The Purpose of the Church and Social Media's Role within that

SUMMARY
In this episode, Nick discusses the purpose of the church, as laid out from Jesus in the Great Commission, as well as the 59 different times the New Testament lays out a "One Another" statement. He then disects and brainstorms different ways in which the church, through a Hybrid and Digital approach, can live out the mission and purpose of the church through some of the One Another statements of the New Testament Church.

Come hang out at http://www.hybridministry.xyz
Or on TikTok http://www.tiktok.com/@clasonnick
Or on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC9pjecCnd8FVFCenWharf2g

SHOWNOTES
FREE E-Book: https://www.hybridministry.xyz/articles/ebook
Have I already Ruined my TikTok Account Video: https://youtu.be/oxBn-p9O-eg
The Do's, Don'ts and lessons learned from launching a YouTube channel for your church in 2022: https://www.hybridministry.xyz/018
Atomic Habits: https://www.amazon.com/Atomic-Habits-Proven-Build-Break/dp/0735211299/ref=asc_df_0735211299/?tag=hyprod-20&linkCode=df0&hvadid=312014159412&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=8492597528919365054&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9027304&hvtargid=pla-541463258824&psc=1

TIMECODES
00:00-01:31 - Intro
01:31-03:47 - What is the role of the church as a whole?
03:47-11:55 - How the Church should carry out the Great Commission
11:55-15:00 - Build Up
15:00-19:51 - Speaking Truth
19:51-21:42 - Stir Up
21:42-24:24 - 3 Short Form Video Hacks
24:24-26:24 - Outro

TRANSCRIPT
Nick Clason (00:00):
Hey, everybody. Welcome to another episode of the Hybrid Ministry podcast. I am your host, Nick Clason, excited to be here with you today. And if you have not go check out the show notes or head to hybridministry.xyz I'm gonna put a link to it in here, but we just released two things, a brand new YouTube video and a brand new ebook, both which are built to help you post a TikTok from start to finish. It's titled, have I Already Ruined My TikTok Account? And the entire purpose of it is really this understanding that like social media in 2023 is moving a hundred percent towards short form video content, TikTok, Instagram reels, YouTube, short style content. And so are you prepared and equipped to post that type of content? And are you prepared and equipped? Do you know what it takes to, do that?

Nick Clason (00:57):
Um, and have you, if you've ever logged into TikTok, and if you've ever been confused and you're like, what is going on in this place, this video and this ebook are both, uh, guides to help you walk through and navigate how to post something from something that you pre-recorded, or how to, uh, record something natively in the app, how to, uh, jump on trends, how to use audio, personal, um, business accounts, all kinds of different things. And so, uh, like I said, we got the link to that for you here in the show notes. Go check that out. I hope that that's something that you find beneficial and valuable. But in, uh, today's episode, I want, I really wanted to look at what is the purpose and what is the role of social media in the local church? So if we think about it, the purpose of the church, um, I think it was given to us by Jesus.

Nick Clason (01:51):
So I don't think that that changes. I think, you know, churches all have their own mission and vision statements, but I think they all should be derived and come from, uh, the Great Commission, which we find in Matthew chapter 28, verses 18 through 20, where Jesus says, all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Again, this is Jesus talking. And he says, so therefore, go and make disciples. That word go is often used for like missionary conferences, like, go, go, go, go to Africa, go to Poland, to go to wherever. Right? But, but really the verb there is not go. The verb is this idea, the word go is better translated like as you are going. And so the verb, the actual verb is to make disciples. So the purpose of every church, every local, uh, church expression, every gathering, every eia, the Greek word of churches, eia, gathering and coming together, a conglomerate of people, um, that are all built and, and focusing on the same general mission, um, is to make disciples.

Nick Clason (02:58):
So as you are, are going, as you are living your life in the places where you live, learn, work and play, make disciples, help people take meaningful, significant steps towards Jesus. Um, teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. He says, and then he, um, says, Baptiz them in the name of the Father, son, holy Spirit. Once they make that decision. And then finally, I will be with you always, even to the very end of the age, Jesus gives us this promise of His presence, this promise that he will not leave us nor forsake us, that he will, as we are taking steps towards him, as we are helping other people make decisions to follow him, um, that people will be, um, that, that he will choose and will be with us to the very end of the age. So that is the purpose of the church as given to us by Jesus himself.

