The Language of Social Media

We were at a very pleasant family gathering last weekend and I had the opportunity to chat with two nephews. Nathan is a computer programmer and not surprisingly we got on to the subject of how businesses and organizations use websites and phone apps to communicate with actual and potential customers. He is learning the art of diplomacy, of convincing clients that their great ideas may not be so wonderful as communication tools. Lots of businesses want to throw every possible detail of their enterprise on to the entry page rather than giving a clear informational path through links. It's worse with apps, where the temptation is to try to use the tiny screen of a phone to convey all the information of a computer screen size website.

Churches are notorious for having confusing and stale-dated websites, although they are becoming more savvy with time. It hadn't occurred to me that we need to be ready for the most recent frontier, the smartphone app.

I also chatted with Michael who is well on his way in the process to become a United Church minister. He has read this blog over time and is aware that I am on Twitter. I asked if there is a social media course at seminary and he chuckled saying "nothing that useful." I suspect that this is the same at each of the United Church seminaries, yet we live in an era when most younger people go to the internet first to read the news, and to search out practical information including where a local church might be. Many young families have told me that they found my previous church, St. Paul's, through an internet search and looked to see what was available for their children and themselves. Some ventured into my blogs and my posted sermons to become better informed about our theological outlook. I hope the same will happen at Bridge Street.

I have mentioned before that since I am a member of the Over Fifty Club, which includes 80+% of United Church clergy, I have benefitted greatly from my adult children and younger congregational members to nudge me into the technological options for sharing the Good News and general stuff. I would have been daunted otherwise, but I'm glad they were there. I realize there is so much more I could learn.

What are your thoughts? Should the institutions which train our United Church clergy include courses on the use of social media as an outreach tool? The UCC gives grants to clergy to learn another language for ministry. Should the same happen to learn the "language" of blogs and Twitter and Facebook?