From Social Media to Social Ministry

A Guide to Digital Discipleship

By: Nona Jones

Narrated by: Piper Jones

This audiobook outlines digital discipleship principles for building an online community and provides practical instruction for how to do it no matter how big or small a local church may be.

There are more than 2.3 billion professing Christians in the world and more and more new churches launching globally, yet statistics show that in-person church attendance is declining or plateauing in every nation. Although social technology has been around for more than two decades, church leaders have long bristled at the idea of church online, ranking it as the last concern on their minds in Barna's 2020 state of the church report published February 3, 2020. And then, three weeks later, COVID-19 closed the doors of every church on earth and suddenly forced them entirely online.

Nona Jones, a globally acclaimed thought leader on leveraging technology for ministry, had been leading a movement and sounding the alarm for several years to make digital discipleship a central part of every church’s ministry approach. In From Social Media to Social Ministry, she outlines her digital discipleship principles and provides practical instruction for how to do it no matter how big or small a local church may be. There are plenty of books to help churches build a social media strategy, but this is the first book of its kind that goes beyond digital marketing to digital ministry.

Listeners will leave this audiobook with:

• Clarity on what discipleship truly is
• The data that underscores the urgency for digital discipleship
• Understanding of the resources required to do it well
• A step-by-step guide on how to implement digital discipleship into ministry plans
• Knowledge of the differences among and purposes of the most popular social platforms, as well as the tools best positioned for digital ministry

Loved it but...

I've been a born-again Christian since 1972, and am presently working on an outreach involving Youtube videos shown mostly in Asian and African nations, so I was totally on board for the first two-thirds of this book. The author uses the phrase "not relevant" to describe the 350,000 American churches. I'd have said "carnal because of their (our) unprecedented prosperity". "Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also". Social media works because users get an ego buzz every time they receive a notification. That's the "treasure" delivered via smart phones that we have to compete with.

But the idea of building a "Facebook campus" within existing local churches? Really? West coast members of a Florida church? Did I miss the part about how to handle the "worst case" security issues? What about those misbehaving in the name of the Lord? You're a pastor. Can you imagine NOT personally visiting any member of your real (as opposed to virtual) congregation? How do you manage 1 Cor 5.11 on Facebook?

I loved your aquarium analogy. Modern churches today are still using a 2000 year old model. Buy or rent a building. Hold meetings there. Talk to people about Jesus whenever you can. Television was resisted at first (Billy Graham), and so is the Internet today. Consider this though: I'm paying $10 per day to promote just two of my Youtube videos: "How to study the Bible", and "How to Share the Gospel". In the last seven days those two videos together were played 13,883 times. Total watch time? 565 hours. Top three countries based on number of views? India (4286), Philippines (3370), Indonesia (1213). That's not because the videos are great: It's because I paid Google $70 to be sure people saw and clicked on them. Here's one of the two videos: https://youtu.be/ehdO7XVGNEk

This isn't a promotion for my program. It is though, a call to consider using the model somewhere in what you're already doing. You no doubt have people who know how to produce and place Youtube videos. The formula that produced those numbers just now is Google Ads > New Campaign > Without Goals > Video > Custom > Skippable > Standard inventory > ALL COUNTRIES. Note: Google Ads are expensive for anything local. The trick for ultra-low pricing is to run the ads where no one else in this country is: I.e. Overseas (ex Europe).... hence the "All Countries". The goal therefore can't be to promote any local church: It's simply preaching the gospel, or teaching others how to.

Great resource for today and beyond

This is a great resource for ministering in our time and beyond the church's current challenges

A Must Read!

This book is chalk full of wisdom and hasclearly been written with the guidance of the Holy Spirit! It most certainly is worth the read and has the potential to transform your church's life!

Ministry in nation that is social media

If you want to see the church begin to impact every part of people’s lives (especially their time on social media) I recommend this book! We are called to make disciples and to go where people are. We must move ministry into the nation that is social media.

Excellent

This book changed my perspective on digital ministry. Good practical advice as well as a ministry philosophy that will change the way you do church.