Facebook for Faith: How churches should use Facebook Groups

Last month, Facebook made a splash with the launch of faith.facebook.com, a hub to connect faith leaders with Facebook resources. The site includes getting started information on Groups, Pages, Charitable Giving, Live, and other widely-utilized tools.

Atop the list of Facebook's resources for churches: Facebook Groups.

In 2018, Lifeway Research, an evangelical publishing house, shared survey data indicating that 84% of protestant pastors use a Facebook page to connect with their congregation. Lifeway is sponsored by the Southern Baptist Convention and their data over-indexes on media-savvy evangelical congregations. Still, their findings point attest to how widespread Facebook has become as a church communications resource - even before the pandemic.

Many congregations are using Facebook to build online community. Yet most aren't using the Facebook feature specifically designed for community conversation.

That's partly because Facebook has struggled to articulate the differences, and the different value propositions, between Facebook Pages and Facebook Groups. Let me attempt to clarify:

A Facebook Page functions as a digital billboard. It is public by default, so everyone can access all of the page's information. Churches widely use Facebook Pages to communicate important information on service times, meeting locations, and upcoming events. Originally developed as an advertising resource, Facebook Pages are Mark Zuckerberg's equivalent of the Yellow Pages.

A Facebook Group functions more like a digital meeting room. It is a collaborative space for multi-directional conversations. Unlike a Facebook Page, it is private by default. New members request to join, and administrators must approve the request. All who gather within a Facebook Group at least implicitly agree to abide by community rules and standards.

Congregations seeking to cultivate conversation on social media should look to Facebook Groups, not Facebook Pages. But most churches haven't set up a Facebook Group - at least not yet.

It's easy to understand why Facebook Groups should be a priority for churches. They provide a platform for collaborative, multi-directional, and asynchronous conversation. Nona Jones, author of the book "From Social Media to Social Ministry," summarizes her research into how churches use Facebook:

"The research pointed loud and clear to one major finding: people want to spend time on Facebook when they are able to engage with content in a meaningful way. And that content needs to invite conversation, not just consumption."

Setting up a Facebook Group is a relatively simple process:

• Create your group: Add a description of your congregation - and what types of conversations will take place in the group. Include photos from your church's life, and invite members to join.

• Customize the settings: Most importantly, determine the group's public visibility. Most churches will likely make their groups private, but visible in search results. This makes the group findable but restricts the visibility of posts and conversations to group members. You may also create a list of membership questions, to ensure those joining the Facebook Group have a previous connection to the congregation.

• Determine the privacy policy: In other words, determine the rules. Set expectations that direct group members to remind kind, courteous, and to respect the privacy of others.

Each step in the process is thoroughly documented in Facebook's guide "Getting Started with Groups." Examples are plentiful - click here for examples from Facebook's faith and spirituality category.

But cultivating Christian community takes more than software settings. It requires intentionality, answering questions like:

• What is the specific purpose of the group? Active church members spend just 8.3 minutes per day on faith-related activities. The most engaging church Facebook Group will never be a frequent hub of online activity. At most, members might check in on the group a handful of times each week. So give them a specific purpose. Does the group exist to share prayer requests? Does it exist to respond to the week's preaching text or sermon? Perhaps it was established as a replacement to a book study group and invites members to respond to a shared reading, video, or podcast episode. When it comes to church group purpose, less is more. If church leaders can precisely define the reason that the congregation should participate in the group, church leaders will find that individuals are more likely to stick around for real conversation.

• How will participation in the group integrate with the church's broader life together? Facebook Groups ought to be situated within the church's broader movement towards hybrid ministry. The conversation should not happen in abstraction nor in a vacuum but should respond to events in the community's life together. Sharing photos from an event, offering reactions to a sermon or podcast, or inviting reflection on a shared discussion question are ways to connect the digital Facebook Group to the analog aspects of Christian community.

