> @stickyJesus 8) Warning: Danger Zones

In celebration of Internet Evangelism Month, this is the eighth in a 15-part blog project discussing the book, @stickyJesus: how to live out your faith online.

I used to work for a non-profit and my idealistic right-out-of-college self was shocked when I realized that non-profits lived in a state of competitiveness. I thought I was avoiding competition when I chose not to go into the business world. I just wanted to help people. Non-profits have to sing for their supper and there are only so much grants and financial donations to go around, and that is what it becomes about.

Then I gave my life to Christ and joined a leadership team at my church. Now, my church was about supporting other churches and had a vision to network and become unified with other churches. I believe in that vision, and went to work to try and get it done. I ended up finding the same thing with trying to work with other churches as I did with non-profits: churches unwilling to even listen to each other because of competitiveness.

In @stickyJesus by Tami Heim and Toni Birdsong they said, “…you must master the tools needed to communicate the gospel to the world. And we’ve got to do it together. Currently, more than 33,820 denominations of the Christian faith exist. Imagine if we could all get in the same pew for a few minutes. We could change everything.”

In 10 years as we look back on what we did with social media this could be one of the amazing things that churches did- connect, unite, and create a network of support. Even if the church down the street won’t participate in your event because they are afraid that you’ll “steal” their congregation, online you can connect with a hundred more churches. Church communicators are starting to do this through discussion boards, blogs, and twitter.

We need to start doing this when it comes to spreading the gospel too. We need to show through our conversations and blogs what Christianity is really about. The way we can do this is not by acting like a lone ranger in the social media sphere, but by linking to each other, posting good devotions and articles (even if they are not from your church), having open discussions with other Christians about what we are going through in our walk and relevant topics of the day, and promoting what other churches are doing as well as your own. We need to get in a THE church mentality versus my church mentality, and social media can make this happen quicker and easier than ever before. We can evangelize on a whole new platform now and we can do it together.

Questions to consider:

1) Are you fearful of other churches?

2) Do you slip into a competitive mindset when you meet someone from another church?

3) Do you only use social media to try to reach out to people at your church or do you try to connect with people from other churches?

7) Christ followers: the game changers <– @StickyJesus project –> 9) Quiet: The Humility Zone

Jennifer Armitage

Jennifer Armitage is mother, wife, master of OutreachGeek.com, Director of Communications & Community Outreach for Crossroads Christian Fellowship, and freelance writer.