly the momentum changes and someone says, `Let’s go to the pub’,” Colbin said. “And people start flowing out. And when people flow out, there is no way to recover that energy.

“The more you try, the more desperate you look and the more people want to leave.”

Bosco comments: Now reread the above, and instead of Bebo think “church” – your parish, diocese, whatever. Any echoes?

Check out the rest of what he has to say....it's quite thought-provoking!

Church of Facebook

The Church of Facebook: how the hyperconnected are redefining community, by Jesse Rice.
Some people think social networking fosters community. Others think online networking is superficial and competes with deep human interaction. Whichever side of the fence you're on, the Wi-Fi, worldwide movement is changing how we interact with others.
Jesse Rice believes that Facebook offers a profound look at our deepest needs. In his new book, he explores social networking and its impact on culture and the church.
"Facebook has become part of our lives, and we're just beginning to learn how to be human in it. Online, we have power over how we express ourselves. You can take the time to choose your words carefully, edit your responses, PhotoShop a picture until you get it just right. Real conversations, real relationships don't allow that. They include awkward silences."

Read a review by Brian Orme.

Read the first chapter online.

Stress and Burnout in Ministry

I've had a long distance association with Australian Rowland Croucher for a number of years, first when I used to buy his books in for the bookshop I ran, and more recently, with the advent of Facebook, in seeing his regular contributions to that site. I also get a (fairly) regular ezine from him.

In the last couple of days he's put together a short piece in which he compiles the main links to articles on his John Mark Ministries site relating to stress and burnout. Unfortunately, unless you're (a) a member of Facebook, and (b) a 'friend' of Rowland's, you won't be able to access this page.

So, over the next week or two, I'm going to give you links to the various articles he's focusing on. There are some basic ones on stress and burnout as well as pages where he lists still more links - the list goes on and on. (Of course, once you're on the John Mark site, you'll be able to access these articles yourself, although Rowland's made it a bit easier to find some of them.)

Some of these articles aren't new, by any means. Nevertheless, the material in them isn't dated; if anything the problem has got worse since these articles were written.

Here's a good piece for starters. It's written by Rowland, is directly on the topic (Stress And Burnout In Ministry), and talks not only about why pastoral ministry is so stressful, but also offers some basic advice on how to overcome some aspects of the stress.

I like the way he puts one of the recommendations for staying healthy:

2. Take regular time off. You aren't called to work harder than your Creator.

Develop a way of being 'through for the day' (at least most days).
Take your full four weeks' annual leave in one stretch (and make alternative arrangements for weddings, etc.).
Encourage your denomination to include two weeks' extra, all-expenses-paid study leave each year.
On your day/s off, do something very different from what you do the other days. (Wednesday or Thursday is best for preachers - away from the adrenalin-arousing Sundays).
Listen to Spurgeon: 'Repose is as needful to the mind as sleep to the body... If we do not rest, we shall break down. Even the earth must lie fallow and have her Sabbaths, and so must we'.
Jesus said, 'Come apart and rest awhile'. (If you don't rest awhile, you'll soon come apart!).

[Spurgeon should know: he struggled with depression a good deal.]

Take some time off to read this article. If may be a lifesaver!

Twittering Theology?

I know that Twitter - indeed, social media in general - isn't everyone's cup of tea, and many people are not persuaded of its value in terms of preaching Christ. So it's interesting to read Scot McKnight on the topic and find that he can see value in it for Christian leaders, and for Christians in general.

Social media like Facebook and Twitter has received an abundance of critique, not the least of which is that social media users are self-absorbed. But I wonder if we might turn answers on Twitter to the question “What are you doing?” or on Facebook’s status update into an opportunity for self-examination. It might even be an opportunity for Twitter and Facebook users to examine not just what they are doing but how it aligns with our mission.

For a typical anti-viewpoint on Twitter, check out this blog post from Alan Rudnick, in a blog called On the Bema in Ballston. (Don't ask me, I have no idea why it's called that.)

Archives Blog

This notice from the Knox College Archives Research Centre will be of interest to readers of this blog:

We are now officially on the web. A Blog called Presbyterian Research has begun that includes both the Archives Research Centre and the Presbyterian Research Network. So far we have placed a Susan Jones Lecture on-line and over the next week or so other lectures will join hers. You will also enjoy posts from the Archives that will keep you in touch with research possibilities, up-coming events, news that may interest, and the general happenings around the Archives and the Theological site.

Please make the most of the Blog, bookmark it, and do respond; we will love to hear from you. Please tell others who will be interested by passing the address around, linking it to your parish websites, your personal face book page, twitter and any other social network. This way we can reach a wider audience. Our next effort will be an official Facebook page.

