This is pretty neat (and different).
Apparently Northland Church has launched a Facebook application with the hopes of being one of the first Facebook Campus:
On Sunday morning, Northland, A Church Distributed will officially open the doors to its new Facebook app, which will allow worshipers to invite their Facebook friends to go to church with them—without leaving the familiar Facebook environment.
Plus, even when live worship isn’t happening, the opportunity for worship is readily available because the previous week’s service will be posted and available for viewing 24 hours a day.
“We encourage people to be the church everywhere, every day, so it just makes sense to put resources out there that will help people to be that church,” explains Nathan Clark, Northland’s director of digital innovation.
Fascinating. Church, within the culture and context of Facebook.
It’s a different approach, that’s for sure, and perhaps this is just another evolution of Online Church and Internet Campuses.
What’s your take?
Jim says
sweetness….
Chris Jones says
I think it’s great. I’ve been toying with the idea for quite a while of developing a Facebook app for our youth ministry. Facebook has increasingly become a key way in which we interact with the members of our youth group throughout the week.
Having a Facebook page is great, but if you’ve got the resources to make an app happen, and be effective in what it sets out to do, then I think it’s worth pursuing.
That being said, I think we need to make sure that this online interaction doesn’t replace face-to-face ministry. It’s most effective when it complements it.
CJ
Josh Miles says
t-minus ___days until you see at least 5 more of these….pretty sweet, I think.
Vince Marotte says
we have tossed the idea around
looks nice.
I’m not sure it’s worth our time to develop yet.
good work Northland
Lori says
You know it comes back to the post your wrote earlier. I see some benefits, but also some pitfalls.
Eric Frisch says
This makes a lot of sense to me. Everyone’s trying to get tight Facebook & Twitter integration anyways, so why not just make Facebook your “venue”? I know I’m much more likely to click a line someone sends me on Facebook if I know it isn’t going to take me to another site.
dannyjbixby says
Makes perfect sense to me. Everyone and their mother is on facebook. Go where the people are.
David Knapp says
Sounds like a great idea to me. I hope they don’t have any connection problems. From time to time I have a difficult time loading things up on Facebook.
PhillipGibb says
nice, the first of it’s kind?
talk about online church planting – this on plonks one down into a huge community without worrying about brick, mortar and parking.
Josh Miles says
no kidding, man….pretty good idea if you ask me!
Herb says
that is nothing short of awesome.
Brian Barela says
this would be great for Campus Crusade for Christ (my ministry), because facebook is the center of a college student’s online ecosystem.
for churches i’m not sure about it’s effectiveness–even though the fastest growing groups joining facebook are very specific to church demographics, i don’t know that they are conditioned yet to consume content through the channel.
from what i’ve seen most 40 year olds and above use facebook to check on their kids/family–and check it the way they check email–as an event.
younger people seem to engage facebook more fluidly–it’s not so much “i’m on facebook, now i’m off facebook” but seen as part of their daily life.
i love that northland is pioneering, especially w such a robust set up. i’m certainly going to pull out what i like and start to implement parts of it in my ministry.
Josh Miles says
I say go for it!
Nick Shoemaker says
CC4C needs to step it up! YOU CAN DO IT!
Brian Barela says
we do need to step it up! we’re working on it 🙂
impacttech says
This is awesome! It is definitely convenient.
SamMahlstadt says
this is rad. very rad.
Nick Shoemaker says
yeah- I’ll be checking this out. fo sho.
Scott Magdalein says
Cool. I’m curious about the level of attention you’ll be able to keep on Facebook. (1) Facebook is built to pull you quickly in many directions, never spending very much time on one page, which is sort of the opposite of what should happen with church on the Internet. (2) Unfiltered third-party ads during a church experience of any kind makes me a little uncomfortable.
BUT, I love that someone is pushing into new areas of influence. That’s a win in my book.
Stephen Bateman says
Very cool! Only minor pushback is you have to join the fan page, which isn’t such a big deal I suppose.
But overall….Awesome job, looks great!
brett barner says
Strong idea at bringing people over while staying in the familiar arena of Facebook. Great for those who don’t travel around online from site to site. Of course this just continues the discussion on ChurchDrop about if sermon streaming is disconnecting us…
Nathan says
Great idea, my question is how is it done?
John Saddington says
i’d drop them a line…!