Jesus in MySpace

The Associated Baptist Press has a good article about ministers using social-networking sites for ministry. Here are a couple of highlights:

Dale Tadlock, the 41-year-old associate pastor at First Baptist Church of Waynesboro, Va., has been in student ministry for 20 years. He said he is staying linked with his students using Facebook.

"It has given me a great opportunity to work with students," Tadlock said. "It's become a way to stay informed."

He even does visitation through the site. When newcomers fill out visitors' cards at his youth group meetings, many mark "Facebook" as the best way to contact them.

... Tim Schmoyer, youth pastor at the Evangelical Covenant Church of Alexandria, Minn., created a Facebook application -- basically, a customized add-on program that can be used on the site and added to users' pages -- specifically for youth groups.

... If there is new info, the program updates a news feed that goes out to all members, who will see the news on their Facebook home pages the next time they log in.

... Schmoyer said Facebook works as an outreach tool as well, because online friends of the students see updates on what is going on at their friend’s church. If an activity sounds interesting to them, then they might visit.

... "I think it's just changed the way we are interacting and the way we are doing things," Tadlock said. "I think it literally has changed our culture."

It is good to see churches using technology to communicate with and reach more people.