Beyond the Digital Bulletin Board: Church Social Media That Builds Community

Your church Facebook page shouldn’t just be the Sunday bulletin with Wi-Fi. In Episode Four of The Digital Shepherd , Josh and Jon step outside the graphic design world for a conversation about one of the biggest communications challenges facing small and midsize churches: Social media. Why does it matter? How often should your church post? What should you actually be posting? And how do you keep social media from becoming one more exhausting responsibility for a pastor, secretary, or volunteer who is already wearing ten other hats? Josh and Jon talk about why churches don’t need to chase every algorithm, trend, or platform; and why the goal isn’t simply to post more. The goal is to communicate more intentionally. They unpack a simple four-part framework for church social media: Inform. Invite. Encourage. Celebrate. You’ll hear practical ideas for promoting events without cramming every detail onto a graphic, writing invitations that actually sound human, repurposing sermons into encouraging content, celebrating what God is doing in your congregation, and using real photographs and stories to show the people behind the church. Josh also shares the story of a small rural church that used simple selfie videos and social media to turn a community yard sale into an opportunity for connection, generosity, relationships, and Gospel conversations. Because social media shouldn’t simply show people what’s on your calendar. It should give them a glimpse of the life of your church. You don’t have to post constantly. You don’t have to become a full-time content creator. You don’t have to chase every trend. You simply need to communicate in a way that is authentic, relational, helpful, and faithful to the people God has called your church to reach. Your church social media should look like the life of your church, not just the calendar of your church. _____________ Statistics: 84% of U.S. adults use YouTube, and 70% use Facebook. Instagram now reaches 51% of American adults and TikTok 37%. For a church wondering whether digital communication is still optional, YouTube and Facebook alone reach enormous portions of the adult population. Facebook may be even more important for a rural church than an urban one. Pew found that 76% of rural U.S. adults use Facebook , compared with 67% of urban adults and 69% of suburban adults. For small churches serving rural communities, the idea that “Facebook is dead” is simply not supported by the data. YouTube reaches 78% of rural American adults. Instagram reaches 40% of rural adults and TikTok reaches 38%. A small country church may physically worship with 60 or 80 people on Sunday while existing inside a community where enormous portions of the population are already reachable through digital video and social platforms. Social media is absolutely not just for young people. Among Americans ages 50–64, 85% use YouTube and 71% use Facebook . Even among adults 65 and older, 65% use YouTube and 59% use Facebook . That should challenge the assumption that church social media is only about reaching Gen Z. The 30–49 age group—the parents, workers, volunteers and community leaders many churches desperately want to reach—is extraordinarily digital: 91% use YouTube, 78% Facebook , 64% Instagram and 45% TikTok. Among 18–29-year-old American adults, 95% use YouTube, 79% use Instagram, 69% use Facebook and 65% use TikTok. If a church says, “We want to reach young adults,” but has virtually no thoughtful digital presence, there is a massive disconnect between the audience it wants and where that audience actually lives much of its communicative life. Nearly every American teenager is online every day. Pew found that 97% of U.S. teens use the interne

Beyond the Digital Bulletin Board: Church Social Media That Builds Community | S1 E4