The following is a guest blog article by Wendy Spoon, web administrator for First Grace Church in Glenpool, OK.

Slovakia. Just the name both thrilled and frightened me. My husband and I were going on our first Missions trip together. I was excited for the opportunity, but at the same time intimidated. I mean, I’m just the Pastor’s wife. I don’t teach and I don’t preach. I sometimes sing and I do book-keeping. I maintain the church website and had been looking into social networking. But what was my purpose in Slovakia? And what could I do, if anything, that would impact the ministry taking place there.

May 5, 2009 arrived quickly.  Our time in Slovakia was busy. Every morning, afternoon, and evening we were ministering to cell groups, individuals, leadership groups, etc. My husband and another minister who traveled with us handled these meetings. I still had no idea what I could offer…

In between all of these meetings, I got on the computer. There were always people around when I had time to update our blog, and Facebook, and they began to get curious about what I was doing. I explained to them, that even though we were away from our home church, that we were able to keep them updated about what we were doing in Slovakia. This opened the door to my being able to share what was truly on my heart with the church in Slovakia.

I shared with them video of a song my daughter wrote that I have embeded into our website through YouTube and Tangle.  They were very excited to learn that I had takes these videos with an inexpensive point and shoot camera and that the use of Tangle and YouTube are free.  Most of their worship songs are original works because of the lack of materials in the Slovak language.  This allows them to post videos of their songs without violating any copyright laws.

But this is what I was most excited about.  You see, in Slovakia, there is not a church on every corner. There are many places of worship, but very few Christian churches. We ministered out of Prielom (Breakthrough) Christian Center in Bratislava, Slovakia. What we came to learn is that many members live in towns as far as 2 hours away from the church with Prielom being nearest Christian church to them. What I found interesting is that everyone of the members had a computer with internet access, even in the farm town of Trebula, where there are only 2 homes in the entire town. So, they have a need for reaching their members through the internet.  I was able to share with them ways to share their services through audio or video via the internet.  They already have the technology to make great MP3 audio of their service, but they weren’t aware of simple, low-cost ways to share the audio through the internet.

During my time there, I was able to share with the church leadership, the impact that social networking had made for our church. I began to recall the information that I gained through the series of articles from Ourchurch.com on Social Networking to share with them. Because of my recent Adventures in Social Networking at our own church, I was able to share with them simple ways to connect with their membership, no matter the distance between them. And because of those same tools, I am now able to keep in touch with Prielom and be a help to them as they begin their own adventure.

Something that I did not know until we returned home is how our blog impacted our church.  They were able to keep up with what we were doing in “real time”  and pray for us accordingly.  They were also accessing our blog on our multi-media computer at church and sharing the blogs on the projection screen during worship services.  This was also very instrumental in helping our over 60 crowd to understand the need for a website and for the church to have a presence on the internet.

We may not always know why God is sending us, or what our purpose is when we get there, but He does. He had given me a desire to begin an adventure of social networking for our church in Glenpool, Oklahoma, so that I had the opportunity to help the church in Bratislava, Slovakia to begin their own adventure.

[image by peterfenda]

fgcglenpool

Just a simple church in Glenpool, Oklahoma that wants to introduce the world to Jesus Christ.

www.fgcglenpool.com

The post Social Networking and Slovakia: The Adventures of a Pastor’s Wife appeared first on Christian Web Trends Blog: Church Websites, Design, SEO.

This is a guest blog article by Wendy Spoon, web administrator of First Grace Church in Glenpool, Oklahoma.

My husband and I set off to our yearly get-away to The Arcadian Inn Bed and Breakfast in Edmond, Oklahoma to celebrate our anniversary. But it ended up being the beginning of our “Adventures in Social Networking”. You see, Edmond, Oklahoma is also home to LifeChurch.tv.  They are a church whose entire ministry is based on internet media and social networking. It got us to thinking about how we, as a church, can reach out and be more effective in reaching people. Finding new ways to introduce people to Jesus Christ.

At this time, we had our church website. One concern is that we were not getting a lot of hits. Simply meaning, that people were not finding us because we had not given them anything to look for. This particular weekend, we were able to talk in depth about what God was leading us to do, and social networking became the topic of our get-away. While in Edmond, we were able to talk to the innkeeper (a member of LifeChurch.tv) and found out ways the church is reaching out using the internet and social networking.

Upon returning home, we began to research Facebook, Twitter, and what it would take to get video and a blog on our website. I have to tell you that before that weekend, my husband had no idea what social networking was, and I had only “gotten my feet wet”, so to speak. So we were embarking on a new journey and without fully knowing what to do, or how to do it, we jumped in to social networking.  OurChurch.com played a big role in our social networking adventures. The same week we “went live” on Facebook, OurChurch.com began articles on social networking. We used these articles to gain insight on how to use Facebook and Twitter effectively. As a newbie, we would refer back to the articles and even Google a topic that we needed help in.

We have made links to our church Facebook page available on our website so that it is easy to find. On our contact page, we have included links to our pastor’s Facebook and Twitter. We have a Pastor’s Blog that is updated almost daily during the week, and just this week – we have uploaded our first video sermon.

We are not techies. We just pastor a church that wants to introduce people to Jesus. Since making our church social and interactive, we have went from around 500 hits a month, to almost 3000 hits in a month. In the 2 years we have had our website, we had 1 person visit our church because of our website. With only 2 months of social networking, we have had 5 families visit our church. We get over 500 hits a day on our church Facebook page.

It is exciting because we are using worldly tools (Facebook and Twitter) for Godly means. We aren’t as concerned with who is searching or why, but that we introduce them to Jesus when they find us.

Wendy Spoon
www.fgcglenpool.com

[image by Erin]

fgcglenpool

Just a simple church in Glenpool, Oklahoma that wants to introduce the world to Jesus Christ.

www.fgcglenpool.com

The post Adventures in Social Networking appeared first on Christian Web Trends Blog: Church Websites, Design, SEO.