Guest Post by James Brooks
I attend what most of you would call a medium sized church here in London, England.
Over the years that I have been a member at my church I have found myself getting more and more frustrated at the lack of openness the church staff have had about using popular social media websites as a tool for community amongst church members and indeed, further afield.
The has been especially true as I have a) been getting more involved in social media myself, and seeing the power in it as a social media consultant and b) been seeing more and more people from the church, young and old, becoming more active on various social networks, especially Facebook and Twitter.
In the end I realized that instead of fighting and arguing with the staff at the church, I should just take matters into my own hands, or at least as much as I could.
What I am not trying to say here is that you should undermine the authority of church leaders, however for me to organize some of the church events that I was involved in using social media sites, and try to get more church community interaction happening online, was certainly not going to ruffle too many feathers!
In situations like this I find that it’s easier to apologize after if you have to than the ask for permission. Sure it was a risk for me, but one that actually, I hoped, would pay off.
By starting something small on social media sites which I hoped would end up being a lot bigger in the future, it showed the staff at the church that actually using social media worked and that there were far more people on sites such as Facebook and Twitter from within the church who wanted to interact on those platforms than they first might have thought.
Now actually in my situation this really worked out. I think it would be too much to say that it was completely down to me that my church has now “officially” started using Facebook and Twitter for community interaction, but I am so glad they are giving it a chance now, experimenting with it, and seeing how it goes down.
I’m giving you this story not because I want to speak to people who are in exactly the same situation, though, if you are in the same situation I hope that my story inspires you. I am wanting to try and show you that sometimes it can be super hard to reason with church staff, but taking a little initiative and maybe being a bit cheeky, though potentially risky, could reap huge rewards.
So I challenge you, next time time you see a gap where something awesome could be done but others don’t see it, why not try taking a risk and do it on a small scale to prove its worth?
