Social Media has been a
very present and effective source of communication for a couple of years now,
but it has not always been around. Our society has had to learn to adapt to
this new source of media that has allowed us to communicate in so many more
different ways than we had before. Facebook is one of the first, and pretty
much the predecessor of all social media sites to follow. It has many different
features that allow people to communicate and share information more easily.
Different religions have different views on the use of media to unite their
congregation. One religion in particular that I have been looking at in my case
study is the non-denominational Christian churches. These churches are very
much about modernity and using technology and new forms of media to better
communicate and relate to a congregation who is continuously growing in this
information age. They are very much about living in the future and moving
forward rather than dwelling on the past, and that shows in the way they
operate and function. One way this is shown is how they use social media sites
like Facebook to communicate to their members. Through this case study, I will
be examining how non-denominational churches use Facebook to communicate to
their members and why.
The first thing that I examined was the Facebook page of “Christian”
in general. When a Facebook member “likes” the Christian Facebook page, they
are opened up to a world of information that they can use. This page is
supplied with different groups and people who are also Christian and may be
living near you. Users can come to this page and find people in their area that
can help point them to the right worship community for them. What this Facebook
page lacks, though, is the idea of community. The Christian Facebook page is
more of a resource rather than a communication tool. So I decided to look
deeper and focus on specific worship communities, which led me to observing
different non-denominational churches.
Non-denominational churches are very much about living in
the present and making Christianity your own. They preach some of the same
ideas as more traditional Christian churches, but they also are much more
modern and contemporary and adhere to the needs of Christians living today. One
way that they do this is through their Facebook page. The church that I looked
at, in particular, was the church I attend back home, Riverpointe Church. One of
the first things that I noticed that they do for their members is provide
podcasts on their Facebook page of the sermons that they might have missed on
Sunday. This tactic is seen as a double edged sword, especially to those who
are of the more traditional churches. This makes the sermons more accessible
for congregation members, but it also gives them a reason to not have to get
up, get dressed in their Sunday best, and head to church on Sunday. The
Christian religion has always been about putting Jesus Christ as your first
priority, especially on Sundays, and by allowing members of the
congregation to negate that by providing
a podcast goes against this. On the other hand, in today’s society people have
become much more busy, especially on the weekends, and while they very much
wish that they could make it to church Sunday morning and watch the sermon in
person, they are just not able to. By providing this podcast on Facebook, they
are able to listen in and worship just as they would if they had gone to church
that Sunday, only this time it is in front of a computer screen instead of in
the church.
Another church I looked at was Breakaway ministries here
in College Station and how they used their Facebook page. They are different
from Riverpointe in that they use their Facebook page as more of a way to
encourage people to come to Breakaway. All of their posts are about upcoming
dates, parking information, etc. rather than podcasts, scriptures, and other
inspirational things. They very much enforce the idea of community in Christianity
and would rather the student body come together to worship, rather than worship
on their own in private. By not providing the messages that they would be
sharing at the breakaway sermons on their Facebook page, people are more like
to come see it in person rather than worship on their own time.
Non-denominational churches are changing the way people
look at Christianity, and technology and social media sites like Facebook are
definitely helping them doing that. By looking at the Christian Facebook page,
the Riverpointe Church Facebook page, and the Breakaway Ministries Facebook
page, I’ve been able to gather information and better understand how Facebook
is being utilized to help these churches reach more members and make Christianity
a more accessible and inviting religion than it has been in the past.
