May 1st through 3rd are three of my favorite leadership days of the year. Each year, INJOY Stewardship Solutions allows me to live-blog the Orange and ReThink Leadership Conferences. No event stretches my thinking more and make me a smarter and better-equipped leader than this event.
If you are unfamiliar with ReThink and Orange, let me give you an overview. Hosted by Carey Nieuwhof, ReThink is a series of Ted Talk-stlyle lessons from some of the most innovative minds in business and leadership. Orange is simply the nation’s preeminent organization on children’s ministry.
As part of my time here, INJOY Stewardship is offering a FREE Capital Campaign Calculator for your church. If your church needs to raise significant capital in the next two years, this will be a wonderful source of information for you.
The event’s next speaker was Nona Jones. Nona is recognized as one of the world’s foremost experts on building The Kingdom through social technology, motivating thousands of church leaders each year to reimagine social media as a strategic tool for ministry. She coined the term “Social Ministry” and helped build and lead Facebook’s global Faith-Based Partnerships strategy.
The following are 25 leadership lessons and quotes from her lesson on connecting with unchurched people online:
- When we think about church we often think about a building.
- Church attendance in aggregate in the United States is 20% of the population. The fastest growing category of religion in America is None.
- The Nones are overtaking Evangelical Christians.
- We have come to claim success in ministry as external statistics.
- We have lost sight of the most important things we need to be counting.
- Many church leaders have developed a Marketing mindset which is predicated on reach.
- Discipleship is what happens when we are able the teach people about faith.
- Join me in pursuing the 80 – 80% of the people are not in a building but are online.
- Facebook is like your front porch. That’s where they meet you… That’s where ministry happens.
- The power of the church is its organic community.
- The thing about Jesus is He ministered to people right where they were.
- As your ministries grow, it’s harder and harder to connect with people on a one-on-one level.
- Facebook Live in Groups is revolutionizing how to do ministry.
- Think of Facebook Groups as a online campus.
- I do not believe church is a 90-minute program.It is the living body of Christ for 168 hours of weeks.
- Technology is allowing people to return what God intended – people sharing life together and being part of the community.
- Go beyond marketing to ministry. Marketing is telling people who you are. Ministry is telling people who you serve.
- The beauty of Facebook is unlike other social platforms, Facebook has created a platform to gather people together.
- You have the ability to do discipleship in a digital context.
- The #1 reason people come to church is they were invited by a person, not an ad.
- Social media is not a property to manage. A property manager is not the same as a pastor. Move to an online campus pastor.
- Facebook is putting its energy in Groups. Groups are central to the Facebook strategy.
- The Christian faith is the only one who has an evangelical call to community.
- This is an opportunity for digital missions.
- I never worked in tech or social media before going to work for Facebook.
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