I was really glad to see alltop step it up with this new category.

Great post! Every community is different, so I suppose the idea of a local network would always be a little different depending on where your church is and who your audience is. But I do believe that in every way, a localized social networking model is a much better fit into the Church’s mission than a globablized one. Freecycle.org is one fantastic success story in local social networking and for anyone who is interested in launching a Church Community Network, I’d highly recommend signing up with Freecycle just to experience it and see what you pull from it. Drew, I look forward to hearing about the variety of ways that your network is utilized in the local community! I don’t have a specific answer to your question, but I do have a few hypothetical questions for the local church, to continue the conversation.

1) Where is God calling us as a Church in fulfilling the Great Commission? Are we confident/faithful enough in that calling that we’re ready to PRIORITIZE using our website to DO ministry online, rather than promote how we’re doing it at the church? This prioritization is important if any kind of local network is to be effective.

2) The foundation of the Church’s mission is its teaching of truth to others. Are we looking at this network first as an effective teaching and learning medium to help users understand and apply the Gospel message? Or is this simply a place where people get connected and hopefully grow closer together in a way that leads to spiritual growth? Have we properly integrated the two?

3) How can this network be deeply integrated with and add to the effectiveness of Church programs already going on? Example programs are sermons, bible studies, outreach programs, food drives, recovery programs, retreats, etc. To be clear, the question is not related to how the network can promote these programs, only how it can help them be more effective in doing ministry.

That’s all for now. Thanks for the great post!

Brendon

Just like other businesses, I would be for a group of entrepreneurs who were Christian who decided to start a social network site with kingdom operating/managing practices. Something that sought to engage others through ways that exalted Christ through the display of transformed people running businesses.

I wouldn’t lump all social networks together in saying they are about the individual though. They exist on a continuum between ‘all about me’ to ‘about the social group of which I am a part’. I do like MHC’s direction in organizing the network around groups, rather than individual identities. The City and Facebook both have personal pages, as well as groups, however, if I understand the City correctly, you enter through the group rather than as an individual. (please correct me if I am wrong there)

In considering a Church Community Network, I would think of concentric circles of connections with tools for more connection and awareness of the smaller connections. (ie: LTG > Small Group > Area Group / Neighborhood > Church wide > Region of churches > National) This would be primarily for making connections that include those who are directly accountable to one another for encouragement, ministry and prayer. Something that encouraged and facilitated the local pastor to participate in his group, in order to minimize the effects of Christians being primarily linked with and fed by national pastors through podcasts and such. I continue to see a growing trend of young Christians identifying more with a national, influential author/pastor/speaker than their local body and pastor. It can help and hurt the situation on the local level.

After we have connected the body through this network, then a section on the network that helps people engage their communities at a community level. You could include articles that encourage people to participate, even articles that show examples, but I would add real time ways in a local community to actively engage. Some people in each region/city/neighborhood willing to post community gatherings and such. I am working on how to do that well at the local church level through our “Austin Life” (http://www.somaaustin.org/austin-life/) section of our website. I have posted some community events on our own calendar with a link from the calendar page (and we use Ekklesia 360 for this). My goal is for our people to have an easy way to see the gathering points in our city and how to connect.

The challenge for me is that the data is all over the place on multiple sites and I am trying to plant a church, not build a social/community networking site with community events. But I would love to be able to have our non-church community say, “Wow, Soma Austin really knows what is going on in the city, and they are here to participate alongside us.”

Gotto go, but that is my quick shot at it. There is certainly more to it.