Seeing church leaders take advantage of social media tools and engage with people is very exciting. It allows them to be more approachable and accessible to their audience in a casual and easy to use format. The tools they use are free (for the basic options), equipment can be as basic as one’s iPhone and a tripod, and are providing much peace and insights to thousands.
1. Robby Gallaty—He uses Facebook Live to answer questions about the Biblical passage his entire church is reading as they go through the Bible (F260).
Pastor Robby Gallaty at Longhollow Baptist leads people through a Bible study every week. He calls it, “Talking through the Word with Pastor Robby.
2. Matt Chandler–He uses a Twitter hashtag to collect questions regarding his sermon series. He answers the questions on the sermon topic every week by video.
He provides a response to questions posted via Twitter #askTVC (The Village Church) during his sermon series. When the entire sermon series videos are collectively posted online, his Q&A are listed too. Here is a link to all of the sermons in the sermon series the #ABeautifulDesign series.
3. Micah Fries—He uses Facebook Live to answer open questions weekly.
- Micah is available weekly to answer questions every Tuesday at 2pm via Facebook Live. Questions can be texted to a posted number for the pastor to answer during the Facebook Live. Speaking with Micah last month, he gave the following answers to how and why he uses Facebook Live.
- Micah Fries, “I think it’s definitely worth the time if it’s used well. The Q&A we do has been really helpful. We get a ton of engagement. We also have been pushing our livestream out through Facebook Live. We ask people to share it at the beginning of the service, and it gets crazy action. When we do our normal videos, though, we don’t use a mic. In fact, the Facebook folks we talk to tell us our videos need to be kind of rough. They spread better that way. We just use a phone, and for our Q&A our Comms Director uses a tripod, but it’s pretty basic.”
- Follow this link to their Q&A: Micah Fries on Facebook Live.
4. Greg Potts–Greg uses Facebook Live to daily broadcast a daily devotional thought. Here is a link to Greg’s page: https://www.facebook.com/gregg.potts. He usually expounds upon his daily devotional and encourages his followers as they start the day.
5. Other Ideas–Facebook Live is the hottest current social media tool. How else to use it?
- Give behind the scenes sneak peeks to followers like a staff meeting, choir practice, worship team planning, etc.
- Go Live and highlight an event. This could be a block party, youth camp, movie night, baptism, special dinner, concert, etc. Create excitement and connection by sharing a few testimonies during the event from participants.
- Interview experts following a sermon for those who desire more information. Following a sermon on “Adoption by God,” chat with a local adoption agency or foster care coordinator and give followers an opportunity to ask deeper dive questions.
The tools these pastors use are free and easily accessible. Hope you find this of benefit to further the message and mission of your church.
These are all great ideas. I wonder what their effectiveness might be in smaller churches, though. I’m not familiar with Gregg Potts, but I know the rest are from good sized churches, Chandler’s being very large. I wonder what percentage of their church participates in these things. I have thought about some of these tools in the past, but they just wouldn’t be useful in a church like mine. Not many (maybe not any) of my church are on twitter outside of a few youth. Many are on facebook but don’t participate in things I have tried. I like the… Read more »
Luke, I firmly believe these recommendations can be used by small churches under 100. Great thing about Facebook Live, it notifies your followers you are on live. These recommendations can expand the scope and reach of the ministry of your church and of your influence. Will your existing members engage you immediately? Maybe not but like the great quote from the movie, “Field of Dreams,” “if you build it, they will come.” You may have to develop a following and then your people will follow to see what “all the fuss is about.” It is a wonderful way to share… Read more »