The Church and Social Networking

We recently visited our friends at Cornerstone Community Church in Orangeburg, SC where they have a lot of cool stuff going on. I had mentioned them before in my blog about MLK day about their church successfully doing multi-ethnic ministry.
Another thing they do well is having a great presence in social networking. Blogs, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, you name it, they’re on it! It is so important to them that they actually have a full-time staff pastor that handles much of the work himself. It may sound crazy, but when you’re trying to stay connected to over 2,000 people (just counting local attendees) on a daily basis you need someone to devote their full attention towards it!
Meet Jonathan Pearson, Cornerstone’s Communications Pastor. I got to sit down and talk to him about what his role is there and why it’s important for churches to get connected via social networking.
One of the highlights of the interview was when I asked about why churches of any size or background should be using these outlets, Jonathan said, “We can fight against it, or we can leverage it.”
This is an awesome point! And if you think about it, using the latest technology is nothing new to the Christian church, historically speaking. While there have been times of fighting against new methods, we see in the year 1454 when the Gutenberg Bible was actually the first major book printed with a movable type printing press. This sparked the “Gutenberg Revolution” and the age of the printed book!
There’s a whole world out there that many churches have yet to explore: social networking. Even if there are numerous and legitimate reasons behind their hesitation, it’s typically because they don’t think it’s necessary or worth their time. However, we can use things like social networking to our advantage in ministry! Not to mention, it’s so easy to do. Your members will appreciate the effort in reaching out to them where they’re at.
For more about Cornerstone Community Church, check out their website: www.cornerstonecommunity.com
You can follow Jonathan on Twitter: @JonathanPearson www.twitter.com/jonathanpearson
And be sure to visit his blog: www.jonathanpearson.net