How is your church using Myspace or Facebook?

I'll be presenting at the NRB Convention in March and the Dynamic Church Conference in May on social networking and the church.  I plan to highlight case studies of churches that are effectively using Myspace or Facebook. 

I'll post my slides on Digital after the conferences, and may post a blog or two about specific churches using these 2 sites in effective ways.  I think posts like this from Phil are very insightful in figuring out best practices...

I have a couple (famously innovative) churches in mind already to show as examples.  But I'd like to survey the landscape a bit more and find other (perhaps smaller) churches who are finding value from Myspace or Facebook.

I see churches using any of the following:

a) A Myspace Profile

b) A Myspace or Facebook Group

c) A Facebook Church Fan Page 

d) A Facebook Church Application

e) A combination of the above (or maybe all of them?)

So what does your church use, and would you share the URL so that I can take a look?  If you don't mind getting interviewed, I'd love to connect with you to learn more about your experiences (joe at mychurch.org)

Thanks,
Joe

(ps. Thanks Cynthia, for pointing out this group/e-book)

Comments

[Peter]

This sounds like a great conversation to watch. Our church isn't doing anything with FaceBook, MySpace, MyChurch, etc. We just barely got an updated website with recent news. :-)

I do look forward to your talk, though. I'd love to get some ideas on how our small church can effectively utilize some of these sites to enhance our community. I'll be at the DCC as well (look for the guy heading upstairs to handle data-related issues on a semi-regular basis :-D).

[stephen shields]

joe, i will probably be doing another piece this year on churches and new media so please email me any random thoughts, examples, anything you think might be good for me to know ab in this space as you come across it! Thanks!

[Dustin DeKoekkoek]

Hey Joe,
I manage the Facebook presence for my church, Mars Hill. You may have already seen these but I thought I would throw out some links for you or anyone else who is interested in seeing what we are doing. Our most successful use has been by creating a profile for our preaching pastor, Mark Driscoll. We are getting close to the 5000 friend limit with this. I manage it day-to-day but Mark will log on to reply to messages and questions on his wall. We also have a Mars Hill Church group and page. We haven't done much with the page yet. Additionally, we've created a group and page for the Vintage Jesus book series that Mark Driscoll is releasing.

Here's the link to Mark's profile: http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=504171597

If you want to see our groups/pages just search for them in Facebook

[Jack]

Based on your Facebook article on this blog, I put together a page for our church, but I am not sure what else to do with it. I am a volunteer web master, and so I don't have a lot of time to keep up with Facebook.

First Christian Church of Tallahassee on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Tallahassee-FL/First-Christian-Church-of-Tallahassee/6091124901

Thanks for your original article.

[Greg Atkinson]

I'll be speaking at NRB, too. Would love to meet you and chat for a bit. My church (Bent Tree) has a fan page on Facebook. Also, our young adult ministry/alternative service: The Clearing - has a Facebook page and following, too.

[Joe Suh]

Dustin, I'll be in touch. And I'll be infiltrating your groups :) I'd like to do a post about all the myspace/facebook stuff Mars Hill is doing, and get your thoughts on what's working and what's not

Peter, Jack, thanks for the comments. I'm especially curious to see how "smaller" churches can use social networking. I think economies of scale make it difficult to use SNS in the same way that a megachurch does. A solution for a church of 5000 might not work for a church of 100. But we're all trying to figure this out together...

[Dustin DeKoekkoek]

Joe, I'd love to help or answer any questions you have. I see you've already started infiltrating. :)

[Bob Cottrill]

We have a Church Facebook group with 220 members here at North Park Community Church - and I find it most useful to message people (about once every two weeks) with info regarding services, special opportunities, etc.
We haven't really promoted it - it's a very passive effort - we haven't really posted any content of note on the group itself . . . people have pretty much found it on their own. I'd be happy to answer any questions you might have . . .

[Tricia Moody]

We use myspace! http://www.myspace.com/mercystreetspace

[Tricia Moody]

We use myspace! http://www.myspace.com/mercystreetspace