The Lausanne Global Conversation is on the World Wide Open Network
Author: Dr Dion Forster
Date: 09.05.2010
Category: Media and Communications
Each year I have the privilege of teaching some classes on new media and ministry at Media Village’s School of Video Production.
Since most of the persons on the course are not theologically trained we spend the first day discussing issues related to the ’message’ of ministry. In particular we talk about the message of the Kingdom of God and our responsibility to be agents of transformation in society (thus pitching the content of the message towards individuals in order to engage the individuals with the Gospel of Christ, and also empower individuals to transform systems and communities to embrace the ways of Christ).
I have recently become increasingly aware of the fact that the Church sees its mission mandate as a geographical mandate (i.e., go into all the ’world’ making disciples of all nations...) However, there are ’worlds’ that are not part of our regular geography - these include social networks and new social media. I’m not sure about you, but I so much more connected with many more people because of the technology of social media. I communicate with more than 1000 people each time I send out an update on my twitter feed - http://www.twitter.com/digitadion. I have over 900 followers on twitter, and since my twitter feed automatically updates my facebook profile the 800 friends I have on facebook (some of whom are also friends on twitter) receive my updates. This phenomenon shows when I look at the logs for my website! I see a huge spike in hits to my website after an interesting tweet!
The lectures themselves offered quite a lot of insight into the tools of social media (twitter, facebook, linkedin) and new media tools (which primarily are communication tools to get rich content (such as audio, video, electronic text, or still images) to large groups of persons).
My media strategy, as you shall see from the video below, is quite simple:
1. Build a wide range of relationships. This is where twitter and facebook come in. The intention of these relationships is the create opportunities to interact around common interests and concerns, and particularly to drive traffic to my content! I cannot emphasize this last point strongly enough!
2. Having built a wide range of relationships I use various means to present rich content to my network. These include videos through youtube and qik, electronic text via my blog, and of course audio via my podcast and images via flickr.
3. When persons visit any of these sites I try to provide content for free (books, podcasts, videos etc.) that will bring about returning visits.
The long and the short of this relationship is that it creates a model for engagement around issues of the Gospel (the love of God in Christ, justice, social transformation etc.) Furthermore, the model also serves as a platform from which to launch my thoughts and ideas - I cannot tell you how many wonderful opportunities have come because my blog is rated in the top 5 in the Mail and Guardian’s religion blogs section. I frequently get emails, telephone calls, do radio and television interviews and have generated many sales for my books etc. through these contacts.
The ’secret’ if I can put it as such, is to give away ones content for free whenever possible. My idea is that the most valuable thing I have is not the paper on which my books is printed, rather it is the ideas, concepts and engagement that form the books - and of course my time. So, persosn can have my work for free since it eventually leads them to contact me to engage around the content. This in turn allows opportunities for me to share the Gospel of Christ and to encourage others to work with me for the transformation of society and creation!
If you’re interested you can watch this short video that I made on new media and social networking for ministry.
And, here’s a copy of the Powerpoint Slides I used over the three 2 days. Simply click the link to download them. There is a ’reading list’ in the middle of the slides that may be of some help. Please feel free to use them as you wish, if I could simply ask that you give a linkback to my blog (or site http://www.dionforster.com) if you use them.
I’d love to hear your perspectives on how the Church, and Christians, can use social media to bring God’s will to bear on society.
Keywords: social networking, twitter, facebook, blog, mission, ministry, missional, qik, video
Views: 9734
Comments: 6
Recommendations: 4
Conversation Post Comment
United States
Hi Dion.
Thanks for your contributions. My heart (and God calling) is to connect the 1st world with the 3rd world, through soical media.
I am starting an organization (called This is NOT Africa) which hopes to expose the myths that many 1st world people have toward Africans.
I feel until we break down stigmas, there will be no inclination toward relationship. Many Americans still believe that most Africans live in grass huts. How do we break down ideas of what the 3rd world is, so that 1st world people will engage?
I truly believe that "the American church has so much more to learn from the African church, than visa-versa." (Proffessor in Cape Town, Gideon Buekes.)
Also, how do we break down the issues of dependence (in relation to money) once these relationships are established? Many Americans are afraid of getting into relationships with Africans, for fear of being taken advantage of, in relation to money.
These are my questions in the ever-increasing web-based global world.
Stephanie Flaa
This is NOT Africa (Facebook page)
Church Administrator at www.coastsidechurch.org
10.10.2010
South Africa
Hi Dion, thank you for this article, it is very insightful.
One way of engaging people more, and making a bigger impact on communities, would be to take a look at http://mentoringbrothers.org/, which is a mentoring portal provided Big Brothers Big Sisters in the USA, which is one of the oldest one to one youth mentoring services. It is developing positive relationships that have a lasting impact on children’s lives.
This also, I am sure, encourages bridging relationships between Christian’s, brothers and sisters, who can transfer life skills.
The digital age and the breaking of the "digital divide", now presents a new problem, which is a bigger gap between the youth and our patriarchs and matriarchs of our society. The youth are more glued to their computer screens, social networks, mobile phones, gaming consoles & television, which breaks down the transfer of wisdom and interaction from the older school of thought and their very important role in society.
I was thinking, if it would be worthwhile to look at a social network model (there are many platforms), setup up by churches, which trains and supports the senior citizens to engage with the youth. This can be done using a email/chat facility, and through different types of mentoring, i.e. life skills, business/career, spirituality, relationships etc.
Our senior citizens in our churches, have so much to offer, but are so often discarded from day to day interaction with the youth. In this day and age, it is more imperative to have a strong Christian mentor (or mentors), and someone to confide in, especially due to broken homes, poverty, dysfunctional family situations.
It is also a good win-win situation, as the mere involvement and interaction with the youth, would provide senior citizens with being more actively engaged with their community, and the youth with an impetus of pearls of wisdom, and for both, rebuilding positive relationships.
Just something I have been doing some research on, and thought it would be something positive for transformation within Christian involvement in communities .
I have attached a research in progress document.
Your comments?
Downloadable Attachments
11.06.2010
United States
Useful information...thank you!
08.06.2010
South Africa
@ Outreach_New_Media:
Thanks so much for the comment - I truly appreciate it. By the way, I published an article on new media, technology and social networking in this month’s (June / July 2010) Lausanne World Pulse. You can read the article, entitled ’How technology is changing, or should change, the way in which the Gospel is shared’ here.
God bless,
Dion
08.06.2010
United States
@ digitaldion:
I already read it! ...and posted a link to it on my Facebook page! ...and tweeted! :)
08.06.2010
South Africa
@ Outreach_New_Media:
Thanks so much! You truly are an example of a social networker! We need more outreach through these platforms! May the Lord richly bless and use you!
Regards from Cape Town!
Dion
09.06.2010
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