Nick Clason (03:48):
So then if, if the purpose of the church is to go and make disciples, the avenue or the venue with which Jesus lays out for us to do that is, I believe, best to be done in and through the context of his local church. And so I think that, um, what has happened is if we look back into a little bit of church history, which this is not intended to be like a church history podcast, nor am I that well versed in that topic anyway, but the, the, we all know, if we look back to like the Book of Acts and some of the early church, like the church was much more like a family. And now I feel like in America, north America, um, because of Western influence, the church is much more operated like a corporation, less, like, less like a family. So more corporation, less family.

Nick Clason (04:44):
And so social media, um, oftentimes is the marketing arm of this corporate entity that we're all living in and experiencing. And so social media's role often is an awareness. Um, role is often a role on helping people, um, learn about, have brand recognition and awareness of the church. It's all about color schemes and guides and branding and fonts. And, and listen, like as a, as a marketer at heart, like I'm, you know, I'm a youth pastor, right? But like, I, I'm obviously interested in this topic of marketing and stuff like that. So as a marketer at heart, I don't mind those things. In fact, I actually, I appreciate them. I understand what we're doing and, you know, with those things. So with that being said, right, like what, what is the role of social media in a gathering? Is it to help, uh, draw family together, right?

Nick Clason (05:40):
If we're gonna go off the old, uh, new Testament example, um, and framework, or is it to bring brand recognition and awareness, um, the role of the church to make disciples to do that in the context of a of gathering of a family. Um, where, where do we get our basis for what church is? You know, if we look through the New Testament, there's really not a lot of examples of a church built like a business with a c e o, with a head, with a pastor, with a president, with a figure talking head. Um, it's just, that's, that's really not what we see a lot. Instead, what we do see a lot of in the New Testament, right, as we see some of these examples of one another's. Um, so I think one of the best, uh, examples of, uh, what the church can do and what the church should be and what the church should look like is, um, found in the 59 times that we see the phrase one another spelled out in the New Testament.

Nick Clason (06:34):
So for example, we have, um, the command to love one another. We have the command to honor one another from Romans 1210. We have the command to live in harmony with one another, Romans 1216 to build one another up. Romans, uh, 14 for Thessalonians five to be like-minded. Romans chapter 15, to accept one another, Romans 15 to admonish one another. Colossians three, we have care for one another, serve one another, bear one another's burdens, forgive one another, be patient with one another, speak the truth to one another, be kind and compassionate to one another. Speak with Psalms and spiritual songs. Submit to one another, consider one another, look to the interests of others, and finally, stir up, stimulate toward love and good works. And I think most of us would agree that that entire slew of list, that's not even all 59 of them, right?

Nick Clason (07:24):
But the ones that I picked out that I put there on that list, I think most of us would agree that those are best done, or at least most familiarly done and accomplished through, um, being done in person. And so, if we are going to live out the call of the church, then I think, um, you could make an argument. I think some people do, and try to make an argument that the church should be most and best expressed in the context of a family, in person, local gathering type of experience. Okay? Now, just because it's familiar doesn't mean that something different is wrong, okay? And I think if you look at, um, the New Testament, obviously, what is the majority of the New Testament, the majority of the documents right, that we have in our New Testament are letters, letters from the Apostle Paul, letters from James, letters from, uh, Luke, letters, from whoever wrote the book of Hebrews, letters from Peter, letters from John.

Nick Clason (08:33):
And what are these letters? They are written to different churches with what? With the intention to live out these one another's, to admonish one another, to speak truth to one another, to build up one another, to stir up love and good works to one another. And so if those things are the case, um, what was writing in the first century? Well, writing was the means and method to communicate from long distances. Paul was writing to these churches because he was in prison. So he did not have the option to be physically present with them. And I think in a lot of ways, like, so, okay, then like, let's play that out. So yeah, that's what, that's, that was Paul's issue. But our issue, like, we can be together. Yes, that's true, but we also don't live in this very oral, um, slow paced, you know, in the first century, there were no cars.

Nick Clason (09:22):
The main mode of transportation was most likely walking. And so a lot of the, as you are going from Matthew chapter 28, right? A lot of that was probably on the way on the road. Jesus and his disciples probably had so many conversations as they were walking to and from different places in different locations. And so when we think about it, we're like, well, we, yes, we don't have to write letters cause we're not in jail to one another, but we don't live in a culture that really allows us to be together as often as they were in the first century. And I think that we should potentially try to pursue that. I think we should try to make every effort to be living life, um, together, uh, life on life and, um, encouraging one another and moshing another and doing those things in person.

