We live in a time when technology is evolving very rapidly. Especially communication media are rapidly evolving. While communication media are certainly the tools of the “world system”, there is no reason that the church cannot and should not use these tools to “reach the world”. In fact, the world will recognize the church as “relevant” when it uses the current media to reach them.

If I look at the new testament, I see that in Paul’s missionary journeys he took advantage of local institutions to connect with people. In communities with a synagogue he started there, in other communities he used the public square.

What are the current media that we can take advantage of? Newspaper, radio, television are obvious, but also expensive. To advertise on these media costs thousands of dollars and have a very short life. The internet offers many, many opportunities for reaching our community, and beyond for extremely low cost. If we can get some savvy around this new technology we can use it to draw people from our community using media that they are immersed in.

Here are some ideas that cost little or nothing:

1) Brochure website – create a website that tells anyone who can find it what they need to know about your ministry.
2) Interactive web portal – create an online community that allows your members to communicate with each other, and to invite others to join.
3) Locator services – use mapping services like Mapquest and Google Maps to help those doing location sensitive searches find you.
4) Social media – use existing web applications like Facebook and Youtube to get your content and message to those who aren’t particularly looking at churches.
5) Publish your own content – using websites like Christianaudio.com and Biblegateway, publish your own message audio, or teaching aids – give back to the community of believers as a whole.

Not only do these cost very little to implement, several of them can vary likely be accomplished without any real technical expertise beyond what you already have among your current resources.

Look for a series of posts providing guidance on each of these ideas….

SocialMediaIsCool
LocatorServicesareSmart
BrochureWebsite
PublishYourOwnContent