Facebook Killed the Church
A co-worker at MonkDev posted this article, How Facebook Killed the Church written by Richard Beck, Associate Professor and experimental psychologist at Abilene Christian University. Here are some brief thoughts on a couple of the points made:
Why didn’t Gen X leave the church while the Millennials are leaving in droves? It’s about those cellphones. It’s about relationships and connectivity.
Is Facebook and cell phone connectivity really killing the church? Or is the rise of social networking a reflection of a sociological shift that was already occurring in the US that reinforces the decentralization of power, rejection of modern concepts and the desire for people to seek out new forms of community. The author continues:
Church has always been about social affiliation. You met your friends, discussed your week, talked football, shared information about good schools, talked local politics, got the scoop, and made social plans (“Let’s get together for dinner this week!”).
Why wouldn’t we say that the many who are leaving demonstrate 1 John 2:19. (They went out from us, but they did not really belong to us. For if they had belonged to us, they would have remained with us; but their going showed that none of them belonged to us. ) Cultural Christianity is a deep epidemic in the Church, the numbers (my opinion) would astound us if we actually knew the number of unsaved religious Christians. This comment in the article reinforces the false Christianity. While certainly the church provides a third place of social connectivity that is the not primary reason God formed a community reconciled to Himself to be on mission to the world. As the culture shifts what will take place is that many established churches, which were appropriate in modernity may lose people but in this changing time God is leading others to start new churches that reflect the ideology generation resonates with.
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Best Practices for Online Ministry
What are the best tools for ministries to create impact online?
What impact does a ministry web site have on online giving?
How do leading ministries manage their web effort?
What emerging technologies are ministry leaders preparing for?
Through conversations with ministry leaders, it is apparent that there are fundamental differences between how parachurch organizations and local churches do ministry online. As part of Monk Development’s continued commitment to help these organizations to achieve excellence online, we have partnered with the Christian Leadership Alliance to address these differences and identify the significant issues that are impacting ministries.
In preparation for the 2010 Ministry Internet & Technology conference in April, we are leading a survey and analytics study that will identify best practices, trends, and case studies that will bring clarity, guidance, and new opportunities for ministries online.
We invite all ministry leaders and staff to participate in the Excellence in Online Ministry Survey. The survey explores best practices for strategy development, managing web efforts, and maximizing the impact of ministries online.
You are also invited to participate in the Ministry Web Site Effectiveness Study. This study will examine 50-100 ministries’ web site analytics to find performance benchmarks and best practices for effective design and usage of ministry web sites.
Would you like your ministry to participate? We ask that participating ministries to send the Excellence in Online Ministry survey to all staff members who contribute to your web efforts. We also ask that you have Google Analytics set-up on your site for at least 3-months, preferably a year. Participating ministries will receive a free, exclusive report of the findings from this research.
Our hope is that this research will help bring ministries together to learn from each other and increase the effectiveness of our online efforts.
Also see: State of Ministry Online
Church Plant Website
Monk Development has partnered with Park Community Church in Chicago to give an amazing website to a church planter.
If you are a church plant that needs to establish a solid web presence and don’t have the resources or finances to make it happen, this is an opportunity for you to get a solid web design and 1 year of support and hosting with Ekklesia360.
To enter, simply leave a comment at Tim Schraeder’s blog, sharing a bit about who you are, where your church is/will be, and the vision of your church.
We’ll be accepting entries now through Friday, February 26. Tim and I will pick the winner and announce them on his blog on Friday, March 5.
Church Web Optimizer
MonkDev is doing a soft-launch of Church Web Optimizer, what we hope is a powerful service to help local churches do ministry online. Church Website Optimization is the culmination of years worth of research into what makes an effective church web strategy. Monk is the only company to base our website optimization recommendations off of real research from thousands of churches and ministries that we serve!
Our studies include the results from over 100 church websites’ analytics data and thousands of church member surveys, giving Monk a unique perspective on what makes an effective church website. This real world research provides the best insight on achieving desired outcomes with proven recommendations to help your church perform better online. This means our recommendations come from best practices.
Church Website Optimization includes:
- Google Analytics Installation
- Google Webmaster Tools Installation
- Google Sitemaps Submission
- Church Website Analytics /Pre-SEO Evaluation and Conference Call
- Google Local Search Submission
- Featured Directory Submission on Church Cloud & Sermon Cloud
- Online Targeted Advertising (eg. Google Adwords)
- Social Media Strategy Implementation
- Full SEO Services: Link building, SERPS Monitoring and Custom SEO Implementation
Church iPhone and Mobile Phone Websites
Ekklesia 360 (or if your site was designed by one of our 50 designer parters or resellers) offers an iPhone ready website for your chuch. More people have mobile phones than computers today and mobile web-ready phones are expected to grow by 50% over the next two years. It will be increasingly important for churches and ministries to offer a mobile experience to your users as it is forecast that by as soon as 2020 mobile will be the most common way people experience the Internet.
View more mobile website screenshots on our Facebook page.
State of Ministry Online
The State of Ministry Online has launched a website. State of Ministry Online is a collection of studies, surveys and research to benefit how ministries do ministry online. These studies involve surveys, interviews, web analytics and other research methods. Learn best practices for ministries online. (Note: This site will be more geared toward ‘ministries’ rather than ‘church web strategies‘. ) Also of note:
- Gathering of CIO’s & Strategic Web Ministry Leaders – State of Ministry Online is partnering with CIO of Salvation Army and previous CIO of World Vision to engage in a strategic conversation about the future of web and how it will impact ministries. (Limited spots)
- Releasing Best Practices & Case Studies - Join us at the CLA Ministry Internet & Technology Summit where we will release valuable information help your ministry online. Gather with ministry leaders from around the world.
- Join us on Facebook – Become a Facebook fan and track news releases, online ministry articles and more.
Drew Goodmanson
CEO of Monk Development creators of Ekklesia 360. Co-Founder of Kaleo Church where I served as Pastor for 8+ years and helped coach several church plants in San Diego. Co-Founder of the GCM Collective, President of the Board at the Center for Church Communication, Board Member of the Entrepreneurship Organization, Internet/Technology Advisory Chair at the Christian Leadership Alliance. Connect
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