Facebook for Faith: When we use social media for tithes, offerings, and stewardship

Facebook recently launched Faith for Facebook, a resource portal for religious leaders. The portal provides documentation, case studies, and how-to resources on Groups and Facebook Live, likely the most utilized resources among faith communities. Beneath the content on communities and video is a section on charitable giving: Fundraising on Facebook.

According to Facebook's documentation, Facebook covers "all fees for donations made on Facebook to charitable organizations." Churches that qualify as 501(c)(3) organizations could thus use Facebook Payments for fee-free fundraising. The sign-up process is brief: provide a recent bank statement, relevant contact information, and submit some paperwork.

Once enrolled in Facebook Payments, churches can add a Giving button their Facebook Page (which, of course, is different from its Facebook Group). When an individual donates on the Page, funds arrive in the church's bank account within a matter of weeks. According to the company, "If your organization is enrolled with Facebook Payments, then it will be paid out every two weeks. The funds will be paid to your organization as an ACH, or as a direct deposit to your organization's bank account."

Other than the free cost, the benefit to using Facebook for tithes and offerings is accessibility. The wide adoption of Facebook in a congregation makes it easier to collect tithes and offerings than on platforms like a church management system or standalone giving app. With seven out of ten Americans using Facebook, and five out of ten Americans visiting Facebook every day, it's likely that most members of a congregation already have a Facebook profile. Even older members of the congregation are likely to use the social media site. Baby Boomers and the Silent Generation are the fastest-growing adopters of the social media platform.

But as with all technology in a ministry context, there are questions that church leaders ought to address before directing congregants to donate through Facebook:

• Ethics - should you use social media for tithes and offerings?

• Exclusivity - should Facebook be the only platform for tithes and offerings?

• Liturgical integration - how might we remember that tithes and offerings are more than a transaction on a social media site?

As with all ministry technologies, church leaders ought to reflect on the ethical implications of using Facebook for donations. While processing fees are covered, a donation through Facebook gives the social media giant access to even more user data, in the form of credit card numbers and billing addresses. While this data is undoubtedly secure and protected from hackers, one wonders how Facebook could integrate this data into their ever-growing portfolio of user information. Still, without concrete examples of improper usage of user financial information, any expectation of corporate malfeasance is an assumption. The fact is, online tithes and offerings require church members to share their financial information with some organization, whether it be a bank, an app developer, or a social media company. It may be a net positive to route these donations through Facebook, which has far more cybersecurity resources than smaller app developers. We may not know what Facebook does with all of this data, but we can be confident that it is safe from hackers and breaches.

From a practical standpoint, we should also consider whether Facebook should be the only platform or one of many donation platforms. The more donation platforms a church utilizes, the more complexity it introduces for its treasurer and administrative staff. There is some value in using Facebook exclusively, particularly since it doesn't charge a donation fee. Yet, three out of ten Americans don't use Facebook, and it seems almost callous to suggest that someone needs to create a social media profile to tithe to the church. The best answer to the question of exclusivity, then, might be to use two platforms for donations: one that integrates with the church's website (such as Tithe.ly or Breeze CMS), and one that connects to a Facebook Page.

Ultimately, church leaders would do well to remember that tithes and offerings are always an act of Christian worship: giving back to God what God has first given to us. This is difficult to remember in the world of fast-paced online transactions. With the rise Venmo and PayPal, the exchange of funds through cyberspace has become truly effortless, even impersonal. While it's beneficial for churches to receive offerings through a click-to-donate button, it's essential to maintain a connection between stewardship and worship. Donating online to church is an act of worship. For this reason, churches should not abandon the offering during online or live-streamed services. Church leaders might even consider having a virtual blessing for click-to-donate buttons, on Facebook or on a website, marking that these technologies are in fact an expression of the community's worshipping life together.

Facebook for Faith's giving tool is a valuable resource for church leaders. The lack of transaction fees provide a compelling advantage when compared with other church offering technologies. While it might not be the only way to collect tithes and offerings, it might be the most useful way - particularly when it is connected with worship.

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@ryanpanzer is the author of "Grace and Gigabytes."

