Recently, I’ve been getting into more discussions with people regarding the question – should churches be using social media? If so, why and how?

There are plenty of reasons why we should look at the social web and see ways that the church should be evaluating and embracing it as just another extension of the offline social web that is the basis for our church communities.  I posted a video here of a recent talk that walked through the super high level basics of why the church should be social media positive.

Further in the conversation, the question arises whether social media is here to stay or just another fad.  I ask, was faxing or texting a fad?  Because they both were viewed the same way at the very beginning, but both in their own contexts are heavily relied upon for communicating these days.

Social media seems to be everywhere. There’s an important distinction here. Talking about social media might be a fad. But social media itself as a communications medium or approach, is probably something different. . .

Here’s a video from the Socialnomics author Erik Qualman that has made the rounds (based off an original version of socialnomics that went viral a long time ago in internet time) that presents that case regarding social media and diagnosing it as a fad. . .

AFTER WATCHING THE VIDEO ABOVE, WHAT DO YOU THINK?  ANYTHING SURPRISE YOU? Please leave a comment here to encourage or challenge others about churches embracing the social web!