Yet, I know dozens of pastors who blog regularly; and I plan to be one. Most blog about their church, ministry, and theology although some do blog about other passions as well. From non-traditional church planters to national denominational leaders, church leaders are blogging as part of their ministry. Some blog daily, some blog occasionally or only as articles for online newspapers or magazines, and some blog as the Spirit moves them.

Here is a quick list to prove to everyone (and myself!) that church leaders can blog. Add these to your reading list because they’re all worth looking through when you have time. Many more belong on this list, but this is a good starting place.

Rev. Bruce Reyes-Chow on Patheos, on Huffington Post, Playground Dad–author, pastor, consultant, former Moderator of the PC(USA)

Sarcastic Lutheran, Rev. Nadia Bolz-Weber–founding pastor of House for All Sinners and Saints (ELCA)

Rev. Carol Howard Merritt on Huffington Post & on The Christian Century–author, PC(USA) pastor, & speaker

Leave It Where Jesus Flang It, Rev. Margaret Watson–Episcopal priest ministering on a reservation in South Dakota

Stories, Sermons, & Songs, Rev. Beth Scibenski–PC(USA) pastor in New Jersey

Thinking Faith–Rev. Dr. Tom Trinidad, pastor in Colorado, theologian, & Vice-Moderator of the PC(USA)

Digital Pastor–Rev. David Hansen, Lutheran pastor in Texas

Diana Butler Bass on Patheos & on Huffington Post–church historian, public theologian, and Episcopal church member

Teacher, Preacher, Screecher, Rev. Mark Plunkett–PC(USA) pastor in Texas

Hugh’s Blog–Rev. Hugh Hollowell, Mennonite Church USA minister, founder and director of Love Wins Ministries

Do you know a church that still has a website with a black background and neon green letters?

Do you know a leader who can’t stand to go on their personal site because it looks bad and they don’t know how to fix it?

Then join the Worship Times team in ridding the world of ugly ministry websites!

Worship Times has launched an affiliate program so that you and your friends can help rid the world of ugly websites. You’ll get a unique link and banners for your own site that you can spread far and wife. If someone goes through that link or banner and signs up with Worship Times, you will receive $100 ($150 if they sign up for a premium site!) and you will have helped rid the world of one more ugly website.

Register here to become an affiliate, and remember friends don’t let friends have ugly websites.

This post is the sixth in a series about developing a social media plan in a church or ministry. Read the Introduction, Part 1 Aim, Part 2 Connection, Part 3 Interactivity, Part 4 Leadership.

The next question while you’re planning to use a new type of social media is:

How will the person in charge of the new social media be supported?

Try to think through and anticipate the kind of support the person in charge of this new social media will need. Will the person in charge of this new social media need to coordinator with anyone? Is there tech support available? Who is going to write the job/volunteer description for this new position or add it to an existing job description? Does that description need to be checked by a personnel committee?

This is also a good time to brainstorm not only who will be in charge of the new social media but who will help create content. It’s a good idea to enlist the help of at least a couple people especially if your new social media will need to be updated on a regular schedule. Before beginning your new social media, you could write out several blog posts, create several podcasts, etc. to not only get you started but also a few to keep in reserve just in case. That will also give you more time to create content thoughtfully instead of scrambling at the last minute to get something up. Having multiple people creating content eases the time commitment on the person in charge, giving them time to focus on developing new things, bringing in more people, or evaluating the social media.

This is also the time to figure out where this new social media will be placed on your current website. A new Twitter account can be set up on your homepage, but things like blogs most of the time work better on their own page.

The First Church of Cityville already has a focused idea of what they want the new social media to do, who it will connect with, how interactive it will be, and who will be the person in charge. Looking at how that person will be supported the church leaders suggested the names of several individuals in the congregation who already blog or write. Pastor Dean, the one who has taken leadership of the new social media, agreed to reach out to these people to see if they would be willing to contribute blog posts. Pastor Dean also knows the backlog of inspirational emails could easily be adapted for blog posts for quick updates or developed more fully for longer posts.

