Written by Margaret Farnham | October 24 2010
Posted in Student Services - Admissions

Facebook: a social networking website where users add people as friends, send messages, share photos, and update their personal profiles to notify friends about themselves.

Twitter: a social networking and microblogging service that enables its users to send and read other users’ messages called tweets (text-based posts of up to 140 characters displayed on the author’s profile page).

Blog: short for “web log,” a type of website or part of a website usually maintained by an individual with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video. 

Podcast: combines the instant information exchange of blogging with audio and video files that can be played on a computer or portable media device.

Ning: a social network that appeals to people who want to create their own online platform around specific interests with their own visual design, choice of features and member data. Used by organizers and activists.

Gospel: The “good news.”

By Margaret L. Farnham
The options for spreading the “good news” these days are endless. You can blog or tweet or poke someone with the tap of a key or the touch of a screen.

Many Trinity graduates have next week’s sermon on their mind and Facebook open on their laptops. Professors post articles of interest on personal blogs, while students look for new ways – perhaps a YouTube video – to showcase an in-class project.

“I have found new methods for presenting material simply by noticing a Facebook friend or Twitter follower use something I haven’t seen before, like Xtranormal text to video,” said Ben Sloss, a second-year student in the M.Div. program. In other words, he can create a movie about baptism just by typing text.

Ben is a Facebook user and a Twitter tweeter. “While I don’t dabble much in some of the new aspects of Facebook, my MIC pastor and I do compete quite viciously for the top score in Bejeweled Blitz,” he said. Ben and his Ministry in Context supervisor are among the 2.8 million people who play this game in a browser or on an iPhone. It’s a way for mentor and student to connect in an informal way.

Tom Lyberg (’90), senior pastor of Trinity Lutheran Church in Findlay, Ohio, always has his Facebook page open on the computer in his office. “That’s accessibility; that’s the equivalent of giving my cell phone number to the older folks,” he said.

As a result, he has connected with members of his congregation in new ways. He recalls a young member who one day informed her Facebook friends that she was having “an awful day.” Pastor Lyberg inquired further and learned that she had to have her dog euthanized. He responded to her post, opening the door for a more meaningful conversation about death and grief.

“They can see that Pastor Tom is there; that springboards into the face-to-face stuff,” he said.

Kim Conway (’07), pastor of Epiphany Lutheran Church in Dale City, Virginia, also sees the popular networking site helpful in her ministry. “From a pastoral care standpoint, I see things going on in people’s lives that they may not speak to me about right away. Someone might have lost a job or there is a death in a family,” she said.

But Conway doesn’t have time for tedious Facebook applications that invite participants to manage a virtual farm or garden. In fact, an application called “Covered Dish,”

in which participants are encouraged to send virtual casseroles to their friends, prompted her to ask the question: “Wouldn’t it be great if we really did something about hunger instead of wasting our time on Facebook?”

That question prompted her colleague and former classmate, Michael Poole (’04), of St. Paul Lutheran Church, in Ironton, Ohio, to say: “Let’s do it.”

Since then, the two have helped raised more than $4,500 in 2009 and $5,800 to date in 2010 for ELCA World Hunger through a program called “Month of Potlucks to End World Hunger.” Through Facebook, e-mails, and blogs they invited churches to host a “real” potluck during the month of March in 2009 and June and beyond in 2010. The potlucks have three components: education, advocacy and service. Their hope is that on any given day during that month, a congregation somewhere in the country would hold a potluck to raise money and awareness for world hunger. Twenty-seven churches participated in 2009. This year they raised their goal to 50 churches during the month of June – and they have more than doubled that with 103 registered so far. Their project this year will culminate with a conference called “Hunger Huddle” on November 5 at the seminary.

“Mike and I never intended to do any of this. It all started with our venting on Facebook that we were wasting our time,” said Conway.

Lyberg sees social media as something the church needs to embrace to remain current and “in the world.” The son of a mission developer in “the old American Lutheran Church (ALC),” Lyberg has always had an interest in things cutting edge. His father often used audio and video aids in teaching and worship. “The idea of a fixed worship space was not something I was raised with,” he said. As a result, he is attracted to things “transformational” and “emerging” within the church.

“Transformational leadership is more a nineties term, but it captures it; how do we coach and lead congregations to connect with their communities and emerging generations?” he said.

Six years ago he launched a podcast titled Wired Jesus, and for one brief year he was one of the “top 25 religious podcasts;” in part, because few religious podcasts existed then. Fast-forward to 2010 and the number of faith-based podcasts and blog sites have dramatically multiplied. (In 2005-2006, there were hundreds. Today there are tens of thousands.)

Wired Jesus is Lyberg’s personal platform for conversation and information. “It is very much a mission in that, from early on, half my listeners were completely disconnected from the church – either lapsed Christians or from another tradition,” he said. The podcast affords him the opportunity to discuss issues that may not be of interest to his congregation, but that help him grow and expand as a church leader.

When he came to Trinity in Findlay two years ago he helped the congregation to update its website and get on Facebook. It intimidated the older generation at first, but now many of them have profiles and friends. “They have discovered that if they have grandkids around, the kids are excited that grandma and grandpa want to be ‘friends’ with them,” said Lyberg.

Bishop Michael Rinehart (‘88) of the Texas-Louisiana Gulf Coast Synod vehemently resisted Facebook until a youth worker in his synod made the case for his presence on the popular social network. Now he doesn’t go a day without posting to his blog on the synod’s website, which also uploads to his Facebook and Twitter accounts. He can visit a church on Sunday morning, take photos of the congregation with his phone, and post it all by 1 p.m. the same day.

