Leveraging Social Media to Help Extend the Discipleship Experience Beyond Sundays

by: Rich Birch

According to a recent Pew Study, 69% of internet users utilize social media on a regular basis. The same reported showed that 92% of internet users aged 18-29 used social media regularly. [Pew Internet // Social Media Usage Report]

The age of living our private lives in the public sphere is upon us.

How are you leveraging social media in your church to help extend the learning and discipleship experience beyond Sunday and into the rest of the week? Here are some quick ideas that you could try:

  • Hashtag // Ask your people to use a specific #hashtag during the Sunday morning service to gather up quotes and reflections on the experience.
  • Post a Picture // During the week ask your community to use Instagram to take a picture of where they read their Bible regularly … or a picture of something that reminds them of the message from Sunday.
  • Share a Song List // Ask your worship team to start sharing the set lists from the weekend on Spotify and then encourage your people to follow those playlists.
  • Share Your Slides // Post your slides from the weekend service to Slide Share and encourage your people to share comments about the message and post the slides to their social profiles.
  • Video Reaction // Ask your church to post video responses to the message through YouTube and then share a few of the most interesting the following week.
  • Message Notes // Open up a publicly editable Google Doc at the beginning of the message and broadcast the link to it while asking your people to help make collaborative notes on the message from that service.

What about you? How could you see using social media to extend the discipleship experience beyond the weekend?

> Read more from Rich.

Would you like to learn more about the effective use of social media? Connect with an Auxano Navigator and start a conversation with our team.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Rich Birch

Rich Birch

Thanks so much for dropping by unseminary … I hope that your able to find some resources that help you lead your church better in the coming days! I’ve been involved in church leadership for over 15 years. Early on I had the privilege of leading in one of the very first multisite churches in North Amerca. I led the charge in helping The Meeting House in Toronto to become the leading multi-site church in Canada with over 4,000 people in 6 locations. (Today they are 13 locations with somewhere over 5,000 people attending.) In addition, I served on the leadership team of Connexus Community Church in Ontario, a North Point Community Church Strategic Partner. I currently serves as Operations Pastor at Liquid Church in the Manhattan facing suburbs of New Jersey. I have a dual vocational background that uniquely positions me for serving churches to multiply impact. While in the marketplace, I founded a dot-com with two partners in the late 90’s that worked to increase value for media firms and internet service providers. I’m married to Christine and we live in Scotch Plains, NJ with their two children and one dog.

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COMMENTS

What say you? Leave a comment!

Steve Saunders — 11/21/15 7:18 am

Thanks Rich, great article. I have seen a couple of these have a great effect, thanks for the rest.

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