Welcome to The Connected Church news!
Welcome to this bonus section, where each week we spend a couple of minutes talking about digital strategies, tools and tactics that could be helpful for your ministry.
This week we are talking about how to use audio-chatroom apps that are fast rising in popularity, like Clubhouse, which is the leader right now in that space, and also Twitter Spaces, which Twitter introduced recently, and also upcoming Facebook’s own Clubhouse version. All of these are up and coming. But I wanted to talk to you about this today because I see this as an important trend in the future, where people find it very easy to jump into a chatroom with anyone. For example, if you go to Clubhouse, you can see various chat rooms, and they are all listed based on your interest. So let’s say I’m interested in Bible-based conversations, or I’m interested in prayer, or something like that, I can see the rooms various people are hosting on those topics, and I can just jump in.
There’s no invitation, there is no need for permission, nothing. I can just jump in and I can have that conversation with public chatrooms… there are options for private rooms, but most rooms are public because the idea behind these platforms is to be a social network. You can just jump into these rooms and you will see a stage, there is a section called Stage, where people are having this conversation. I’ve been part of many stages now and it’s very interesting. People are talking about a particular topic, and you, as a listener can just be listening to it. And it could be sometimes incredibly insightful. I’ve had some amazing insights in some of the chatrooms that I’ve been in, both Twitter Spaces and in Clubhouse, mostly in Clubhouse now. And I’ve also been on stage sharing some of my experiences. It’s been amazing. The amount of knowledge that you can get is so incredible and the access to best
That gives you that authentic transfer of knowledge from one person to another. That’s the introduction on what these apps are. Now, I see them as a big trend. So how can you use this as a ministry? As a ministry, you can use it in multiple ways, but I just want to list some of the top ways that I think you can use them.
#1 – Community Building. You as a nonprofit, or a ministry you already have a community. And it’s much easier for you to get this community on a platform like this. For example, Twitter Spaces, as long as somebody has a Twitter account, they can jump into your space. And you can build this community by inviting a few of them to come on stage. For example, even a church, every week you can have a church community building session on Clubhouse, and you can invite your congregation, and maybe pull up one or two members of your congregation to come and talk to you. Imagine that. You can’t do that in a church setting, because there’s a time limit, their space limit, people are busy, etc. If you do this, and if your congregation knows that your church is having a Clubhouse session every week, and your pastor is going to be there, and they show up, you can bring them on stage, and ask them to share their faith-story or their testimony or their challenges, or prayer requests, or anything like that. What an incredible way to build community. Right?
#2 – Community Expansion. As you do this, other people can actually look at your room and join the room. So that way you are expanding your community, your church congregation, or your nonprofit community. You can expand into new ways. Let’s just say you have a prayer community, and somebody comes in and they have a prayer request, it’s a chance for you to connect with them, to bless them, and to minister to them. Community building, definitely.
#3 – Research. These are great platforms for research. Suppose you’re going to talk about a particular sermon, you can actually jump on Clubhouse or Twitter Spaces and have this room, and say, “What do you think of this topic?” and get input from people. Anybody can give you inputs on that topic. So it could be very interesting for research.
#4 – Pre-event or post-event tool. Suppose you have a seminar or an event, or even a church service, for that matter, and then you can run a Clubhouse or Twitter Spaces event after that particular event or before that event, to talk about it. If you had spoken on a particular topic, you can do a follow up. Because sometimes in sermons you only have 20 minutes, 30 minutes or maximum an hour, but here you can go on and on for hours. I know, of rooms that have not been shut down for days. You can literally keep going on and on and have a longer conversation about the topic.vI don’t know if you want to do that for days, but I’m saying, if you want to have a longer conversation with your community, it’s possible on these platforms. Those are the things I wanted to share quickly with you today. I hope this kind of opens up a few thoughts in your mind on how to use these upcoming audio-chatroom tools for your ministry. If you have any questions, do let me know. Thank you.
Note: This news item is part of the weekly news show, The Connected Church News, that collects the Top 5 Digital and Social Media News each week for leaders of churches, ministries or christian nonprofit, and presents it to them in 5 mins.
Author of The Connected Church. Social Media and Digital Marketing Consultant for Nonprofits, Faith-based Organisations, Churches and Ministries. You can subscribe to Natchi’s email newsletter by clicking here.