Since First Church has a Worship Times website, they know integrating social media into the website will be easy since Worship Times offers a whole range of social media tools that are constantly being adapted and updated. Pastor Dean will work with the church’s webmaster and begin organizing the blog posts are they are written. As the church leaders want to include a podcast and forum after a few months, they know they will have to invest in recording equipment and editing software. Pastor Dean hopes to bring in a couple talented lay people to assist in the recording and editing of the podcasts with the assistance of the webmaster. Worship Times also makes incorporating podcasts into the website simple and automatically updates the webpage once you submit the podcast to iTunes.

First Church of Cityville’s Social Media Plan
Step 1 (Aim): encouraging individual spiritual practices
Step 2 (Connection): members and regular attenders of the church
Step 3 (Interactivity): Blog or Podcast and a Forum for discussion
Step 4 (Leadership): Associate Pastor
Step 5 (Support): webmaster and lay church leaders

Michael Gyura, one of Worship Times’ creators, has made a video to quickly walk you through how to sign up and some of the features we offer. We offer worry free hosting, flexible editing, professional themes, personal training, and great support to name a few of our features!

If you want to follow along while you sign up, head over to our Join Worship Times page.

This post is the fifth in a series about developing a social media plan in a church or ministry. Read the Introduction, Part 1 Aim, Part 2 Connection, Part 3 Interactivity.

Our next question in making a social media plan is a big one:

4. Who will be in charge of this new social media?

Whether or not you expect content to come from those in charge or those you’re aiming to connect with, someone needs to be placed in charge of your new social media. Someone needs to have responsibility, visibility, and ability to delegate when necessary.

Depending on the type of social media, who you want it to reach, and how interactive it is, think about who would be best equipped to handle this social media. The pastor, the website manager, a church leader, a youth? Who in your church has gifts in communication, organization, and technology?

Another important question is: will the person in charge be paid? That doesn’t have to be decided now, but it is a question to be on your radar. If a staff member will be put in charge, how will they handle this new social media along with their other duties?

The First Church of Cityville has decided to begin a blog or podcast to encourage individual spiritual practices within their church with a forum for discussion. They decide the blog is a good first step. First Church has a paid part-time webmaster who is going to help set up the blog, but the responsibility for creating content and involving other people to write content has to go to someone else.

Pastor Dean, the associate for pastoral care, realizes the inspirational email sent out weekly could easily be adapted into a blog format and there is a huge backlog of these emails. Pastor Dean agrees to take leadership of the blog for the time being and seek out gifted individuals within the congregation to write for it.

First Church of Cityville’s Social Media Plan
Step 1 (Aim): encouraging individual spiritual practices
Step 2 (Connection): members and regular attenders of the church
Step 3 (Interactivity): Blog or Podcast and a Forum for discussion
Step 4 (Leadership): Associate Pastor

This post is the fourth in a series about developing a social media plan in a church or ministry. Read the Introduction, Part 1 Aim, Part 2 Connection.

Once you’ve established what the aim of the new social media is and who you’re trying to connect with, the third question for developing a social media plan is:

How interactive does this new social media need to be?

Do you need to juggle calendar dates with multiple people, get feedback from a specific event, spark new ideas, or just make sure everyone gets the same info? Will the church provide the content or do you hope the people you’re trying to connect with will?

If you’re looking for a way to make sure everyone knows what’s on the church calendar, there needs to be little interactivity. A static calendar or even a list of events on your website or Facebook account or emailed out once a week (or once a month) will suffice.

However, if you’re aiming for something else, you’ll probably need a more interactive type of social media. Here’s a quick breakdown of the major types of social media.

