Did I give good advice

[Dave McClung]

I received an PM from someone who is thinking about starting a NazNet type of discussion forum for a local church. I advised that they consider using Facebook instead. Did I give good advice?

My reasoning is that a lot of people are already comfortable with Facebook. I know a number of people who have attempted to start private forums for local churches and don't know any that have really been successful. I know one that uses a Yahoo Group, but it seems to me that a Facebook Group would have a better chance of success. Did I give good advice?

[Ryan Pugh]

Without know anything about the local church, I think Facebook is a great place to start, mainly because of the reasons you mention.

I've also heard pretty good things about The Table Project. It's free but very well done. Our church has a community on their site. We are just getting started using it so I don't have a lot of personal feedback yet. It is much more than just a discussion forum, with features like prayer lists, a place for a directory, ideas for connecting to meet community needs, etc. That might be a good thing or not quite the right thing for what the person you PMd is looking for.

[G R 'Scott' Cundiff]

That's what our church has. I have both a Facebook page and group for our congregation. Generally speaking, a local church isn't interested in having the kinds of in depth discussions online that we have on NazNet - so a full blown forum like this is overkill. Our Church facebook group has posts like, "Didn't Michael and Katy do a great job on that special song?" and, PTL, we're also seeing posts about what the Lord is doing in the church.

So far, our Facebook group hasn't had any discussions about the foreknowledge of God, who will do the final post in a thread, or about the keystone pipeline (another reason to PTL).

[David Morris]

I received an PM from someone who is thinking about starting a NazNet type of discussion forum for a local church. I advised that they consider using Facebook instead. Did I give good advice?

My reasoning is that a lot of people are already comfortable with Facebook. I know a number of people who have attempted to start private forums for local churches and don't know any that have really been successful. I know one that uses a Yahoo Group, but it seems to me that a Facebook Group would have a better chance of success. Did I give good advice?

I'd say you gave good advice.

As you mentioned, people are already familiar with Facebook. If a church member wanted to invite a friend to the discussion, they wouldn't be inviting them into unfamiliar territory.

NazNet serves a great purpose because it connects people from all over the world. If my church were to attempt an online forum like this, it would feel like "just another thing." It would also be one less reason to have a face-to-face conversation with people I am capable of having a face-to-face conversation with.

NazNet doesn't feel like "just another thing" to me. Instead, it allows me to engage in conversations I wouldn't otherwise be able to engage in.

[Rich Schmidt]

Yep, good advice. Though I think tools like the one Ryan mentioned can also be useful.

Facebook meets people where they already are, rather than asking them to register for yet another account and giving them one more website to check every day (or two, or twelve, or never).

[Craig Laughlin]

That's what our church has. I have both a Facebook page and group for our congregation. Generally speaking, a local church isn't interested in having the kinds of in depth discussions online that we have on NazNet - so a full blown forum like this is overkill. Our Church facebook group has posts like, "Didn't Michael and Katy do a great job on that special song?" and, PTL, we're also seeing posts about what the Lord is doing in the church.

So far, our Facebook group hasn't had any discussions about the foreknowledge of God, who will do the final post in a thread, or about the keystone pipeline (another reason to PTL).

I think this hits in on the head. We have several Facebook pages for the church. The most active by far is the Prayer Page. It is closed to outsiders but we remind people to keep in mind what they post is seen by a lot of people. Folks love this page. They or we (church office) post on it and everyone who is interested in prayer reads them. People reply and people update the status of prayer requests. Many friendships have happened as a result of this page.

Our main church page is much as Scott described. Sometimes I think it is used to make friends or connect as much as anything. (This is a good thing) We do post upcoming events, I am starting to do "weekend previews" and send out reminders. - All in all very good. I really don't think we could sustain a Naznet type forum. These people see each other every week and have "real world" contact info. If they want an in depth conversation, that is what God created Starbucks for.

Dave - I would say you gave very good advice.

[G R 'Scott' Cundiff]

We do post upcoming events, I am starting to do "weekend previews" and send out reminders. - All in all very good.

This reminds me to mention something else I'm doing with our church Facebook page. The church bulletin is tentatively completed on Thursday. I finalize it, and then copy the text into an email that goes out to anyone who is interested - it's grown into quite a list. Then I take the same text and post it to the Facebook group. If there are any additions or corrections they are added before the bulletin is printed, but people like seeing it beforehand and Facebook is one of the ways we distribute it.