Keeping up with the times is a way of keeping up with your congregation. I love social media and would do it for anyone, anytime! Apparently, there are Social Media Pastors now! So we had better talk about the Church and Facebook.

People love keeping up to date in what’s happening at their Church, they love seeing photos of their Church family and being invited to events. On the events, it’s a great tool for people to invite their friends that don’t regularly attend church, to events. These event posts can even be shared and that helps spread the word. The events have the ability to be linked to where people can get their tickets from and even show a map.

Most of the time people go on Facebook in the early mornings and in the evenings, so this is a great time to share posts with your Church. Now we have the fantastic ability of scheduling posts, so we don’t need to live on Facebook all the time.

Create a separate Facebook Group that only allows members in, so they feel safe and secure amongst the Church family. In this group, prayer requests, announcements, forms published, etc can be shared among Church family only.

Pages

Start with your Church Facebook Page.
Add prime people to admin who will oversee the page.
Place your Church logo for profile picture (create familiarity).
Add a bright lively video/photo for cover photo.
Place your a photo of the front of your building in the ‘your story’ section OR as the cover photo. When people visit your Church they need familiarity to know what to look for. This is usually the first place people come to check your Church out. They want to see life, movement, stories, that something is happening and it’s not a dead boring place to be.

So what can you post on your Church Facebook page? Here’s some ideas:-

Advertise Sermon Topics Coming Up.
Blog & Share Testimonies of Church Members.
Share Church Vision, Values, Service Times, Lyrics of Songs Sung and Quotes from Speakers.
Post Photos of Highlights, Staff Members, Behind the Scenes (what happens during the week) and Ministries/Departments in Action.
Promote Upcoming Events, Outreaches, Products for Sale and Ways for People to get Involved.
Thank Volunteers and Praise People.
Post Encouragement Posts and Mini-Sermons..

ALSO….

Youtube link of the song you are learning at Church (get them familiar with the song).
Quotes from leaders in your Church- Crowd shots (from the rear to cover privacy).
People on stage shots.
Volunteers that work behind the scenes, so people know who does what and even include a bit of their story.
Testimonies- maybe a short video- these are powerful.

Groups

Create the Facebook groups for each department required. Include the Church name or group name so it doesn’t get lost. eg, “Example Church Women’s Group” not “Women’s Group”. You can make the privacy of the groups public, or closed for some groups and secret eg for those that are for key leaders only.
Link each to the groups to your Church Facebook Page. These will appear on your Church Facebook Page (unless they are a secret group, in which I would put your Church Staff as one) so that anyone checking out an area of your Church they would like to visit, can easily find the info their.
Create cover pictures for the groups.
Add people into the group or announce at Church that you would love them to connect with them and they can join relevant Facebook groups, which can be found via the Church Facebook page. Promoting via announcements at Church or at an event can be better as then you don’t get people offended they weren’t added to the group. But when you have a Church Staff Only group or Worship Team Group, you know there are selected only people, you can just email them or invite them to the group.and post in the group for people to add other people who relate to that group.
You can create questions for people to answer when asking to join the group, to determine if you should let them have access into the group. For example the Worship Team group, you have someone wanting to join the group, but they are not on the team. So you could ask a question like….We are so glad you want to join Example Church’s Music Team Facebook Group. Are you wanting to join the worship team? Please see Ps Bob regarding an audition. If you have seen Ps Bob, please write the date of your audition below and one of the admin team will confirm at their earliest convenience.
Rules and guidelines need to be placed, so everyone knows what the group is there for and what can be posted and not be posted. The posting settings can be set so that they are reviewed by admin prior to being posted to the group.

Here are some general tips for what you can do in your group.
1) Post often of what is happening at Church.
2) Interactive posts and more about how the group/church are impacting this nation.
3) Ask open question posts.
4) Do physical meet-ups where you can and post about that.
5) Live videos – not the worship section, unless you have a streaming licence.
6) Have some get to know you questions for members, even new ones, that they can answer and they can copy and paste, answer them and post them into the group.
7) Discussion questions re this weeks sermon etc?
8) Use something like Zoom for online bible study, prayer meeting or home group meetings.
9) Build relationships through messenger, by doing some pastoral care.
10) Live interviews between staff, members, etc.

Pages

So what can you post on your Church Facebook page? Here’s some ideas:-

Advertise Sermon Topics Coming Up.
Blog & Share Testimonies of Church Members.
Share Church Vision, Values, Service Times, Lyrics of Songs Sung and Quotes from Speakers.
Post Photos of Highlights, Staff Members, Behind the Scenes (what happens during the week) and Ministries/Departments in Action.
Promote Upcoming Events, Outreaches, Products for Sale and Ways for People to get Involved.
Thank Volunteers and Praise People.
Post Encouragement Posts and Mini-Sermons..

ALSO….

Youtube link of the song you are learning at Church (get them familiar with the song).
Quotes from leaders in your Church- Crowd shots (from the rear to cover privacy).
People on stage shots.
Volunteers that work behind the scenes, so people know who does what and even include a bit of their story.
Testimonies- maybe a short video- these are powerful.

IMPORTANT

DON’T PHOTOGRAPH KIDS WITHOUT PARENTS PERMISSION…….so many families are involved in the court system and you don’t know every child’s situation, so you need to protect them or have a consent form signed by the parents.