of social networking sites in general should help make clear that the people most absent from many mainline communities—those under age fifty, men, and people of color—are most likely present in social networking communities. And they are far from uninterested in religious or spiritual concerns.
When we look at the profile of typical Facebook or Twitter users in light of our most immediate communities and those we most hope to engage, important questions are raised about how we map the world from our particular perspectives. From where you sit, what is the center of the universe, toward which the bulk of your interest, energy, and time gravitates? To what extent does that gravitational pull prevent you from engaging the needs of the wider world in your ministry? How would you mark the borders between your world and the worlds outside your door? Where would “thar be dragons”—areas of real or imagined danger that seem off limits in your community—and how do they stand between your ministry and those it would more richly serve?
The worksheets that follow are meant to help you think about what your world looks like from the inside out and, perhaps a bit more, from the outside in, since we’ve found that the best social media strategy is one that starts with an assessment of where you are right now. We’ve also shared a community social media assessment that will help you to better determine the resources and expertise you will be able to bring to your digital ministry and the skills you will want to develop as you move forward. Take some time, then, on your own or in small groups in your community, to think through the worksheets that follow as the basis for a fuller social media strategy.
PART I: MAPPING YOUR WORLD
As we’ve discussed, a map is both conceptual and spatial. It tells at least as much about how people see the world at any given time as it does about the reality of towns and cities or roads and the rivers they cross. People serving churches and religious organizations carry certain maps of the world in their heads as much as anyone else does, and these maps subtly guide the way we approach and practice our ministries.
For example, Elizabeth led members of a church communications committee through a workshop exploring the challenge of engaging people shaped by digital culture. They began by thinking about the mappa mundi within which their church tended to operate.
They noticed that, although their belief and the church’s mission put Christian witness at the center of their world, in fact, the challenge of keeping up the building was really, as one group member said, “our Jerusalem.” Everything revolved around dealing with the physical property, which hardly allowed them to reach out to those outside the church without a fairly transparent agenda to snag them as pledging members. Moreover, it meant that boundaries between the church and other community organizations were fairly inflexible, as few in the committee had time to take up work that might turn them away from member-seeking and fund-raising. However much they claimed to want to engage young adults and encourage greater diversity in their community, they had mapped their world in such a way as to set such people far beyond their borders, in mysterious, unexplored lands where creatures with which they could not imagine contending might roam.
Working together to sketch their map of the world helped them to see their reality more clearly. It also gave them the opportunity to identify places where they might build bridges, crack a window open a bit, or invite new kinds of networked, relational engagement. Of course, this did not just apply to digital ministry, but extended into their local ministry practice as well.
The first step, in both locales, is having a clearer sense of your own mappa mundi as it shapes ministry practice. From there, you can move on to consider who lives within your world and with whom you might like to connect and what borders you would need to cross. Use the guidelines below to develop a mappa mundi for your community, then go on to develop a fuller profile of yourself and your community members.
Your Mappa Mundi
Using a large sheet of flipchart or butcher paper, draw a map of the world from the perspective of your ministry or those of your faith community. The key below offers some icons that will help you to mark out the territory in which you minister, but be sure to develop your own images to fill out your view of the world.
PART 2: YOUR SOCIAL MEDIA PROFILE
Before you begin to explore social media platforms that might become sites for digital ministry, take some time to assess yourself as a social media participant.
Your Typical Church or Religious Organization Member
Now, you should assess the social media profile of your ministry. The Community Social Media Ministry Survey on the next page will help; consider sharing it with people in your ministry.
COMMUNITY SOCIAL MEDIA MINISTRY SURVEY
Social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter have become incredibly popular among almost every age group and demographic cluster. And, religion and spirituality are among the hottest topics in social networking communities. As we begin to consider how our ministry might engage this new terrain, we’d like to know about your experience with social media.
Once you’ve got a reasonable portrait of your community and yourself, place yourself on your world map in relation to typical Facebook and Twitter users. Where will you need to build bridges to connect more fully with people in your own community and to invite those outside into conversation with you? In the chapters that follow, we’ll look at very specific practices that will help you to do this, but it’s important to know early on where the opportunities and challenges lie. Looking in from the outside, how would typical social media users see you and your community of faith?
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THE REAL PRESENCE
Developing a Unique, Authentic Voice for Digital Ministry
 | There are two essential elements to successful personal digital ministry: presence and voice. Our presence as digital ministers should be compassionate, engaged, inspiring, accessible, and informative, but above all it must be real. It must be an authentic representation of ourselves as real human beings and as ministers. The cultivation of a distinct voice helps to distinguish us among the cacophony of voices in social media communities. In this chapter, we will describe what this “real presence” looks like and share examples of ministry leaders and congregations that are bringing a well-defined presence and distinctive voice to bear in their ministry. |
KEITH RECEIVED SOME SAGE ADVICE before beginning parish ministry. That wisdom applies to digital ministry:
