Читать книгу Click 2 Save - Keith Anderson - Страница 14

Writers typically write for a more or less imagined, composite reader—a “you” made up of a variety of backgrounds, characteristics, and experiences drawn from very different people. This is certainly true for Click 2 Save, which we address to the broad category of “leaders in ministry” that includes clergy and laypeople in both formal and informal ministry roles. We take a kind of “priesthood of all believers” understanding of readers of this book, assuming that each of us in the church is called to witness to and welcome others into the faith regardless of our title or role. In that sense, we’re all leaders in ministry, our everyday lives enacting the relationship with God in Jesus Christ that is at the center of our faith. So, in the end, we see Click 2 Save as a book for disciples in general.

Click 2 Save also speaks to the very particular experiences, stories, and questions we both have encountered in our respective pastoral and educational ministries. It is drawn from conversations not just with the people we interviewed for the book, many of whom will be profiled in the pages ahead, but from ongoing conversations with colleagues, church members, and a rich blend of friends whom we regularly encounter in face-to-face and social media settings. Their questions about social media participation as it might help to address the challenges facing their various communities are very particular, very much located in the realities of sustaining small or large church communities; growing or declining service, community, and social justice programs; and tending established and emerging spiritual friendship networks.

One of the things we’ve learned as we’ve studied social media practice in religious contexts, talked with a wide range of practitioners, and mucked around in Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn, and so on ourselves is that there is no one-size-fits-all approach that will address the particular needs of each community or individual. But, of course, the beauty of new media is that it is endlessly adaptable, and this is exactly what we invite you to do with this book. In effect, we invite you to write Click 2 Save with us, using the information we share in light of your particular needs to develop a social media strategy for your specific ministry. At the end of each chapter you’ll find space for this customizing of the ideas and approaches we share. We hope, too, that you’ll visit the Click 2 Save Facebook page or Twitter feed to share your experience as you adapt and apply the ideas in the chapters ahead in your particular context.

As you get ready to develop a social media strategy for your church or religious organization, we will invite you to step back a bit and consider what motivates your social media participation and what you hope to accomplish by deepening your practice. The puzzle piece icon that appears throughout the book marks the spot for strategic reflection on the material covered in each chapter. If you’re working with a group on social media strategy for your community—a practice we certainly encourage—you may want to copy the strategy page for participants.

You’ll see other icons throughout the book that mark our comments on each other’s ideas, profiles of digital ministers across the denominational spectrum in a variety of settings, social media tools that may be helpful in your digital ministry, definitions of social media terminology we use in the book, and quick tips for social media practice. Here are the icons you’ll see in the pages ahead: