Unless you live under a rock you know that social networking is the latest thing. There are people 13-103 are signing up for facebook, twitter, and everything in between. It is about time for me to weigh-in on the latest and greatest of social networking. I will let you know the winners and losers of the different sites out there. I will also evaluate them based on the usefulness of ministry. There are some sites that over lap with one another so I will first compare and then give my summary.
The first round is Facebook vs. Myspace
I just went to myspace to see if I can still log into it. Let’s just say I was not successful on my first try. The last comment made on my page is from September 2008. I really do not have any use for this site and I hardly go on it anymore. For awhile myspace was the best thing out there. Now when I go on it the ads are very intrusive and they seem to get in the way when I try and navigate the site. One of the positives that that the pages is editable, however I personally think that some of the designs are more distracting than anything else.
I have not seen any way that I can take advantage of this site in my ministry. First there are not as many people using the site as in the past. Second I don’t know how I would use it if I could, there are not many opportunities to use it.
Evaluation: Not very useful
Ministry opportunity: None
This is probably my favorite social networking site out there. This is where all aspects of my life (home, college, camp, seminary, family, ministry) come together. I think I really enjoy facebook because of the number of people I can interact with on a daily basis. I always have some sort of friend on so if I need to talk with someone they are there. I can also keep up with the daily activities of my friends. Some people say that sites like facebook lessens the face to face interaction that people have with one another, and that might be true to a certain point. However for someone who works full time in ministry, has a family and personal enjoyment activities — I am not sure how much time I would have to keep up with my friends on a daily basis anyway! I think the extravert in me loves to be able to interact with my friends when I want too and I have even made new friends through facebook.
For ministry facebook can be a great thing, over the years I have connected with the kids in my youth group on facebook. As a pastor I have set up a “fan” page for my church so the different members can become fans and I can update these fan pages with description of different events that are happening within the church. It is a great way to connect with people and it is a great way to get information out there that the members of my church want/need to know.
Evaluation: Very important in personal life
Ministry Opportunity: Very useful
The winner between these two sites is Facebook, by a knockout in the first round.
Next up – Microblogging (Twitter) vs Macroblogging (Other blogging sites)
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