Nick Clason (10:09):
However, I think that distance is still an obstacle, is still, uh, a thing that we experience here, um, in 2023 and beyond. And so, um, the constraints of not being able to physically be together 24 hours a day, seven days a week are real, right? Like, we have jobs, we have families, we have homes, we have sports schedules, we have, um, band practices, we have, um, we have to run our kids to and from all kinds of different things and activities. We have obligations, we have PTO meetings, we have family gatherings that are obligations. We have all kinds of different things that keep us from living life on life with our faith community. And so we should be doing all of these things in person. However, I think that the hybrid side of this is there is a means and a medium that is now available to us that was also available to, um, a a similar means of method that was available in the first century.

Nick Clason (11:07):
Paul used letters. Now I think we can use digital means and digital mediums to get the message of hope across. So let's talk about living out some of these one another that we looked at, right? I want to pick in particular three and, and talk about how those can be lived out in a hybrid world, okay? Because yes, social media can be a good marketing tool, yes, social media can bring a lot of awareness to your church and help get people to your big gathering. But if we're really gonna live out the method of Jesus, which is to make disciples, and then as the New Testament lays out 59 different times to do things with and for, um, one another, okay? Let's look more at the family aspect and think about how we can, um, how we can use social media towards that end. So the first one I wanna look at is build up, build up one another.

Nick Clason (12:01):
What are ways that you can build up the people of God that call your church, um, home, that want to be a part of a, a family and a faith community? How can you encourage them? Maybe you can look down the barrel of a camera and a shotgun microphone and record one video a day, one video a week, and encourage them to keep the faith to make a difference in the world and this sphere of influence that God has placed them in their life. Maybe you can read scripture. I think I don't have this stat very well off the top of my head, but I think it's something like 8% of, um, Christians say they read the Bible on a regular basis. And most people would say that regular means one time a week. Okay? Conversely, they say that Generation Z um, spends anywhere from five to eight hours of screen time per day.

Nick Clason (12:56):
All right? And so, um, that's just one of the generations that we're dealing with. The reality is they're reading scripture once a week versus being on their phone anywhere from five to eight hours per day. What if, while they're on their phones, on TikTok, on Instagram, on Facebook, on any of the social platforms that by the way, are now all promoting short form video content, what if you just read scripture? That's all you had to do. One of my, one of the trends, one of the, um, one of the frameworks that I used in my own ministry that gets some of the most traction is a hook like this where they open the phone and I I'm doing nothing. I'm saying nothing. And all I'm doing is pointing to text on the screen, no words for about 2, 3, 4, 5 seconds. And I'm pointing at the, at the text on the screen, which says either stay or scroll, which is just big and bold, right?

Nick Clason (13:46):
Like that's the whole point. Big, bold. And then right beneath it says, read scripture with me so they know what they're staying for, right? And once you see that, like if you're a Christian, okay, and you see stares scrolling, it says, read scripts with me, you're gonna have this like sort of guttural, visceral reaction. Like, ugh, I probably should stay and not just go onto the next dance video or sports video or whatever other video's gonna be behind it, right? And then just read a verse, one verse and then just riff on it for the remaining 30 seconds that you probably have left. You know, what does it mean? You could, um, promote other spiritual practice. You could help them get into practice of meditating, memorizing scripture, prayer, um, maybe even accountability. Hey, text a friend that you haven't texted in a while, like, do this one another text a friend from your small group who you know, needs encouragement. That's a way to help, uh, through another person, encourage a person in your local body. Um, you could also just deliver some wise words, um, some, some words that come from scripture, some words that come from a wise mentor pastor, somebody who has some age and life experience, but that's just an ex. Those are just a few examples to kinda get your wheels turning of how social media and short form video can be used to help build up the elicia, the gathering, the family of Jesus.

Nick Clason (15:01):
What about speaking truth? Um, obviously you can use sermon clips and we have talked about that ad nauseum, but it's still a worthwhile thing to talk about. If you are live streaming your service, grab a clip of your pastor, cut it down, get it into a 16 by nine framework, put in some sort of hook. If he doesn't have a good hook, use like the voiceover feature or some like big text on screen thing, be like how to navigate conflict. And then boom, cut to the pastor talking, right? If you do not have the technology available to you to, uh, do a sermon clip, um, we've talked in the past, and you can go back to the ultimate YouTube framework. I will, um, put that link here in the show notes. Um, but you can, um, pre-record your messages and you can make that be, um, a thing that you then pull clips from and, uh, give just different quotes.

