Editorials
Proclaiming the Gospel via Social Media
Social networking services offer new possibilities for parish work
June 11, 2009
Web workers from twelve European countries attended the Fourteenth European Christian Internet Conference (ECIC) in Finland. Social networks such as StudiVZ, SchülerVZ, Facebook and also Twitter, to name only a few, are changing the face of Internet-based communication. This is a development to which the churches of Europe must respond. Just as the church in villages and towns is often located on the market square and is thus for many a natural dialogue partner, the same function is now being performed by social networking sites belonging to private investors and companies, who set their own rules for interaction within their online communities. Thus, the largest social networking service in Finland, with whom 80% of the Finnish population between the ages of 15 and 25 is registered, has banned any religious and political content out of fear of sects and extremists. At the present time, however, negotiations are taking place with the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland to explore possibilities of cooperation.
By contrast, the church is having positive experiences with other social networking services in Finland. The online edition of a major Helsinki newspaper approached the Lutheran parish association with the request to manage a separate section on its site dealing with life issues. Now, in addition to their regular activities, parish ministers and workers in Helsinki are involved in the newspaper's online community and in this way are also reaching church members who otherwise would not be finding their way into church life.
In addition to its involvement in popular social networks, the Church of Finland has set up its own social network for various target groups. Currently, a team is being recruited that is to have ten members by the end of the year. The aim is to train 3,000 ministers and church educators in the years to come so that they can actively use the Internet in parish work at the local level. When asked how such a project is to be financed, those promoting the scheme reply that the church in Finland in the long-term must cut costs in its parish work, but seeing that young people use the Internet to organise their leisure activities, parish work can be more effectively organised for less cost if social networks are actively used.
A webmaster from Italy reported on an experiment in the Catholic diocese of Padua. Alongside the official diocesan Web site, the diocese has an interactive area integrating Youtube videos, Twitter feeds and Facebook profiles. The use of such services raises the question - and on this the conference participants agreed - as to what information is best kept private and what is public. For example, should church members be able to tell from Facebook profiles when ministers are sitting at their computers and surfing the Net? If a church communicates via such networks, there is a need for consultation and rules stating whether it is the institution itself speaking or individuals expressing their own opinion.
The task at hand is to find effective ways of using social networks, for they can be a low-cost means of communication. The Evangelical Lutheran Church of Latvia wanted to draw attention to its expatriate congregation in Dublin and to offer pastoral support to Latvian expatriates working in Ireland, who have been particularly hard-hit by the present economic crisis. Since many Latvian expatriate workers use their Latvian profile page to communicate with their families back home, placing a one-off ad on the social network was highly successful in connecting with this audience.
The Lutheran World Federation (LWF) reported on a pilot project whereby Swedish volunteers sent short messages by mobile phone from areas of Africa where there is no reliable Internet connection, which were displayed as Twitter feeds on the LWF's homepage. In this way volunteers reported directly on their experiences from the areas where they are serving.
A German participant introduced the www.unserezeiten.de project, an interactive platform for Protestant church members over the age of 59.
evangelisch.de, the successful record-setting attempt to twitter the entire Bible, generated much interest. Anyone could submit, either via the Twitter micro-blogging service or directly to evangelisch.de, a 140-character summary of a Bible passage. Its success was due in part to the fact that people were using Twitter to discuss what the church is doing and so the Bible itself became a topic of conversation.
Whether their names are Twitter, Facebook, StudiVZ, or Xing, it is important that Christians be present in these social networks and that church members make use of such online communities to talk about their faith.
European Christian Internet Conference (ECIC)