What’s the best way to share the good news of Jesus Christ with people in your community? Are churches supposed to put on great services and outreach events that draw non-Christian people from the community to hear the Good News? Are individuals supposed to share their faith with their friends and neighbors?
The answer, of course, is both/and.
Even more than that, though, churches and the individuals who make them up can both be more effective at sharing their faith – online and offline – if they recognize what they’re each good at and work together.
People don’t have relationships or friendships with a church. They have relationships with other people. They listen to people. They trust people. It’s the people within a church that have relationships with those outside the church that don’t know Christ. It’s also the people within the church that have God stories. Their lives have been transformed. They have experienced God’s grace, provision, and protection.
Churches are great organizers and facilitators. They put on services and events. They have buildings and websites that can serve as the hub of their community of Christ. They can communicate and distribute content to everyone whose connected with the church.
Knowing that, here are…
7 Ways Churches and Their People Can Work Together to Share the Gospel Online
1) Share sermons. Churches – make your sermons available online. People – share them with your friends on Facebook, Twitter, email. Send the link to specific people who you think would benefit from seeing/hearing it.
2) Share events. Churches – facilitate services and events geared for unchurched people. Create web pages and Facebook events for them. Promote them on Facebook and Twitter. People – invite your friends to them.
3) Share God stories. Churches – ask people in your church to share their God stories in a worship service. Put video of those stores on YouTube, Facebook, and your website. People – share these stories with your friends on Facebook and Twitter. Send the link to specific people who you think can relate to the stories.
4) Share life. People – blog, Facebook, and tweet about what you see God doing in your life. Churches – listen to your people’s Facebook updates and tweets. Retweet those that will encourage others in your church.
5) Inspire and train. Churches – inspire and train your people to live their faith online. Preach about it. Provide resources like those on the Internet Evangelism Day website. People – listen, learn, and life your faith.
6) Collaborate. Churches – seek out and embrace the biggest bloggers, Facebookers, and Twitterers in your church. People – seek out your church leaders. Collaborate.
7) Share great content. Churches – follow creators of great Christian content – authors, bloggers, podcasters, video producers. Share their great content online. People – share and retweet the great content your church is providing you with your online friends.
Which of these ways is your church and its people working together to share the gospel online? What other ways can churches and their people work together to share the good news online?
Co-founder & CEO, OurChurch.Com
Paul has been the CEO of OurChurch.Com since its founding in 1996, combining his passion for faith and technology to lead the organization.
An accomplished writer, Paul has authored over 2,000 articles on faith and technology, featured on platforms like ChurchLeaders.com, The JoyFM, and his personal blog, LiveIntentionally.org.
Beyond his professional achievements, Paul serves as an elder at Journey Community Church and is deeply engaged in his community through his involvement with the Florida Sheriffs Youth Ranch and the Safety Harbor Chamber of Commerce. He is a contributing author of the book Outspoken! Conversations on Church Communication.
10 Comments
i love love love #7.
and totally agree that the net – and social networking like fb and twitter are brilliant tools for churches and groups to get the message out!
our housegroup and young adults group utalize fb to share content, teaching, resources, great worship songs, whats happening, encouragement, prayer requests, quotes, challenges, inspiration, bible verses, podcasts… such a fantastic way of keeping in contact and getting the right information out there!
That's awesome, Claire. Ironically, there's only one other person in my small group who uses Facebook consistently, none use Twitter, and about half don't even check their email regularly.
Ha ha! Sounds like my small group. Even more ironically is that almost all of us are IT people.
I so totally agree here. I remember the Pope stating to evangelize through all electronic methods available to us and I support that as well. I am the web minister at our church and believe in the power of the net. We have had our site with you forever. I try to keep our site connected with the homilies each week and links to events. It is an older age church but the newer families are into internet so we get lots of visits from them.
yes i am blest, i'm in the reverse, we really only have one or two that dont use it (or havent learnt to use it) – i put all my teaching notes and things up there – is a great shared resource for us all to comment and contribute to.
I think we need to educate all pastors on the use of Media for Christ….. I worked for Great Commission Media Ministries and just finsihed a project in my city.We used all forms of media to draw everyone to Christ and I was amazed at the level of knowledge our city pastors had about the internet…… and India is one of the largest consumers of online time in the world.
I think that just by sharing our lives with others online – with people we've never met – often give the Holy Spirit a chance to speak to them in a whole new way. I really enjoyed this post; thank you.
That is a great summary with great strategies…might reblog! Awesome
If you want to share some information about your churches, you need to unite with people in there more and more. It will help you spread the information to the people better.
I love the ideas shared here. One thing that I would like to add is prayer (corporate prayer, on-line written prayers and personal prayers) for OTHER churches to be blessed and for their growth. Prayer opens doors of opportunities but it also opens our eyes to see others with God’s eyes so that we are able to bless and support them more effectively. Allowing the Holy Spirit to lead in our blogging, sharing and “hashtagging” is critical.