“When you’re a bishop in a synod that is eight hours across by car, it does make your job easier,” he said. Those Sunday posts and photos help pastors throughout the synod connect with one another and feel part of the synod.

Every Sunday afternoon Bishop Rinehart also posts a weekly devotion based on next week’s lessons. “As you can imagine, this is extremely noteworthy or read-worthy. If you’re going to be preaching on that it might be nice to see what your bishop thinks about it, even if you think it is bad. It gets your imagination going,” he said.

When he became bishop in 2007 he conducted a survey of the synod. The most frequent response was “heal the ‘disconnect’,” he said.  “Congregations and rostered leaders felt disconnected from the wider church. The good news is they said it mournfully. They wanted to be connected…You can’t say I won’t visit because I’m on Facebook, but combine that with a leadership conference and
visiting on Sundays and a webpage and e-mail, then you become the go-to and the connect is healed.”

“My strategy is to drive traffic to my blog where everything’s about church leadership development and proclaiming the gospel,” said Bishop Rinehart.

Halldór Guðmundsson, an international student from Iceland who earned his Master of Arts in Lay Ministry (’08) and a Master of Arts in Sacred Theology (’10), has had a blog since 2003. Prior to that, he participated in “discussion threads” from his home in Iceland. He continues to communicate in English and Icelandic on Facebook, Twitter and through his personal website, ispeculate.net.

His online conversations typically revolve around religious issues, and often attract writers who subscribe to other beliefs. “I don’t blog because I am looking for people who think like me. When my atheist friends attack me I learn something,” he said, adding that the atheist movement grew strength through the Internet where they could discuss their views without being revealed.

Guðmundsson in many ways is more interested in the method – the technology – than the message. His website offers him a place to experiment with various software programs and to store articles of interest – more than 900 – that he can access when needed. “I don’t use paper if I can avoid it,” he said.

He also reads blogs like people read magazines, and tries to engage people with different opinions and beliefs. “If you’re only in conversation with people like you then everything you say is correct,” he said.

“I see social networking more as a personal enrichment tool. It helps me keep track of what I am thinking. I throw out my thoughts, not what I’m feeling,” he said. Every now and then he said he takes a sabbatical from social networking. During his first year in seminary he remained off line from November through January.

“For the most part [social networking] is a good thing, but we have to figure out how to use it to enhance what we already do. There is a potential for getting sucked up in the trivialness that you miss the real stuff,” said Conway. She also has a Twitter account and more recently subscribed to Ning, a hybrid of Facebook that allows people to create a site or platform on a specific topic, such as world hunger.

Conway recently kicked off an online Bible study for members of her congregation. She created a blog and each week posts some text and probing questions. Her congregation is fairly young and open to the idea. “People have said they want a Bible study, but then it seems to conflict with their time, so we’re going to try this,” she said.

She also hopes to connect with former classmates via Skype for a text study – something lacking among her colleagues in the area where she lives.

The ideas are endless. “What needs to be kept in mind when someone is using social media to communicate is the level of engagement they want the person to have with what is being communicated. Not every message or idea should be sent via Twitter,” said student Ben.

“My rule on anything on the Internet is, if I don’t want my mother to read this it is not going to get written. I have a handful of very young, soon-to-be first graders and second graders on Facebook,” said Conway.

“The core values you use for any form of communication apply here. Don’t do anything you wouldn’t do in a church newsletter,” said Bishop Rinehart, who has about 500 Facebook friends, including pastors, high school and college friends, neighbors, and people he doesn’t even know.

“Sometimes I have people from two different zones of my life arguing. I make a statement and I have a pastor from the Missouri Synod arguing with a gay friend from another state, and they don’t even know one another,” he said.

Some pastors have to determine whether their Facebook page is meant for personal or professional use. “That has been a real struggle for young pastors who used it just for social networking,” said Bishop Rinehart.

“I know it is a social networking tool, and the gospel is a social networking tool, so I don’t leave anyone off. If you approach it as how can I use this as a tool for ministry, then all of a sudden this is an opportunity for me to have a platform,” he added.

Bishop Rinehart likes to remind people that the reformers rode on the coattails of technological advances of the 15th century. With Guttenberg’s invention of movable type anyone could have a Bible in the language of the people. “Luther wrote his 95 theses in Latin. Someone got a hold of them and translated them into German. That is social networking,” he said.

Social networking and online communication are topics of every staff retreat in the Texas-Louisiana Gulf Coast Synod. The synod also is creating a basic template that congregations can use to create their own Web page or blog at little or no cost.

“Our leaders have got to listen to younger people, because they are communicating in different ways,” said Bishop Rinehart. Anyone who is 25 and looking for a church likely will conduct an Internet search and visit a church’s website.

“Folks have gotten used to the fact that when it comes to Bible Study, my main tool is my laptop,” said Lyberg. “It is not a gimmick for me. It is part of communication that can benefit everyone.”

He encourages members to post discussion starters, prayers, or announcements of upcoming events on the church’s Facebook page. It also makes it easer to share photos of Vacation Bible School or confirmation within hours of the event.

“The constant challenge is that the method does not replace the message,” said Lyberg. “We are not people of the book. We are people of the Word. The word of God is first Christ, then the book. The same is true with our architecture and anything we project up. Is Facebook a way to stay connected? Yes. Does it replace the need for face-to-face? Never.”