Twenty-first century church planters may want to imitate the pastor who launched his outreach with an electronic strategy that included a blog, Twitter and Facebook. He was so avid sending Facebook messages to prospective attendees that the network expelled him until he persuaded them that he wasn't selling anything.

Veteran church planter Ed Stetzer shared that story during the opening session of a recent church-planting conference in Louisville, Ky.

"He planned this all out and had 500 people come to his first service because of a Facebook and Twitter strategy," said Stetzer, president of LifeWay Research in Nashville. "I was kind of surprised. The church is doing well."

One reason the former seminary professor thinks the approach worked is people had been checking out the pastor's messages for three months prior to the inaugural service.

"High Touch" Still Alive

"High tech" methods don't necessarily eliminate "high touch," though. Stetzer spelled out numerous ways new churches seek to reach ...