• How can church leaders create a distinctively Christian Facebook Group? As the group gains traction within the community, our task isn't so much to cultivate conversation but to articulate lived experiences of faith. This is the difference between a distinctively Christian Facebook Group versus a group that exists for a non-profit or neighborhood. Eventually, the Group should become a place where ideas are exchanged and where community members share stories of God's work in their lives and world. Getting to this point takes effort, curation, and months if not years of active conversation. God can work through the discussions on a Facebook page, provided the community shows up for the conversation.

Have you curated conversations in your church within a Facebook Group? Share your experience in the comments below!

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@ryanpanzer, the author of "Grace and Gigabytes," accompanies churches on their journey towards more immersive, authentic digital community.

Three virtual worship leadership roles for the hybrid church

How does a hybrid ministry involve online worshippers as many return to in-person services?

This is a crucial question for today's church leader. Failing to involve online attendees creates a second-tier virtual worship experience. Those gathered face-to-face join together for liturgy, or the work of the people. Those gathered online sit and watch. There is also a practical layer to this question. The more we can involve in worship leadership, the less that pastors and church staff must manage.

We must consider, then, the ways that worship leadership might become a hybrid of online and offline.

First, virtual lectors could read the scriptures. Some congregations utilized virtual lectors during the lockdown, inviting members to record lectionary readings at home and submit them for use in the service. Some even staged recording sessions in the sanctuary, recording the reading at the pulpit on a Tuesday or Wednesday afternoon.

In a post-pandemic church, a virtual lector is one who reads from elsewhere, their lesson spliced into the service through recorded digital video, a projector, and a screen in the sanctuary. While anyone can use a smartphone to record themselves reading, a next-level usage of virtual 'lectoring' solicits readings from interesting backgrounds and locations. Reading from Genesis about care for creation? Record the reading from a lakeshore. Reading from John about the vine and the branches? Record from a garden (or wine cellar!). Creatively applied, the virtual lector role demonstrates that God is always on the move, at work in the community!

Next, present the prayers of the people with virtual presiders, alongside a digital invitation for prayer concerns. Of all worship roles that can be led by a member or congregant, presiding over the prayers of the people is the most theological significance. The prayers of the people acknowledge the lived experience of the community, handing over to God the concerns and celebrations, the joys and sorrows of our life together. Presiding over these prayers synchronously and virtually through a platform like Zoom acknowledges that the community is far more expansive than those gathered in the sanctuary.

As a next-level tactic, gather prayer requests through text messaging or even an anonymous, virtual drop-box. Prayers of the people in the sanctuary often create space for some to vocalize their prayer requests (or in many churches, stand in awkward silence). Digital apps lift up the prayers not just of those who are gathered physically and who are outgoing enough to vocalize their prayer requests. Rather, these resources share with the presider the raw and real prayer needs of the ever-expansive body of Christ.

Then, expand the voices proclaimed from the pulpit with virtual preachers. This is a method of preaching quite different from the video sermons found in megachurches. We don't need to beam-in a virtual Rick Warren! Instead, we need to provide opportunities for our faith community to articulate their lived experience of God in their lives, in the context of that week's narrative themes.

Virtual preachers can be one individual who records an entire sermon and then plays a video on Sunday. But that's not the best of use this role. In "Grace and Gigabytes," I write about the importance of collaboration in the digital age. Nothing affirms the importance of collaboration in a faith community like collaborative preaching. Invite parishioners to prayerfully consider a simple question or two about their faith experience. Encourage them to record a 30-60 second video response. Then, edit those responses together for inclusion in the sermon.

While virtual leadership roles are important, not every Sunday needs a virtual worship leader. Not every church needs to implement virtual volunteers. There are other ways of building the bridge between online and offline worship.

But opening up leadership roles to those gathered via a screen makes a strong statement: that this congregation truly welcomes all people, that God's work in the world extends far beyond the walls of the sanctuary.

