The Evangelistic Power of Social Media

If there ever was a match made in heaven it is social media and the church. Both mediums have the same goal, reach as many people as possible. Facebook has to be the greatest invention to accomplish this task since the printing press. Tonight, I published a live stream of a Spanish church service to Facebook and by the end of the program we received 2000 views. There are people in the comments requesting prayer, and people who wanted to follow up on what they heard by corresponding with a live person. These are the results that churches throughout history would have loved to obtain when planning and putting on evangelistic series. Traditionally we have printed flyers, went door to door, and purchased radio/tv/subway advertisements to spread the word that an evangelistic series was about to happen. Don’t get me wrong all these methods are great and should be continued, but the inexpensive reach of social media needs to be considered when advertising church events. Here are some reasons why

1. Everybody has a Facebook account

   By everybody I mean most people. Stats show that the population of Canada is 36 Million. The amount of Facebook users in Canada is 19 Million. More than half of the people in Canada have a Facebook account. The numbers increase when we rule out children under 13 from among the population. The amount of Facebook users around us is not trivial. Due to this, targeting groups of people or geographic areas is extremely powerful. The whole purpose of a church is to be visible and relevant in its community, and advertising through Facebook allows for this to happen.

2. The audience (or followers) already exists

   Your church has members already. Encouraging them to follow the official social media accounts should be easy in comparison to companies that are trying to generate an audience. If the posts that the church produces are relevant and well produced, church members would have no problem sharing them with others. Which brings me to my next point…

3. Everyone can participate in ministry

   The church posts to the subscribers (members) and the members share the posts with their friends who they have relationships with. Hopefully these friends also become subscribers and continue the cycle while reading/watching new posts or programs that the church produces. If this is done the gospel can certainly permeate the entire world.

4. We can interact instantly with our watchers and readers

   The various ministries have an opportunity to directly respond to the readers/watchers inquires, prayer requests, baptismal requests etc. The ministries of our church could be activated in new and exciting ways.

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