One of the good guys over at Monk Development recently approached us about a survey they’re conducting to examine the state of the church online. They figured our readers are a generally tech-savvy bunch who are passionate about the church using relevant avenues to communicate the gospel. And we figure they’re a good-hearted bunch who really want to help out.
So if you have a few minutes, take their survey about online church communities and what matters in them.
Here’s what they had to say about the study:
Are churches using the Internet to gather, disciple and build community? In the last couple years a number of new private church community networks have
been launched in addition to numerous social networking sites. We are still very early on in understanding what churches are doing effectively online. We invite you to participate in this first survey of several that examine the State of the Church Online. This survey in particular begins by examining what churches are doing with social and community networks. How pervasive are the use of these web applications? Future surveys will expand to examine what Christians are doing with social networks, how churches are using their web sites and other online strategies. Our prayer is that these
studies help bring clarity and guidance for churches to pursue excellence online to the glory of God.
Judy
February 2, 2009
Just an FYI – This is not an anonymous survey. Your info is required on the last page.
Drew Goodmanson
February 2, 2009
You can leave that info blank if you prefer to be anonymous. For clarification, Monk is sponsoring this but other community network providers are able to share in the results. The survey is being led by Kevin Ring. Kevin brings years of experience from Bainbridge Consulting leading qualitative research projects – designing and executing customer/competitive research and analysis across multiple industries, focused on Fortune 500 companies including Google, Yahoo!, Citibank, Hewitt Associates, Gallup, Bank of America and others.
Paul
February 5, 2009
I think a lot of churches are experimenting with social networking whether it be secular social networks like Facebook, Christian social networks, or private social networks. I don’t have any problem with the survey, but I think churches would benefit a lot more from some sort of open discussions of case studies.
– What social networking experiments has your church tried?
– How effective were they?
– Do you have any advice for other churches that might be considering using that network?
Tim Morgan
March 11, 2009
Our church wanted something a little unlike what was already available, so we wrote our own social network software.
It’s been a lot of work, though, to get all our community on board. We learned it’s not enough to wait for the early adopters to word-of-mouth it to the rest of the congregation — our tech team has gone to a lot of sunday school classes and small group meeetings, educating people about it. And slowly but surely, many of our groups have started to communicate more online.
And, of course, there’s always the struggles with staff in the church that are resistant to such things. Being persistent, constantly improving the software, and educating our users are the key elements I believe.