What the USCCB's FB Fan page might say about the church and social media

This is a sorry excuse for a blog, but to the extent that there are themes I find a need to post on, they are the role of faith in American politics (which I've studied a little) and the future of social media and the church (which I'm just getting interested in). This week, I've seen a confluence of all three on the USCCB fan page.

The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops runs a decent online presence - a Facebook page that works as another media relations outlet, a Twitter feed, probably some other stuff. A few weeks ago they posted a note about which cities had the most FB fans, which was fun, sparked me to try to get friends to sign up, and showed they have an interest in engaging their fans.

And then, health care reform popped up. The Conference issued a statement earlier this week opposing federal health reform, and a funny thing happened - FB fans treated it like they would any other post. They argued, sometimes in great detail, sometimes not. They asked questions. They reacted.

I don't know what transpired within the USCCB media shop, or how many bishops actually look at the page, but at least the people who run the fan page took notice. They responded. They refereed a little. A couple times, they got swept up in the conversation.

What fascinates me about this is not the issue of health care and the Church's position per se. (No, really, I mean that!) It's what this sort of interaction might mean in the future. To a much greater degree than ever before, the Church is being forced into a more interactive mode of communication with its members, which is an incredible challenge. There are less than 15,000 fans on the FB site, compared to, what, 70 million total members, but the few fans who participated in comments on the USCCB's wall showed a wide diversity of opinion, a wide range of knowledge about the issue, and a fair bit of expressed loyalty to the church and its leaders. The fact that the Catholic Health Association and scores of female religious orders took a different position on the issue sparked even more controversy.

It seems to me that this is the beginning of a new phase in the Church that it will embrace, fight, or both. The Church has been labeled often over the years as hierarchical, and I don't think I need to dwell on that point. The web, and particularly social media, are flat. A hierarchical Church can issue a statement with only limited (and relatively slow) response from dissenters among its members. A flat church will find the need and the opportunity to interact with supporters, opponents, and undecideds or mixed among its members in a much more significant way - they will get questions directly, and the opportunity to "show their work" by walking through the thinking, the Scripture, the tradition behind the rationale for a position.

Such interaction is time and thought-intensive. It is challenging, not only in the sense of being hard but also in the sense that it will feel like the authority of the Church is being challenged. The Church may choose to ignore this change, may approach respondents with a "take it or leave it" approach. It shouldn't. If the Church's positions are worth accepting, they are worth explaining in as much detail as the faithful need. Maybe more controversially, the Church may need to recognize that sometimes the people posting comments opposed to the official Church position might have some valid points that can improve the Church's vision.

Random social media stats and stuff

Haven't posted in a while, but there have been several interesting stats about social media usage that I've posted on my Facebook profile, but that's written in water, so I figured I'd stash them here. Most of them showed up first on Mashable, which runs a great clearinghouse on this sort of thing, even if they are WAY too hyper about their Facebook posting.

Here's a great video that incorporates a ton of different stats on the growth of the internet and especially social media.

Here's a nice infographic on the state of Twitter.

Here's a study on the "obsession" of social media users.

Here's a nice study showing that people use different social media platforms for different things.

Finally, there's a nice piece from Salon.com about a cool story involving Conan O'Brien, a random Twitter user, and a lot of good.

Paying Taxes, Citizenship, and issues of faith

Purpose Driven Connection's Scot McKnight has an interesting piece on paying taxes as a form of worship.

He cites a lot of the same passages I've used here, so as you might guess, I generally agree. I might argue that he goes too far by calling it worship, though.

Opposite ends of the spectrum

The Catholic News Service does a pretty good job with it's Facebook page in raising the issue of how the Church should respond to the Pope's call for priests to use social media. Here's a blog they've cited a couple times in which a priest who has been out in front of the curve shares what he's learned.

It's a good start, and it's good to see Catholic laity like Matthew Warner struggling with how to do more by studying the data (he uses Erik Qualman's excellent Socialnomics video here.

Certainly on the Protestant side, there are some pretty big players doing well by social media. I stopped typing that sentence so I could share Purpose Driven's daily devotional on my FB profile.

But these are churches that existed pre-social media looking to adopt new technology. I think the other end of the spectrum isn't theological or doctrinal but organizational: new churches that are starting now are building to greater or lesser extents around social media as a foundational building block. My friend Andy Fernandez's I Am Ministries may be a good example of that. He's in the process of building a "church without walls" with a house church structure that dates back to the earliest collections of believers, but he also has an active and engaging website, a Twitter feed and a Facebook feed to engage his members through their days.

More reflections on social media and faith

In my last post, I tried to hash out a quick argument for WHY the Church should engage social media in its mission, but I didn't really say much about HOW. Let me take as a way of categorizing these the purposes in Rick Warren's Purpose Driven Life. Keep in mind that fundamentally, I see the value of the church engaging in social media as a means of providing believers with ways to surround themselves with messages that support them in their faith walk while exposing non-believers to the Christian message. My sense is that to date some church leaders have been enterprising in using social media, but mostly in non-social manner - as one-way broadcast media instead of as hosts of conversations. The latter requires some significant changes - not only do leaders need to be able to relinquish control of the agenda and engage others in dialogue, but believers who currently participate as passive receivers of messages need to develop their own voices.

Worship:
I don't believe you can conduct sacraments via social media, but couldn't we do more to prepare for them? Currently there are several outlets that post the readings for daily and Sunday mass, and that's certainly a start. Many churches post audio and video podcasts of worship services after the fact. But couldn't an enterprising church post video/audio of the songs to be sung at upcoming Sunday worship so parishioners can get familiar with them first? Couldn't there be chat sessions and other conversations using Twitter, Facebook, etc. on the themes of the readings?

Community:
This is the most natural function of social media, as parishioners can and should develop "friend lists" and groups to deepen the bonds of community established face-to-face and continue their church relationships throughout the week...just like they do with other friends. While I have seen several ministries use Facebook and Twitter to ask for prayer requests, I'm never quite sure who's doing the actual praying for those requests. It seems more in keeping with the local nature of church to engage smaller scale prayer boards with groups of participants who agree not only to submit requests but to pray for the intentions raised by others. As impressive as a Facebook thread with 750+ comments on it may be, it doesn't seem realistic to think that those 750 people are taking time to pray for the intentions of the other 749.

Discipleship:
"Distance learning" it used to be called. Education suing social media tools is not that new, but traditional educational institutions have been slow to embrace the possibilities this format brings. Unlike one-way educational platforms (including online "self-taught" classes), using social media engages the participants in teaching each other content. One attempt I've tried in this arena is a Facebook study group - between 25-75 people have registered and between 6-30 have very actively participated in studies on books (One Month to Live, Purpose Driven Life) and Bible studies. This format has the added benefit of building a sense of community while fostering spiritual growth.

Service:
Coordinating service projects and other service-related ministry, as well as promoting their work, seems to be something the faith community is adapting social media for already.

Witness:
One of the benefits of social media is that participants who are believers have a very easy time witnessing. It can be awkward to raise a faith conversation with a non-believer you know (or one you don't). Posting status updates that reflect your faith or tweeting about what you're doing at church are far less intimidating. There's also a dimension of witnessing via social media that I find charming: you never know who's going to respond. I'm by no means the best at this, but I continue to be surprised to draw a reaction from someone I didn't even consider when I posted my update.