Website/Blog: great for information passing, can involve one or more of the other types of social media to make it more interactive

Social Networking: Facebook, LinkedIn, MeetUp, good for information passing and connection to people you already know or people who share common interests or similar jobs

Microblogs: Twitter, Tumblr, great for conversation and connecting with people outside of the specific church world

Wikis: Massive online gatherings of information, the most famous being Wikipedia but many other wikis exist to cover more specific information

Video Sharing: YouTube, great way to engage people of various learning styles by making and upload videos whether it’s simply the sermon from last Sunday or updates from a mission trip

Photo Sharing: Flickr, great way to have photos as a resource

Everything Sharing: Pinterest, Reddit, great for involvement from multiple people since you can make a board where multiple people can post anything from images to videos to blog posts

Podcasts: great way to take your church beyond the local community, can be audio or video as well as have PDF downloads, many churches are using podcasts so people can stream their services as well as devotional material

Forums: phpBB, discussion site where people have conversations in the form of posts and replies, great for feedback and discussion

Our example First Church of Cityville already has the first two steps in their social media plan. They are trying to encourage individual spiritual practices and connecting to members and regular attenders of the church. Now the question of how interactive this new social media needs to be. One of the pastors points out that people have different learning styles and different kinds of spiritual practices. Some prefer silent prayer, some scripture reading, some creation of art, some music, some historical practices, etc. They also want the members interacting not just with whatever spiritual practices are being encouraged but also with each other.

They decide a weekly blog or Podcast would be sufficient for guiding the new spiritual practices and a forum will be used so members can talk about their experiences and frustrations. There is also an agreement that a more traditional small group could be formed for those who do not want to use a forum but who do want to engage in conversation about their practices.

First Church of Cityville’s Social Media Plan
Step 1 (Aim): encouraging individual spiritual practices
Step 2 (Connection): members and regular attenders of the church
Step 3 (Interactivity): Blog or Podcast and a Forum for discussion

This article is the third in a series of developing social media practices in a church or ministry. Read the introduction and Question 1: Aim.

The second question when thinking about using a new social media for your church:

Who are you trying to connect with by using new social media?

Social media is a great way to connect with people, all kinds of people from all over the world. Individuals often want to connect with their friends old and new as well as engage in conversation about things they’re passionate about, and they choose how best to do that often by talking to their friends or by trial and error.

However, churches and ministries are not individuals. Even if only one person will be running your new social media, that person will still be representing your church and working toward the goals you’ve already set. The simple question of “Who are you trying to connect with by using new social media” is a great way to focus your goal. Not every church can do every thing, and not every type of social media can reach everyone.

Deciding who it is you’re trying to connect with will undoubtedly influence what kind of social media you pursue and how you pursue it. A church looking at connecting members of a certain committee will most likely need a more private cyber-space than if the church is trying to relay information about youth group meetings.

The leaders of our example First Church of Citytown have already set the goal for the new social media of encouraging individual spiritual practices. At first when they approached this second step the leaders thought it was fairly simple who they were trying to connect with: the members and regular attenders of the congregation. Then a leader asked if that was too narrow a vision for this social media. Shouldn’t this new social media also attract new people into the church and spread the Word?

After some thought and discussion, the church leaders decided that because of their goal of encouraging individual spiritual practices had specifically been written with the members and regular attenders in mind the new social media should focus on them. There were other goals in the new mission statement that were specifically about engaging their local community and growing their church, and the Outreach Committee already had a plan in motion. However, the church leaders agreed that whatever form the new social media took there should be room for people who are at all parts of the journey which did include new and reinvigorated Christians. Pastor Madison also said that they could re-visit this question after the social media had been in place for a while.

First Church of Cityville’s Social Media Plan
Step 1 (Aim): encouraging individual spiritual practices
Step 2 (Connection): members and regular attenders of the church

In the post “Social Media Resolutions” six questions were asked for churches considering getting involved in new forms of social media. We will be looking at each individually over the course of the next few weeks. Today we begin with the first question.

Question 1. What are you aiming to do with your new social media?

The various kinds of social media are different types of tools. If you were trying to hang a picture on your wall you wouldn’t pick up your handsaw. You would pick up your hammer and a nail. Or, if you’re in a place where you can’t put holes in the wall or don’t want something that permanent, you would use those hooks that come off cleanly. Using the right tool for the job and for your context makes all the difference in the world.

So what is your community aiming to do? Think in terms of the big picture. Communicate more clearly? Engage in more conversations? Create a prayer chain? Use more artwork in worship? Connect with your neighbors? Let the world know where you are and what you do? Stream your worship services online?