I've included a link to this blog in the links in the column on the right for your reference. Looking forward to the Facebook page!

3 Subjects: Posts, updates and a Webinar

1. I'm very surprised to find we're just about up to 500 posts on this blog. If I get some time today, we might make it.

2. I've been out of the office for a couple of days...hence the lack of updates on here. This week will see that made up for!

3. Most important of the three subjects here:

On Tuesday, September 22, 2009 4:00 pm Eastern Daylight Time - that's four hours behind Greenwich Mean Time, or 16 hours behind NZ time, if my calculations are correct - Lynne Baab will be holding a webinar called Facebook and Twitter 101 for Congregations, in other words a webinar for Facebook and Twitter Beginners.

Lynne Baab is a well-known author and experienced webinar leader. She'll be connecting with Alban Institute from New Zealand and will provide an overview of the following:

how Facebook and Twitter both work;
how groups, such as congregations, can use them;
a brief discussion of whether we need to be concerned about online relationships replacing face to face relationships.

If you've been wanting someone to help you evaluate whether or not your congregation should be considering these social networking options, this webinar has been designed just for you. (And if you're in New Zealand, you can get involved in this Webinar....just make sure you've worked out the time difference!)

Lynne M. Baab is a Presbyterian minister and author of the Alban book Reaching Out in A Networked World: Expressing Your Congregation's Heart and Soul, as well as six other books and a Bible study guide. She recently completed a Ph.D. in communication at the University of Washington. She lives with her husband in Dunedin, New Zealand, where she is a lecturer in pastoral theology at the University of Otago. She is the author of two other Alban Institute books: Personality Type in Congregations, and Embracing Midlife.

Forget Economics, Think Socialnomics

I found the following video on Bosco Peters' Liturgy site. The stats are most interesting, and have probably all been surpassed since the video was made, such is the speed with which internet social media is moving.




As Bosco comments on his site: If social media is here to stay - how is the church responding? How is your parish or Christian community participating? The seven last words of a Christian community are, “we never did it like that before.”

Is social media here to stay? Certainly for the next reasonable period of time.

Value

And without wanting to overload you with Seth Godin, here he is again, this time telling us in about two minutes, where value lies in social networking, and where it doesn't.




We've talked a lot - and with enthusiasm - about facebook, twitter, and so on. These things are of value when there are real connections. Yes, it's great to have lots of facebook friends, and lots of followers on twitter - but in both cases there has to be a connection that makes the friendship and the following real. And that does happen: not with everyone, but certainly with some.

Facebook friends

Mark Broadbent notes that there are about 300 young people attending his church.
There are 413 people on the church facebook group.
Mark has -as of this date - 946 facebook friends (and adds: yes - i unashamedly collect friends - feel free to add me!!)
The five people on the pastoral team of this church have 1500 friends between them.

Does it mean anything to have that many Facebook friends? Is the friendship fickle? Yes, and no, to both questions. What's more important is how Facebook gets used in this situation.
Can Facebook be used to expand your influence as a youth or pastoral leader? Can it be used to make disciples? The answer to both these questions is Yes.

Social Networking 101

Do you still think that there's no great value in being involved in sites like Facebook, My Space and the like? That they're just places where people waste time, and don't have anything real to do with each other? That they're not really the sort of thing churches should be getting involved in?

Well, check out this speedy little piece of teaching on Social Networks.



It's done simply, cleverly and with humour, and gives you an easy way to understand the value of Social Networking (which, it points out, isn't anything new - it just happens to take on a slightly different flavour on the Net).

Bowling Alone, Tribes and Facebook

Robert Putnam, in his book, Bowling Alone, claimed that Generation X people were disinclined to join community organisations. He said, ‘social capital has eroded steadily and sometimes dramatically over the past two generations.’

In an article entitled, Social Tribes: from Bowling Alone to Facebook, Tamara J. Erickson disagrees - at least in part. She says this generation is very closely tied to long-standing friendships, rather than becoming involved in social groups where friends have to be made. These are sometimes called ‘urban tribes.’ In fact, ‘tribes’ is the in-word (Seth Godin has written a book based on it).
So what about Facebook, Erickson asks? She has some interesting stats. You may not be asked to join as a ‘friend’ of one of your children, but the fastest growing demographic on Facebook is the 35-54 year olds, with a 276.4% growth rate. Not far behind is the 55 and over demographic with a 194.3% growth rate.

From my small experience of Facebook in NZ, I would say this is happening here too.

Yet again there's an opportunity for the church to be innovative.