Churches and Social Media A Tool of Ministry and Outreach
William Jackson, M.Ed. Graduate of South Carolina
State University… William Jackson Northside Church of Christ, Jacksonville,
Minister Alvin Daniels of Hope Church of Christ, Hollywood
and Elisha Taylor III of Northbound Church of Christ provided
valuable information during the Social Media workshop portion
of the 51st Annual Florida State Church of Christ Lectureship
held in Jacksonville, Florida.
Attended by over 500 hundred members of Church of Christ
ministries and friends during the week, there were workshops
dedicated to Ministry, Evangelism, Youth Ministry, Outreach and
other areas of need and interest.
The workshop “Bridging the Gap Through Social Media”
was an interactive discussion covering digital content, social
engagement and how future employment and careers are
affected. How to digitally evangelize online and share the
gospel in outreach.
Social Media can affect credit scores and perceptions
that church members create when posting inappropriate
information. Digital information never goes away, members
of the Church of Christ and other ministries should understand
this, stated by William Jackson a 32 year educator.
People judge ministries by the Facebook, Instagram, SnapChat
postings of their.Church are being classified as good or
bad by members content.
William Jackson, Digital Media Innovator of My Quest to Teach
shared a new term “Sharenting” where parents are constantly
posting content about their kids. The danger is posting photos
of children nude, semi-nude or in poses of “cuteness,”
perceptions of being older and poses present a more mature
look can cause issues and dangers from cyber-stalkers, potential
child pornography issues, cyber-bullying and harassing in future
encounters with content online.
Minister Alvin Daniels spoke on how to create an effective
Social Media presence for ministries, to develop a team that
can support each other, that can use different platforms to
share the gospel and support the members and show to the
community the atmosphere of the ministry.
Minister Daniels shared how people will Google churches if
they are looking to move memberships or if they are relocating
to a new area. The Social Media engagement does mean
a lot for families. Hope Church of Christ is successful because
of its consistency with posting content, replying to emails
and messages from online and being able to rotate staff so
no one get burned out from doing the same thing all the time.
Successful engagement is having the minister and leadership
share content individually in videos, chats on Twitter, LinkedIn
and Instagram.
Even in this age of digital engagement it is important that
ministers do not shield themselves from the public,but use
Social Media to show their availability and access for prayer
and inviting the community to events of the ministry.
Minister Daniels has used Social Media to build Hope
Church of Christ to one of the largest and connected
ministries in the South Florida area.
Social Media is a powerful tool that can build a person’s
Brand or destroy their ability to communicate and influence.
The photo shows on the left Minister Alvin Daniels,
Elisha Taylor III blogger, speaker at tech conferences and
the first DCPS student to peak at a TEDX Salon at Florida
State College in Jacksonville and William Jackson DMI of
My Quest To Teach.
51st Annual Florida State Lectureship can be found at https://www.facebook.com/2019FloridaStateLectureship/
Minister Alvin Daniels can be found https://hopechurchofchrist.org/
Elisha Taylor III can be found at
https://myquesttoteach.wordpress.com/elisha-taylor-iii/
William Jackson, M.Ed. can be found at https://myquesttoteach.com/
More about Sharenting
https://www.npr.org/2019/08/12/750577697/what-parents-may-not-realize-when-they-post-about-their-kids-online