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Slack for Ministry: A new way for churches to collaborate virtually and asynchronously

Less than half of Americans want to work full-time from an office when the pandemic subsides, according to the New York Times. These sentiments follow a recent McKinsey analysis suggesting that most organizations can rely predominantly on remote work without any drop in effectiveness or impact. According to McKinsey, even location-based services like healthcare may one day see over one-third of employees coming to work virtually. We are in an economy where the number of available jobs is misaligned to the number of active job seekers. As a result, organizations that are unable or unwilling to collaborate virtually and asynchronously will soon encounter a severe shortage of job applicants.

This trend matters a great deal to churches, which are just as active in the labor market as any organization. While church leaders may prefer to think of congregations as localized units shaped in response to the needs of a geographic neighborhood, the church of the future will be less of a bounded entity. In this digital age, congregations will take up a both/and position, serving the needs of the physical and virtual neighbor in response to God's call, with acts of discipleship taking place down the street and throughout cyberspace.

Church leaders, then, need to find a way to collaborate virtually and asynchronously, with rostered leaders, lay leaders, members, and virtual/physical neighbors. Whether a congregation has a large office with dozens of staffers or a small office with a pastor and an administrator, today's church leader is tasked with extending the collaborative reach of the community.

Slack for Mac OS

This is why Slack is such a compelling platform for ministry. Originally designed as a chat application, Slack sought to reduce dependence on email. By convening chat conversations and hosting direct messages between collaborators, Slack reduces dependence on the inbox and facilitates collaboration between those who are neither located in the same place nor working at the same times. While churches are ineligible for Slack's nonprofit discount program, an account starts at just $8/person per month.

Slack invites anyone connected with an organization to join "channels," or chat rooms, created around shared projects. Companies might have channels for sales, marketing, product development, or human resources. Churches might create channels for worship planning, faith formation, Sunday school, and administration.

Once organized into channels, Slack provides the infrastructure for meaningful collaboration. This includes apps that support teleconferencing platforms like Zoom, as well as integrations that support work on shared documents like Google Docs. Slack also provides threaded conversations, facilitating the possibility of a lively back and forth.

How can today's church leader get the most from Slack?

First, identify what areas require collaboration, and accordingly, meeting times. Does your church have a weekly worship planning session? A bi-weekly finance check-in with the treasury committee? Each of these represents a possible Slack channel, where ideas can be exchanged and questions answered outside of scheduled meeting time.

Second, find specific opportunities to utilize Slack to exchange ideas. Adopting a new technology requires an awareness of uses cases. The most common way churches might start to utilize Slack is to bring together the worship planning team, who can use the platform to integrate music, preaching themes, prayers, and other aspects of Sunday morning. Communicate how and when collaborators should turn to Slack - and remember to communicate the benefits of reduced meeting time, and greater community input.

Next, think about Slack as a platform for more than staff collaboration. While most organizations initially adopt Slack for internal use, congregations don't have a clean demarcation of internal/external stakeholders. All members of the church, and to some extent, all members of a neighborhood, are valued collaborators. Most church and neighborhood members won't want to engage via Slack initially - they likely tend to prefer to engage through social media like Facebook Groups. So, start with the church's lay leaders, or those who serve on standing boards or committees. Board and council members may be the most eager to reduce unnecessary meetings, holding conversations and even votes when it best suits their availability. Your church council Slack channel may be far more valuable in fostering collaboration than channels for pastors and church staff.

Finally, remember to have fun with Slack. From an endless trove of animated GIFs to seemingly every emoji (and the ability to create your own), Slack makes digital collaboration far more fun than any email exchange. The extent to which a congregation actually enjoys using Slack determines the sustainability of the platform in a ministry context.

While Slack is an excellent collaboration tool for congregations, it's important to remember that all technologies have a potential cost to our attention and energy. Cal Newport, author of "Digital Minimalism," recently published a book critiquing the rapid adoption of Slack. In fact, Slack can prove to be distracting, particularly when its usage is not goal-directed. In a ministry setting, Slack requires a specific purpose. It also requires some documented usage practices. It's best to encourage Slack users to carefully monitor their notification settings, potentially deactivating mobile notifications so as to avoid interruption outside of working hours.

Throughout this time of extended digital distribution, we've seen and experienced the redefinition of the workplace. That redefinition is coming to our churches, beckoning us to find new ways of collaborating in mission. Slack is a compelling tool for purposeful ministry, an invaluable resource for the digital age church leader.

