Wednesday, December 11, 2013

Don’t Give Up on Your Internet Ministry

by EMILY SHOAFF
 
in MINDSET
Don’t Give Up on Your Internet Ministry
These days, plenty of churches are thinking about social media and its potential to help reach people.
Whether your church is thinking about starting an online ministry, or you’ve already started, there may come a time when frustration sets in and you start to think, “This just isn’t working.”
We all have those moments, especially when trying something we’re new at and maybe not altogether comfortable with.
But just because something isn’t working doesn’t mean it can’t work.

Rethink your expectations

Before you decide to throw in the towel, I’d suggest re-thinking your church’s expectations for social media and outreach.
Unfortunately, social media is often thought of as a kind of get-rich-quick scheme of outreach.
It’s not.
You can’t just set up a website or a Facebook page and expect the visitors to come pouring in.
It’s a tool that needs a person (or multiple people) to wield it.
And yes, it takes work.
And yes, it takes time.
Both of these are true of most things worth doing.
But the time and work you put into it can be worth it.

Learn from your mistakes

The internet is actually one of the best places to fail at something.
Using it effectively doesn’t cost a ton of money, doesn’t take more time than anything else, and you can always try again. And people are often quite forgiving.
Don’t be afraid to try again. It’s not any different from other challenges in life in that you might have to make multiple attempts before reaching your goal.
And every time you try something and it doesn’t quite work out, you can take what you learned and use it to improve for next time.

Come back to where you are

It’s important to have goals so that you have a sense of the direction in which you want to go and a plan for getting there, but plans can change.
Use your goals to help guide you, but focus mostly on taking a step forward from where you are.
Don’t worry about how far you still have to go.
Start learning to use the different tools. Start posting things regularly. Practice and you will get better at it.
Decide what steps you can take right now, and then follow through. The results of your efforts will give you ideas about what to do in the future.
If an idea works, great! You can continue forward with it or expand upon it . And if it doesn’t work, you can learn from it and go from there.
You don’t have to have it all figured out now. The steps you need to take will become more apparent as you go along.

Share what you’ve learned

Has your church struggled with social media? Please share your experience!
Source: Internet Toolbox for Churches

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