How does your fellowship use the Internet?

[Naomi4Christ]

We have a church website that doesn’t change as much as it should. It has details of our ministries and a generic schedule. It also has a private area with contact details with those who have signed up.

We have a social media team who manage Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. On Facebook, we have a private group for church family which gives practical details of church events, as well as a daily inspirational message. We also have a public presence where we can be a Christian witness in our community, and this seems to be bearing fruit.

We use cloud based software to manage all of our rotas, as music submissions.

A challenge is for us to communicate with members who are not on social media or the internet. We email information to those who are not on Facebook - fine. Those who have no electronic presence, we buddy up with those who do, so that they do not miss out.

One of our outreach ministries is a computer class/access. Those in our community who cannot access the internet are at a big disadvantage financially, eg in accessing lower tariffs in their utilities. We invite in those people in our community to help them get on the web. I know the library has similar facilities, but they don’t offer the same pastoral care.

PIt is wonderful to see people empowered by such a simple ministry. They are taking a step on being able to live life to the full.

 

[Paidiske]

Really just website/email mainly. I know we need to do a lot more but there is not the appetite there from most of the lay folk, so I'm kind of pushing stuff uphill in that regard.

One thing to be aware of with cloud based software (you may already be aware, but just in case); often when you sign up to use those programmes, there's a clause in the fine print that they own and can access whatever you upload to it. If the information you upload has privacy implications - say, contact details for people on rosters - you may be leaving yourself open to a privacy breach.

The challenge I have is that people in the parish really want everything to revolve around the preferred approach of the people who don't have email or use the internet, so that holds us back from using more efficient or relevant forms of communication. Everything has to be on paper... does my head in.

 

[Naomi4Christ]

Our cloud based software is designed specifically for churches. We have very tight data protection, which I assume will continue after Brexit.

I do find that websites ask you for more personal data than is required, and those who are not as tuned into data protection voluntary give up information that is not required. For example, they don’t need my date of birth, phone number and street address to tell me that I’m on duty on Sunday.

We have information about this on in our Safeguarding training, but not everyone is required to do these courses.

 

[Naomi4Christ]

Really just website/email mainly. I know we need to do a lot more but there is not the appetite there from most of the lay folk, so I'm kind of pushing stuff uphill in that regard.

You definitely need a few people who are energised to do this and are competent.

The challenge I have is that people in the parish really want everything to revolve around the preferred approach of the people who don't have email or use the internet, so that holds us back from using more efficient or relevant forms of communication. Everything has to be on paper... does my head in.

We have just stopped producing more than a few copies of any document.

Some people may not be happy with this, but we have packaged it as striving to become an eco-church, and to free up our admins to do more outreach.

As I said, we have made allowances for those who do not have internet access, and any other accessibility issues. There’s a balance to be achieved.

This reminds me of the joke: The 90-year old verger was asked if he had seen many changes over his time. “Yes,” he replied, “and I’ve resisted every one of them”.

 

[whereloveandmercymeet]

Surprisingly everyone seems to be behind more use of the church website and digital newsletter etc. We have some physical copies too but it’s mostly for visitors or for people to take to parishioners in hospital etc.

Amazingly some of our most stuck in the mud parishioners (I.e ‘no we don’t need a new light, it still works 1% of the time’ level resisters) really embraced it. It’s still quite basic in places but I’m really happy that the whole congregation is positive about it.

 

[Naomi4Christ]

Surprisingly everyone seems to be behind more use of the church website and digital newsletter etc. We have some physical copies too but it’s mostly for visitors or for people to take to parishioners in hospital etc.

Amazingly some of our most stuck in the mud parishioners (I.e ‘no we don’t need a new light, it still works 1% of the time’ level resisters) really embraced it. It’s still quite basic in places but I’m really happy that the whole congregation is positive about it.

That is so encouraging!

Welcome to STR! I hope to hear more from you here.

 

[JamieRedheadUK]

My cathedral
Welcome to Manchester Cathedral - Manchester Cathedral

My local church
The Church Of The Ascension | Welcome

My church website came online four days ago. We have an evangelical church which uses our church and the traditional Church of England church and we don’t use IT at all. The liturgy is handed out on printed sheets, email isn’t used etc but I think they are planning this year for big social media pushes etc.

 

[Naomi4Christ]

My cathedral
Welcome to Manchester Cathedral - Manchester Cathedral

My local church
The Church Of The Ascension | Welcome

My church website came online four days ago. We have an evangelical church which uses our church and the traditional Church of England church and we don’t use IT at all. The liturgy is handed out on printed sheets, email isn’t used etc but I think they are planning this year for big social media pushes etc.

Thanks for sharing, Jamie, and congratulations to your church for launching their new website. I pray that it will be a blessing to your church family and to your community of Hulme.

Social media is very tricky as there is no platform that reaches everyone, and there is the balance between privacy of members, yet wanting a lot of the information to be public.

We have an ongoing debate in PCC about our media policy. We want to show pictures of people, because that’s what church is, but it is amazing how many people don’t want to be in photos.

Our diocese is very helpful regarding websites and social media.

 

[Shropshire Anglican]

Our church has Facebook and email. Trying to get them to get a website and perhaps Twitter.