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@ryanpanzer is the author of "Grace and Gigabytes."

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Facebook for Faith: Should we pray on Facebook?

Facebook started with present-tense status updates (Ryan is...). Then there were pictures. Soon, users could post videos. The newest thing to post to Facebook?

Prayers.

Facebook continues its investment in digital tools for faith communities. Alongside resources listed on their new portal, faith.facebook.com, Facebook has begun testing on a prayer feature. The new feature remains in limited beta testing for faith and spirituality Facebook Groups.

Once launched more broadly, individuals who are part of a church Facebook Group will be able to set a status of "asking for prayers," before listing their specific prayer concerns:

The feature rippled through the news media this weekend, just two weeks after the highly-publicized launch of the Faith for Facebook portal. Reactions in the religious media were somewhat mixed.

Some faith leaders were skeptical, arguing that prayer always requires synchronous, embodied presence. Others were intrigued, expressing gratitude for new opportunities to connect with God and one another. Many interviewed in various news outlets expressed continued skepticism over Facebook's privacy practices, and how the company might use personal information shared through a prayer request. Some openly wondered if the company might serve ads based on one's prayer request. Might Facebook someday follow up on prayers to resolve alcoholism with advertisements for rehab centers?

Indeed, Facebook has an ethical responsibility to show that they are capable of handling this data in a way that elicits communal trust. As a corporation, they clearly have a long way to go. Still, prayer on social media is nothing new. Prayer requests are already commonplace on social media feeds. "Prayers up" is a frequent way to start a tweet or post whenever a friend or connection is facing adversity. Injured professional athletes are frequently the beneficiary of such requests, often from concerned fantasy football owners.

So regardless of whether Facebook's "pray" feature takes off like the like and love buttons, today's faith leaders might consider how such requests intersect with the spiritual needs and inclinations of their own communities. Such discernment exists at the level of liturgy, technology, and administration.

At the level of liturgy, communities should discern how individual prayers shared on social media and other digital platforms might engage the broader church community. This is the single most important liturgical and theological question about prayer online - not whether it "works," not whether it is a valid expression of prayer, but how the posts of the individual might influence the shared work of the community. It would be near-sighted to suggest that prayer and technology are incompatible. Individuals have long found tremendous spiritual support in prayerful online communities.

The question isn't so much whether online prayer works, but how the communal body of Christ that is the church might gather as one to support the celebrations and the concerns lifted up in digital prayer. If we believe that the church is a public body that is formed through communal prayer, then it is our calling to take individual prayer requests and convert them into concrete expressions of communal prayer. Today's church leader might seek to incorporate prayer posts into the worship liturgy, or into small group prayer sessions.

How do we faciltiate communal prayer from an individual prayer request post?

At the level of technology, faith communities should work to implement the technologies most conducive to the communal act that is prayer. This might happen on or off of Facebook. To collect and lift up prayer requests on Facebook, a faith community ought to have a well-established Facebook Group, a feature that churches utilize far less frequently than a Facebook Page (for more on the differences between Groups and Pages, see this post). Groups allow community members to share posts specifically with other group members. Perhaps this confidentiality will add a layer of trust to those who would not prayer requests read by all of one's Facebook contacts.

But Facebook is not the only platform that can or should be used for digital prayer. Group messaging apps like Group Me, Remind, or WhatsApp can exchange prayer requests throughout the week. Presentation software like Mentimeter and chat applications like Slack can curate requests for upcoming worship services. Simple tools like Google Forms can encourage community members to anonymously submit prayer requests for inclusion in public worship services. Whatever the technology one uses, it is essential to develop a process for lifting up and responding to concerns as the shared body of Christ.

And at the level of administration, church leaders should be vigilant. Sharing a prayer request can be an act of deep vulnerability. Anytime a prayer request is shared, communal reactions must be monitored. Respectful and prayerful responses must be insisted upon. And occasionally, a prayer request might violate the confidentiality of another church member ("...please watch over Robert as he works through his latest DUI charge..."). The privacy of other community members must be maintained. While prayer requests will not be particularly burdensome, the task of administering digital prayer requests demands consistent engagement and attunement.

Should we pray on Facebook? Many of us already are. God is showing up in response. It is time for faith communities to do the same.

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@ryanpanzer is the author of "Grace and Gigabytes."

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