Creating & Maintaining Your Congregation's Facebook Page

The learning goal that I chose to tackle during EL3517 was to "engage at least one pressing contemporary learning challenge from within a faith community framework." The learning challenge that I chose to engage was media culture; specifically social media culture. In order to do this I created a Facebook page for our congregation. It has been an awesome experience and I look forward to continuing with this ministry long after this class has wrapped up.

You can find all of my reflections at feautor.org, but I'll share them here as well.

Within 24 hours of creating the site Zumbro Lutheran Facebook Page we had over 100 fans. Within one week we had over 200 fans. Several weeks later we now have 262 fans that receive frequent updates from the congregation and view often photos, videos and links that we provide. I hope that this will only continue to grow.

You can visit our page for yourself at www.facebook.com/zumbrolutheran.

I’ve received a great deal of positive feedback about the congregation’s Facebook page. Here’s what a couple parishioners had to say:

"Are you in charge of the Facebook stuff? What a great, I mean it, great outreach. I think it makes me feel even more connected knowing that my church is understanding how to communicate to this generation!"
-stay-at-home mother of three, 34 years old

"It is so cool to see how many people I know from church that are on Facebook and to connect with them. It has been great to see all the different ages of people that are fans of the site, too! I love the updates, knowing what is coming up on Sunday, and reading the Bible verses that have been posted. It has made me feel more connected while I'm away at school."
-college student, 19 years old

I’ve only been doing this for two months so I certainly don’t have all of the answers. I have, however, learned a lot about creating and maintaining a congregational Facebook page. I hope my experience might in some way be able to help you or your congregation reach people through this relevant form of social media. I’d welcome your comments or additions to my list!

Here are my Top 10 Ways to Successfully Create and Maintain Your Congregation's Facebook Page.