Nick Clason (15:47):
Uh, 62nd inspirational things from the sermon content. Here's the thing, I'm a pastor, okay? A youth pastor, but a pastor nonetheless. And, um, I, I put a lot of prep into my weekly content that I deliver one time a week to a room full of people, and after that, it goes to die somewhere on my hard drive. But being able to then repurpose this out of your communications department or your digital strategy people, or even if you, it's you the pastor, take your content and put it back out there into the world that you have spent so much time preparing, that's a way to help, um, speak the truth with one another, to the people in your church to remind them of what they heard on the weekend. Maybe they weren't there. Maybe this is a, a primer, a teaser of what the appetite for them to hear a clip of the sermon.

Nick Clason (16:29):
Then they're like, you know what? Maybe I should go listen to that whole thing. Which leads me to the point that if you are, you should have a place for them to go listen to the whole thing, uh, either in full audio form or on a YouTube channel. Again, whether that's your live stream or that's a pre-recorded thing that you are doing, and then posting. Some other examples of speaking truth are sermon quotes, right? You can take just a quote from your pastor sermon and you can create a video out of it, even if it's just like a video of a drone flying over a mountain and then the pastor's quote flies in or a a tweet screenshot or something with some nice music behind it. Um, you can do adjacent type content from the sermon, right? So this month, for example, in our student ministry, we're talking about the, um, sermon series of habits.

Nick Clason (17:13):
Okay? So it's the habit of living in community, the habit of, um, bible reading, prayer, and then accountability. Okay? But what I'm gonna do on social media, and you can go check this out if you want, at our, um, our TikTok, um, it is at Cross Creek Students on Instagram, YouTube, and hopefully TikTok here soon. If you can't find it on TikTok, you might try at first. Colville students, we just changed our name and here's a quick story for you. We just changed our name and I, uh, I secured the handle at Cross Creek students on TikTok, and it said that it has, it has 30 days, um, to totally deactivate your account. So I deactivated and deleted the Cross Creek students account so that I could go from my first Colville account and change it to Cross Creek students, um, because I held it up until the 30 day period.

Nick Clason (18:01):
Um, but I have not been able to switch it over. So everything is Cross Creek students, the new logo, the name, um, and all the other handles are, but that handle specifically is still at first Colville students. I'm looking every single day this week to see if I can change it. If not, I may have to change it to something like first, uh, cross Creek students one. Um, but then once I do that, I have to wait another 30 days before I can make another change. And so I don't know when or if that, um, at Cross Creek students handle will become available. So I don't wanna lock in something temporary and then that handle becomes available, but I'm stuck, you know, for another 30 days. So anyway, um, welcome to the life of someone who's, um, working with these companies, by the way, their support not helpful.

Nick Clason (18:45):
So anyway, um, but the adjacent content that I have written on habits is, um, I just got done reading the book, atomic Habits by James Clear, phenomenal book. Definitely recommend it. I'll put the link to that in the show notes as well. Um, but I am going to share just some, some habit building, um, tips and frameworks, um, general habit building tips. And so that's adjacent content. We're talking about these four disciplines of community prayer, scripture, reading and accountability. And then over here on our social media, we're gonna talk about how habits are built, informed, make 'em easy, make 'em attractive, how to break bad habits, make 'em invisible, make 'em difficult, make 'em, um, something that you don't desire, right? And those two things go together. But this one is a little bit, um, more psychological, not as spiritual necessarily. And this one over here is spiritual. But if you take some of these principles from the Atomic Habits book and some of the other habit building things, you can apply them over to the spiritual habits. Okay? Um, another idea that you can have in speaking the truth is just like a hook. Like, Hey, here's what the Bible has to say about blank. It's a great hook. You're gonna get people start your video off strong.

Nick Clason (19:53):
All right? The third and final one, another I wanna look at is how can we stir up one another? How do we stir up one another toward love and good deeds? Um, you could give them a challenge to think about this. This is what scripture has to say about that. Um, what about, um, toward good deed, you could give them, give them challenges. You could ask 'em to pass along something maybe on like in like a Facebook group, like post a picture of you paying it forward and you do that whole thing at Starbucks line repay for the person behind you, or whatever the case may be. Um, but that just gives a little bit of social proof and a little bit of like camaraderie, like, Hey, we're all in this thing together. And, and better yet, right? Like, you can try to do all that and facilitate all that through social media, but if you can get your pastor from the stage to push that and say, Hey, this week we're all gonna pay it forward.