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@ryanpanzer, the author of "Grace and Gigabytes," speaks regularly on hybrid ministry and the role of technology in the church. To book a workshop with Ryan, submit the form at https://www.ryanpanzer.com/speaking, or text (608) 561-1167‬ for more information.

The Advantage of Low-Tech Churches as Buildings Reopen

Blessed are the Low-Tech, when it comes to hybrid ministry. For theirs is the opportunity to be truly collaborative.

It's an exciting moment. With vaccinations now available to all American adults, it seems as though our "new normal" is closer than we may have anticipated. Churches continue to reopen their doors and create plans for hybrid ministry, a way of being church that blends the connections of the digital world with the strong community of the in-person church.

At this moment, there's a widespread perception that large, high-tech congregations with healthy media budgets are at an advantage. It seems logical that building a bridge between the online and the offline requires a skilled media production with access to Hollywood-quality studio equipment. After all, high-tech churches are the congregations that can create the "best" viewing experience: clear audio, crisp video, snappy transitions. Moreover, these congregations won't require pastors to be both preacher and video director at the same moment. Freed from multi-tasking, we imagine these leaders to be in a more advantageous position.

But if we take a critical look at why we are called to hybrid ministry, we might discover the opposite.

Hybrid ministry isn't the process of using digital technology for it's own sake. Instead, it's a calling to find a way of being church that is more inclusive and accessible. It's a summons to be more intentionally communal.

For these reasons, high-tech churches are actually at a disadvantage.

They might have the resources to create a polished and professional streaming "product," compelling enough to rival most viewing options on Netflix or HBO MAX. Indeed, who wouldn't want to watch a video with the production quality of a Joel Osteen?

Yet here's the paradox. The more polished our church services become, the more "professionalized" they are likely to be. In that sense, high-tech expressions of church are not particularly inclusive. Rather than creating a collaborative experience of Christian community, they create another piece of content for the consumption of the masses. Rather than extending an invitation into the shared work of the people, they create an unintentional buffer - between those sitting in the pews - and those watching from their couches.

For three reasons, low-tech churches, or those without vast media budgets and dedicated production staff, are at an advantage in the hybrid church.

First, low-tech churches are more likely to use Zoom as a platform for online worship. YouTube and Facebook Live may be the most common platforms for worship, but they tend to require event software integrations like OBS. A more ubiquitous tool that requires no additional software, Zoom just requires a device with a camera (an iPhone suffices) and audio input (a simple USB microphone is sufficient). Zoom creates a bridge between online and offline because it welcomes multiple voices. It's the only tool where that natively supports virtual worship leadership, that comes with the built-in ability to welcome digital lectors, prayers, cantors, and preachers. It's also the only tool where one can see the faces of all who gather online!

Low-tech churches will also have less tech equipment. Less equipment means more flexibility in configuring a worship space. A tripod-mounted iPad takes up less space than a studio soundboard with a full HD camcorder. This makes it possible to "record" the service from the front row or the middle of the sanctuary, whereas high-tech churches tend to record from the far back. Lower-tech churches thus provide a front row seat to worship, while high-budget congregations provide a seat in the back row, looking in.

Finally, lower-tech churches are more likely to rely on one of the key "low-tech" fundamentals of hybrid ministry: using inclusive language. Without professional video, they'll be more likely to greet online viewers. They'll be more likely to include their concerns in the prayers of the people, to speak directly to the online experience as part of the announcements. When it comes to creating an inclusive experience of those gathered online and offline, our words matter far more than what's on our screens. Low-tech ministries will be that much more likely to pay attention to this key aspect of inclusivity.

In recent conversations, I've heard some of those who lead small, rural and low-tech churches express a certain amount of resignation. It seems, in some cases, that they have already given up on hybrid ministry in their context.

Here's hoping they will find the strength and energy to attempt it. Here's praying that they won't squander their innate advantage.

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@ryanpanzer is the author of "Grace and Gigabytes"