More investigations in Lived Religion in Social Media

To continue my observations of the way different churches use Facebook to communicate to their members, I have chose to look at yet another church that uses Facebook as one of their means of communication. Locally in College Station, we have what is called Breakaway Ministries. This is a weekly non-denominational worship service held at various locations on campus that allows college students to take a break from their studies and join together to praise Jesus. This ministry is another example of the Emerging Church Movement that is taking over today in that it uses several forms of technology and different ways of worship that adheres to the worship practices of College Students.

One thing that  I found interesting about their Facebook page is that they have included a section that allows members to review their experience at Breakaway:

This provides current and potential new members of the Breakaway Ministries to get a feel of what they might be getting into by participating. This is an excellent way of using Facebook to reach out to members that may want to worship with other Christians on campus, but may not know what the place to do so is. Instead of just the ministry talking about what they have to offer and what someone may get out of worship, this feature on their Facebook page allows potential new members to hear from current members. This gives members more of a voice.

Something that I have noticed about this Facebook Page is that they do not post about their religion. Any pictures that are posted are just pictures that show the amount of people that come to each worship service:

The most that is sad is "God is the God of everyone", keeping it very open to all religions. This shows to potential new members that Breakaway is very popular among the Texas A&M campus. In order for members to know what they're going to get out of going to Breakaway they will have to go and see for themselves. 

Most of their other posts are more about letting members know where Breakaway is going to be that week and how they can get there: 

Breakaway uses their Facebook more to inform their members on how they can participate in Breakaway each week, instead of pushing religion on them. Even the status's they post are very short and just inform and remind members about Breakaway each week.

I think that Breakaway does this because they want to maintain that anyone, of any religion, can come to worship. One of the things that they posted from one of the pictures I posted above was "God is the God of everyone". I think their message is that at the end of the day, we all worship a higher being of some sort. Breakaway aims to accomodate college students from all different backgrounds, so by refraining from posting scriptures or other Christian propaganda they let current and future members to understand that all religions and backgrounds are welcome. Yes, they are a Christian based ministry. But much of what they talk about is life lessons, adapting to college, dealing with the different things that may arise in the life of a college student, etc. They aim to attract college students in general, not just Christian ones, and they keep this philosophy by keeping their Facebook page as more of a means of communicating reminders and updates to their members, instead of communicating their religion.