Over the last few months I have started an experiment by accident and I think we can learn something from it. Let me tell you:
A few months ago I was in an unusual situation. My church had decided to make major staffing changes, so I knew I was moving. I went to the doctor and found out I had a brain tumor, and then my senior pastor went on vacation for a month.
When I went in to talk to my District Superintendent (the pastor who supervises my district of churches), she shook her finger at me and told me that I needed to communicate VERY CLEARLY and often with my church. My job, she reminded me, was to minimize anxiety and keep the church informed.
She was right, but also I didn't want my wife burdened during (and after) my surgery with lists of people to call and email, nor did I want her to feel inundated with calls when she was going through a lot. Hmmm. Well, Facebook, Twitter and my blog turned out to be the solution. It was perfect because friends, family, church family, and even the people who weren't yet on facebook could stay connected to my progress without much effort on my wife's part. We ended up starting a new blog and by the end of that month we had over 6000 hits. It was a great success.
It was an accident, but it worked beautifully. It wasn't just information, it wasn't just what happened, but it was about how I felt. Perhaps more importantly, it wasn't just words but also video and pictures. It turns out that I finally did all the things I'd been expounding on this blog for so long! I was using social media to build relationships. In the process of authentically expressing myself, I was sharing my life and faith with a larger audience than I preach to each Sunday. How cool is that? It was an accident, but I was actually doing the mission statement of the church... perhaps even more effectively than on Sunday morning.
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