3 Ways NOT to Share Your Faith Online
By Zack DeBerry
We are a couple of weeks away from Easter and it is a great time to begin thinking about who you want to invite to come with you to Journey. This is a great way to share your faith with friends & family.
In that same vein, as more and more people use Social Media, sharing your faith online has never been easier. There are loads of great ways for you to share your faith on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram. However, there are always a lot of ways NOT to do it.
I thought I would have a little fun today and give you 3 ways NOT to share your faith through social media. Check it out. . .
1. News Headlines + Random Bible Reference = WRONG
In the world of Social Media, Facebook is the go to for most folks. Look around anywhere you are and there is sure to be someone posting on Facebook or reading what someone else has posted on Facebook. With this type of connectivity it is tempting to make it place where we can share our personal convictions on every area of life.
One of the worst ways to do this is to take any major news headline and link it to a random passage in the Bible. Bonus points if you can slip some Revelation prophecy connection in there. This is a sure fire way to do nothing really quickly.
Here’s a GREAT example of quick post that could really get a good conversation going:
Check out these 3 ways NOT to share your faith online. #TooGoodClick To Tweet
2. #Hashtag Homiletics
Twitter is an acquired taste in the Social Media world, but it is a great way to share bite size thoughts. Twitter limits you to 140 characters, so you have to use your words carefully and make them matter. To really make a big impact you should save at least a third of those characters for hashtags.
One of the worst things to do to share your faith on twitter is to pick a short verse from the bible and hashtag it up to make your own point, rather than express the heart of the text. When you do this it allows you to make your point, while taking the focus off of scripture and putting it on your lack-luster interpretation of it.
Here is an example of what I mean:
3. Truth & a Stupid Joke
Instagram is another great tool to share your faith, but only if you can find the perfect image that will communicate what you really want to say. Most people will do a nice landscape with a scripture over it, but the best way to get it wrong is to mix a little truth with a dash of bad humor. This way you can say something powerful about your beliefs, but you nullify it by saying something dumb.
Here is a great example of this one:
In all seriousness, Easter is a great time to think about the people in your life that you already have a relationship with that you can invite to join you at Journey.
The examples above are ways we have seen people attempt to share their faith and most of the time they are not very successful. We will be talking more about your Top 5 (who are YOU humbly pointing to absolute Hope?) and why we believe an approach of intentionally investing in those people will have a bigger impact as we, as a church, humbly point everyone to Absolute Hope.
Check out these 3 ways NOT to share your faith online. #TooGoodClick To Tweet