Social media is one of the most effective ways to expand your parish outreach programs. With over 2.6 billion active users, Facebook is the most dominant and ideal social media platform for parishes who need to quickly reach out to large congregations.
Establishing a Facebook page is now essential to modern parish communications. Facebook offers many benefits-from creating a dialogue with current parishioners, rekindling connections with faithful who have gone astray to attracting new faithful to the Catholic Church. In this article, we explore ways you can use Facebook for your parish:
Online prayer group
You can create a Facebook prayer group for your parish that allows parishioners to comment and share prayer items in real-time. Several benefits come with such a group. For one, it provides a convenient way for the members to post issues they are going through so that others can pray and offer help. For example, if a child gets ill at night, a member can let other congregants know and request for prayers. It also creates interactions with various faithful and lets members know they are not alone.
Church event calendar
You can also use Facebook as a tool for planning and sharing various upcoming church events. It is possible to create Facebook events for each service, bible study, youth event, or sports event. There are ideal plugins that you can use to import the events to the website calendar automatically. Facebook events also offer an excellent opportunity for parishioners to invite their friends both in church and outside. It is, therefore, possible for the parish to gain new faithful through such Facebook calendar events.
Sharing of the gospel
A Facebook page is an ideal platform for advancing the gospel of Jesus Christ. You can stream live sermons to millions of viewers across the globe using the social media platform. You can also share messages from the Bible or quotes from gospel books. Additionally, you can share other messages that are helpful, insightful, and encouraging to the faithful.
For example, during this pandemic period, you can use your Facebook page to share information that helps the faithful stay safe and free from the virus.
Advertising
The church spends hundreds of dollars on paper flyers and postcards. If you use Facebook ads, you can effectively reach more people in your communities than you would with flyers or postcards. It is also less costly to use Facebook ads than flyers or posters. When you promote a piece of content about your parish on Facebook, many interested users would be prompted to check out your church, and a large number of these may end up becoming new members of your parish.
In a nutshell, Facebook is a powerful tool that your parish can use to advance the gospel of Jesus Christ and other church programs. It is a convenient platform that allows the church to connect with its members any day, anytime. Facebook also provides a cost-effective way to promote church events and strengthen your community engagements outside the standard Sunday church services.
