Leading Online - Christianity Today

Some things are easy to do online. Want to broadcast a sermon? That's simple. Just post it on your website—or YouTube. Need to inform people about an upcoming event? Blast your email list. Want help with sermon prep? There's an app for that. Dozens of them, actually.

But not every ministry task is quite so easily accomplished via the Internet. How would you, for example, give a cup of cold water in Jesus' name online? Or comfort someone who is grieving? Not every ministry task can be accomplished online, but it is where people are spending more and more of their lives.

Social media is here to stay, and it is already the norm. It's the reason family vacations become global broadcast events via Instagram and every popular television series has its own #hashtag to allow people to see tweets from fellow fans in real time. If you're waiting for this "fad" to pass, you'll be waiting forever. Leaders who fail to turn the technological corner will find themselves ministering to a dwindling audience. We must engage people now, both online and off, for their good and God's glory.

But how exactly can we engage social media in a way that is shepherd-like? How do we pastor people via social media? Here are some principles I've found helpful.

1. Connect with People

In 2010, I received an email from David Chrzan, chief of staff at Saddleback Church. He wanted to talk about social media, online publishing, and how pastors were interacting with new media. Eventually, this led me to re-locate to Southern California to help re-launch Pastors.com, Rick Warren's online community of church leaders. My relationship with David started over Twitter, where he had observed some of the conversations I was taking part in. My life changed dramatically because of a conversation that began online. In fact, some of the most meaningful connections I've ever made happened over Twitter and Facebook.

If you lead a church, there are people in your vicinity looking for relationship. Online connections alone won't provide the relationship they're looking for. Yet, as I've found, online connections can lead to face-to-face relationships. You can use social media to initiate pathways that lead people into genuine community and, ultimately, into a relationship with Christ.

2. Join the Conversation

Conversations are occurring online all the time whether we join them or not. There are now thousands of tweets posted every second on Twitter. Trying to read the collective, real-time updates of even a few hundred people can feel like filling a thimble under Niagara Falls. People tweet and post constantly.

Since you can't listen to everything, it's important to tune into the conversations that matter most to you. I was once speaking to Saddleback Church's staff about using Twitter. While speaking, I was also monitoring a search for every tweet using the phrase "pray for" within a 100-mile radius of Orange County, California (you can do this under Twitter's advanced search features).

As I was speaking, a new tweet popped up from a gentleman in Los Angeles. He was asking for prayer on his way to court. A glance at his previous tweets revealed that he was likely involved in gang-related activities.

We stopped and prayed for the man, and I sent him a message on the spot about how Rick Warren and the staff of Saddleback Church were stopping to pray for him, and I asked him to follow up with us to let us know how his court appearance went.

He immediately replied with a big thank you, and the next day he updated us on his day in court, which apparently turned out well. There is power in listening to the right conversations and chiming in at the right times. It takes guts and a little knowledge to get beyond the entertainment value of the Internet to use it for making legitimate personal connections, but it is possible.

3. Speak Human

In the year 2000, three years before MySpace existed and four years before Facebook went online, some insightful guys wrote The Cluetrain Manifesto. They saw the social web coming before it arrived. In the preamble to their 95 theses, they wrote these words to "the people of earth …":

We show a slide before every service: "Turn your cell phone ON." We ask people to post their thoughts publicly on Twitter and Facebook during the message.

"A powerful global conversation has begun. Through the Internet, people are discovering and inventing new ways to share relevant knowledge with blinding speed. As a direct result, markets are getting smarter – and getting smarter faster than most companies. These markets are conversations. Their members communicate in language that is natural, open, honest, direct, funny, and often shocking. Whether by explaining or complaining, joking or serious, the human voice is unmistakably genuine."

The Millennium was barely born, but these authors had nailed the tone of the coming social media revolution. "The human voice is unmistakably genuine." As long as we cling to our church lingo, we will fail to connect with our culture.

Jesus was wildly popular among the common people of Israel because he refused to keep the Pharisees happy by playing their games and acting the part of the removed religious leader. He became human, spoke human, hurt as a human, and touched humans. We can do the same. Of course, being human has always been a crucial part of ministry. Social media is just the place where people are "speaking human" today.

4. Keep it Light

I've seen some pastors use social media to grind axes, thunder away at their least favorite sins, or just tweet their way through the Bible, a verse at a time. We need to speak in a way that is intelligible to outsiders. Perhaps nowhere is this more important than on social media.

Social media are public. We need to be aware that even if unbelievers aren't our intended audience, they may be listening in. Are we relatable? Everything we say online should be governed by biblical standards, but not everything we say has to be straight from the Bible or a sermon.

Some pastors struggle to switch from preaching mode to relational mode. Online ministry has room for both. Just remember that posting something that others find interesting, helpful, or humorous can open the door for friendship, which paves the way for the gospel.

That's not to say we can't share the message of the gospel online. I've told many church leaders that Facebook's "Like" button is the simplest and most powerful innovation that has happened online since Google. With a single click, a person has instantly recommended something to all of their overlapping circles of friends.

So take your insights, your sermons, and the stories of life-change happening around you and break them up into bite-size pieces. Then spread those pieces by using your website, blog, Facebook, and Twitter accounts. The goal is to offer something valuable and make it shareable in as few clicks as possible.

5. Watch for Pitfalls

Among the objections I often hear to churches being involved in this is that social media is dangerous. You'll hear of someone who initiated an extra-marital affair over a social network, implying that you should write off all use of social networking for ministry purposes.

Yes, any new communication opportunities also have the capacity for trouble if we use them wrongly.

Could something go wrong if we decide to use social networking? Absolutely. Should we then abandon that world? Absolutely not! As I was writing this, I was engaging in a conversation in an online group about the role of social media in the church. Someone asked whether churches should encourage or discourage the use of cell phones in church.

At our church, we show a slide at the beginning of every service asking people to "please turn your cell phones ON." We ask people to check in on Facebook and use our bulletin's mobile version as well as the online communication form to post their thoughts publicly during the message.

In the course of the conversation, one leader spoke of the irreverence of typing on a phone during church services. Another was concerned that people would be distracted with social networking and texting. But those conversations go on with or without us. People will be texting and tweeting in church whether we like it or not. Perhaps it is wiser to direct their usage of social media and invite them to include us in the conversations they're having.

6. Be an Encourager

We live in an anxious world. So much pain and suffering. We face the global giants of poverty, slavery, war, and other scourges. In such a world, it's important for voices to be heard that represent faith in an eternal, unshakeable God who cares deeply for his creation and offers the promise of redemption. It's also vital that we connect people to the body and away from their proverbial islands of isolation.

Church leaders can lead people in prayer with a Facebook post, share a proverb in a tweet, and privately message people in the middle of difficult circumstances. Most weeks the leadership at our church uses social media to ask the public if anyone has a need that our leaders can pray for. We've seen an overwhelming response from those who have been encouraged by this kind of personal engagement.

7. Spread the Word

With the exception of the golden age of mass media (which was short-lived in the grand scheme of things), news has always spread more quickly through a crowd than to a crowd. People have been telling stories since the beginnings of modern civilization. Social media is just a timely recovery of this ancient art.

Ultimately, there is no greater story to tell than the gospel itself. It's life-transforming and world-changing power is greater than anything the world has ever known. And since Jesus first gave his commission to the church, our task has been to tell everyone about him and recruit all of his believers to the cause of the redemption of humanity. Let's do that by all means at our disposal, including social media.

Brandon Cox is lead pastor of Grace Hills Church in Bentonville, Arkansas, and editor of Pastors.com.