Nick Clason (20:40):
And then on social media, you're, you're posting, Hey, post a picture of you paying it forward, or, you know, something like, like that. Um, or you get a little, a TikTok video of, of you paying it forward. You have someone just in the passenger seat taking a video of you doing it or someone in your church doing it. And, and you can find a way to grab that and curate that and have them send it to you. Then you can post that and celebrate that. Remember what gets celebrated gets repeated. And so if these are some of the things that you want to do in your church, uh, capture that on video and sell, get that out and celebrate that. Again, we're in this unique time where all the four major players in social media, TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube, are all in right now, all in on short form video content.

Nick Clason (21:22):
And so for the first time ever, you do not have to create custom content for all four of those things. You can create one video that works for all four, and I have the, the framework to help you create that, post that and repurpose that to those different platforms. Again, Lincoln Bio, how you can get that free ebook or the YouTube video, check that out. Let me give you, um, three short form video hacks that, um, were noticing for 2023 as we're moving ahead. So hack number one is SEO does matter. If you look at TikTok now, especially, they are trying to use it more like a search engine. So just like YouTube was very much like how to this, how to, that. Now TikTok is moving that direction. So think about your videos that way. And so be using things like captions on screen, be using things like, um, hashtags, and then also be thinking about the actual caption that you are writing as you're getting ready to post your, um, your TikTok.

Nick Clason (22:20):
So try to think of search engine type optimization type of words. Another short form video hack you want is you wanna have a good hook, something that's going to stop the scroll. That's why that stay or scroll thing that I explained earlier is such a good hook because it's literally asking people to stay instead of scroll, which is the main behavior that people are doing when they're on social media, especially in a short form video place like reels or shorts or on TikTok. And then finally, um, use cross platform posting, like I said. So go to YouTube shorts. I just started doing that on our own account. Go to reels for both, um, Facebook and Instagram. And then you can duplicate and do dual purposes through your Facebook and Instagram feeds, right? So like, um, your feeds will help, um, if you, if you like, on reels, if you also post a reel to the feed that's going to go out mostly to your church members, to your eia, um, or into your stories, right?

Nick Clason (23:17):
That's another place that's gonna go mostly to your members. If it's on just reels, that's more of a discoverability. So how having people outside your church find you and see you and engage in spiritual practice with you. And so you can, for, again, you can do dual purposes. You can encourage admonish, build up, stir up, um, speak truth to the people in your church, and also offer some of those spiritual guided practices to some people who may not be inside your, your church. It's a unique and amazing opportunity that we have right now as people in 2023 to use the tools, to use the, the means, mediums, and methods of the day to help share the message of hope, to share the gospel with the people of the world, the people in your church, to encourage one another, to build one another up, and to help make them more like Jesus.

Nick Clason (24:09):
So use it. Be a social media user. Don't let it get you. Don't let it suck your soul dry, but use it to share the message of hope of Jesus because he has changed your life and you wanna share that with other people. Hey, thanks again so much for hanging out on this episode. I hope that you found it helpful if you did share it or leave a rating or a review. Both of those things are going to be phenomenally helpful in our indexing and helping get this message out to other people who are, uh, social media managers, church communications specialists, and their churches. Um, we just really want to be a resource to the local church. Um, I believe that the local church is God's Plan A for reaching the world. And so in every way, in everything I can, I wanna just help, um, the, help those people and help, uh, God's people get this message out there to them.

Nick Clason (24:59):
Um, also head to hybridministry.xyz. Um, you can grab that copy of that free ebook link is in the description or on the website there. Um, and, uh, come hang out with me personally on my TikTok. It's @clasonnick, um, c l a s o n n i c K. Um, I'm posting Little Clips, um, from this podcast to my own personal TikTok and I also just try to have some fun on there posting some football content and other fun things that interest me. So just fun place to hang out. Um, and then I also got my YouTube channel, which, um, is gonna be a little hit or miss admittedly. Um, but that is where that, how to post to a TikTok video is going to live. So you can go check that out. That's something that interests you, and we will talk to you all next time. Keep it hybrid people.