This question is often discerned as part of an ongoing conversation between church leaders and members. Maybe someone has pointed out that when Mrs. Smith died on Monday the majority of church members didn’t know until the next Sunday. Maybe your worship committee wants to use more artwork to reflect the multicultural congregation you have. Listen to the conversations that are happening and to the silences within your community.

However you can get the aim of your new project written down. This will help guide the rest of your journey.

For this series, we’re going to use the fictional First Church of Citytown as our example. First Church is a medium-sized congregation with a building in downtown Citytown. The church employs one full-time minister (Pastor Madison), a part-time minister for pastoral care (Pastor Dean), a full-time church administrator, and several part-time staff. First Church also has a leadership board of lay people who assist in church governance and vision.

Last year, First Church rewrote its mission statement. Included in the new statement is a goal that the board thinks social media can help with: encouraging individual spiritual practices.

The aim has already been set through the work the church did while rewriting its mission statement. Great! On to the next step!

First Church of Citytown’s Social Media Plan
Step 1 (Aim): encouraging individual spiritual practices

I personally have used the PC(USA) Book of Common Worship Daily Prayer on and off for several years. It’s a great resource for simplified morning and evening services especially or if your community chants Psalms. It was difficult for me to follow the daily lectionary and do morning prayer from the BCW Daily Prayer book. If I had to switch books or go from a book to a computer I would get easily distracted and sometimes forget to go back to the Daily Prayer book for the Prayers of Thanksgiving and Intercession.

I purchased the PC(USA) Daily Prayer app over a week ago and have been using it daily. There are two prayer services currently offered: morning and evening prayer. Both follow the same basic outline and can be modified in both format and font choices (which I was happy to see because I have strong feelings about certain fonts). In format one can change or eliminate the Psalms, the various scripture readings (which follow the 2-year daily lectionary and are in the NRSV), canticles, and the various prayers. One can even choose between two versions of the Lord’s Prayer.There is a low light setting which changes the displayed text from black on a white background to white on a black background.

I trimmed the morning service down to the Psalm that changes daily, the Gospel reading, the full prayer sequence, and the dismissal. I tend to read my devotions out loud, and I really like being able to swipe and have the next portion appear. If I was leading a worship service it would be easy to pass the tablet around and have others read various parts.

The price of $2.99 initially felt too steep compared to other apps; however, for an app I think I’ll use on a regular basis and may even use when leading services I can see dropping the three bucks. However, the app isn’t going to replace the book completely. The app doesn’t have the the Psalms laid out for chanting or the prayers for various occasions, but for the actual daily prayer it’s a great resource. Plus there is no additional cost to download the app to my iPhone which I always have nearby.

If you’re a fan of the Daily Prayer format of morning and evening prayer, this app is definitely a buy. PC(USA) is currently developing more resources and prayers for the app, and I’m looking forward to it.

Not all social media is created equal. Many tweet several times a day but update Facebook much less often. The important thing to do when you’re doing social media for a ministry is figure out the purpose of the specific social media. Then decide what kind of social media is best for what you want to do.

Here are some quick questions to guide your social media resolutions:

1. What are you aiming to do with your new social media? Communicate more clearly? Engage in more conversations? Create a prayer chain? Use more artwork in worship?

2. Who are you aiming to connect with by using new social media? Congregants, the wider community, members of session or a specific committee, young adults who have gone to college, sister organizations?

3. How interactive does this new social media need to be? Do you need to juggle calendar dates with multiple people, get feedback, spark new ideas, or just make sure everyone gets the same info?

4. Who will be in charge of this new social media? The pastor, the website manager, a church leader, a youth? Will the person in charge be paid? Will the social media require financial investment?

5. Will the person in charge of the new social media be accountable to or coordinate with anyone? Is there any tech support for the person? Is there a job or volunteer description for this new position?

6. Does your organization have a social media policy?  When and how will the social media be evaluated for effectiveness? Are there specific guidelines for the person in charge to follow? If not, who would be the ones to write such a policy?

Take some time to think about your new social media and check back with Worship Times for more tips about using social media in ministry.