Written for “Live Free” issue of Giving: Growing Joyful Stewards in Your Congregation                                    Republished in Ecumenical Stewardship Resources e-newsletter 6/26/2015

500 million people use Facebook, half of them logging in every day. Facebook and emails are most popular among Baby Boomers (people born between 1946 and 1964) in the U.S and Canada, and Baby Boomers now dominate church leadership in North American congregations. Pinterest has attracted more than 4 million unique daily visitors. The age of these visitors is overwhelmingly between twenty-five and fifty-four: the age range that is missing in most North American churches.

Take social media seriously if you’ve ever heard the complaint, “We need to attract more young people, more children, more youth.” 200 million people consistently use Twitter, which gets 36 million unique visitors from their desktops each month. The number of tweets topped 300 billion two years ago. In fact, tweets are so popular that several commercial television programs ask for and post Twitter responses during their on-air time. When it comes to Tumblr, a microblogging and multimedia site, 110 million users are registered, hosting more than 180.7 million blogs. Instagram, a photo-sharing social network, has become a massive social network with more than 75 million daily users, primarily teens and twenty-somethings.

It would be foolish not to take advantage of this communication explosion. So create a Social Media Team for this nine-week period. Make sure the team members are the youngest or most media-savvy members, preferably middle school through college age. Have the team chair share the primary messages of your theme, and let them generate at least two dozen ways to get the words and pictures out. Even if your team is only two people, they can have a huge impact!

Many churches already have an email prayer list or database for highlighting events within the congregation. Name one or two people to generate emails to send out on whatever time basis you have determined. Would a weekly email be helpful to help members build excitement over the nine weeks? Be sure to send out an email at least to introduce the program and each of the four weeks when Live Free is your worship theme. Encourage the rest of the team to use other social media as often as they can. If your church has a website or a presence on Facebook, set up a Live Free page and post photos as you go along. The purpose of the interviews is to share testimonies about how God frees them up to give generously to God’s work in the world, and how this congregation has shaped their lives and encouraged them to live generously toward others.

Organize an Audio-Visual Team. What if just two folks are interested during these nine weeks? That’s fine! One person can serve as the interviewer and the other can film it on your tablet camera (iPad has beautiful resolution) or even on a smartphone. Film interviews can be ten minutes or less, or even two-minute responses to questions related to the worship themes. Intersperse these clips with live speakers at your meal presentations, in order to provide a common thread throughout your meal events.

If you have someone who wants to present visuals during worship, he or she can use Microsoft’s PowerPoint or Apple’s Pages. That person can also recommend and project any film clips you may have chosen to use in the four Live Free worship Sundays. Search “generosity” or “stewardship” at www.youtube.com for film clips. Possibilities might include Ankit Bakshi’s “Joy of Giving,” Ministryspot’s “The Gift of Generosity,” Bishop Hannington’s “Grace of Giving,” or ARandVideo’s “God Is Generous in Giving.”

Initially, an electronic effort may sound like a lot to small churches. At the same time, it will feel natural to congregations that already communicate electronically on a regular basis. Thousands of local churches are located in rural or open-country areas that already depend upon electronic messaging, while millions of people in their thirties and younger depend solely upon Internet technology. If Live Free is worth inviting people to participate, don’t leave anyone out!

– Betsy Schwarzentraub

⁺⁺ – This article comes from the center section of the Giving: Growing Joyful Stewards in Your Congregation magazine Volume 17, which includes a timeline, articles, and other resources to create a financial-commitment program with the “Live Free” theme, based on 1 Timothy 6:18-19 and Galatians 5:1. You can used the magazine, corresponding theme materials, and digital Life Free Companion Resource to create your own “Live Free” emphasis. All are available from the Ecumenical Stewardship Center at www.stewardshipresources.org.