Facebook for Faith: Should we pray on Facebook?

Facebook started with present-tense status updates (Ryan is...). Then there were pictures. Soon, users could post videos. The newest thing to post to Facebook?

Prayers.

Facebook continues its investment in digital tools for faith communities. Alongside resources listed on their new portal, faith.facebook.com, Facebook has begun testing on a prayer feature. The new feature remains in limited beta testing for faith and spirituality Facebook Groups.

Once launched more broadly, individuals who are part of a church Facebook Group will be able to set a status of "asking for prayers," before listing their specific prayer concerns:

The feature rippled through the news media this weekend, just two weeks after the highly-publicized launch of the Faith for Facebook portal. Reactions in the religious media were somewhat mixed.

Some faith leaders were skeptical, arguing that prayer always requires synchronous, embodied presence. Others were intrigued, expressing gratitude for new opportunities to connect with God and one another. Many interviewed in various news outlets expressed continued skepticism over Facebook's privacy practices, and how the company might use personal information shared through a prayer request. Some openly wondered if the company might serve ads based on one's prayer request. Might Facebook someday follow up on prayers to resolve alcoholism with advertisements for rehab centers?

Indeed, Facebook has an ethical responsibility to show that they are capable of handling this data in a way that elicits communal trust. As a corporation, they clearly have a long way to go. Still, prayer on social media is nothing new. Prayer requests are already commonplace on social media feeds. "Prayers up" is a frequent way to start a tweet or post whenever a friend or connection is facing adversity. Injured professional athletes are frequently the beneficiary of such requests, often from concerned fantasy football owners.

So regardless of whether Facebook's "pray" feature takes off like the like and love buttons, today's faith leaders might consider how such requests intersect with the spiritual needs and inclinations of their own communities. Such discernment exists at the level of liturgy, technology, and administration.

At the level of liturgy, communities should discern how individual prayers shared on social media and other digital platforms might engage the broader church community. This is the single most important liturgical and theological question about prayer online - not whether it "works," not whether it is a valid expression of prayer, but how the posts of the individual might influence the shared work of the community. It would be near-sighted to suggest that prayer and technology are incompatible. Individuals have long found tremendous spiritual support in prayerful online communities.

The question isn't so much whether online prayer works, but how the communal body of Christ that is the church might gather as one to support the celebrations and the concerns lifted up in digital prayer. If we believe that the church is a public body that is formed through communal prayer, then it is our calling to take individual prayer requests and convert them into concrete expressions of communal prayer. Today's church leader might seek to incorporate prayer posts into the worship liturgy, or into small group prayer sessions.

How do we faciltiate communal prayer from an individual prayer request post?

At the level of technology, faith communities should work to implement the technologies most conducive to the communal act that is prayer. This might happen on or off of Facebook. To collect and lift up prayer requests on Facebook, a faith community ought to have a well-established Facebook Group, a feature that churches utilize far less frequently than a Facebook Page (for more on the differences between Groups and Pages, see this post). Groups allow community members to share posts specifically with other group members. Perhaps this confidentiality will add a layer of trust to those who would not prayer requests read by all of one's Facebook contacts.

But Facebook is not the only platform that can or should be used for digital prayer. Group messaging apps like Group Me, Remind, or WhatsApp can exchange prayer requests throughout the week. Presentation software like Mentimeter and chat applications like Slack can curate requests for upcoming worship services. Simple tools like Google Forms can encourage community members to anonymously submit prayer requests for inclusion in public worship services. Whatever the technology one uses, it is essential to develop a process for lifting up and responding to concerns as the shared body of Christ.

And at the level of administration, church leaders should be vigilant. Sharing a prayer request can be an act of deep vulnerability. Anytime a prayer request is shared, communal reactions must be monitored. Respectful and prayerful responses must be insisted upon. And occasionally, a prayer request might violate the confidentiality of another church member ("...please watch over Robert as he works through his latest DUI charge..."). The privacy of other community members must be maintained. While prayer requests will not be particularly burdensome, the task of administering digital prayer requests demands consistent engagement and attunement.

Should we pray on Facebook? Many of us already are. God is showing up in response. It is time for faith communities to do the same.

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@ryanpanzer is the author of "Grace and Gigabytes."

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Facebook for Faith: How churches should use Facebook Groups

Last month, Facebook made a splash with the launch of faith.facebook.com, a hub to connect faith leaders with Facebook resources. The site includes getting started information on Groups, Pages, Charitable Giving, Live, and other widely-utilized tools.

Atop the list of Facebook's resources for churches: Facebook Groups.

In 2018, Lifeway Research, an evangelical publishing house, shared survey data indicating that 84% of protestant pastors use a Facebook page to connect with their congregation. Lifeway is sponsored by the Southern Baptist Convention and their data over-indexes on media-savvy evangelical congregations. Still, their findings point attest to how widespread Facebook has become as a church communications resource - even before the pandemic.

Many congregations are using Facebook to build online community. Yet most aren't using the Facebook feature specifically designed for community conversation.

That's partly because Facebook has struggled to articulate the differences, and the different value propositions, between Facebook Pages and Facebook Groups. Let me attempt to clarify:

A Facebook Page functions as a digital billboard. It is public by default, so everyone can access all of the page's information. Churches widely use Facebook Pages to communicate important information on service times, meeting locations, and upcoming events. Originally developed as an advertising resource, Facebook Pages are Mark Zuckerberg's equivalent of the Yellow Pages.

A Facebook Group functions more like a digital meeting room. It is a collaborative space for multi-directional conversations. Unlike a Facebook Page, it is private by default. New members request to join, and administrators must approve the request. All who gather within a Facebook Group at least implicitly agree to abide by community rules and standards.

Congregations seeking to cultivate conversation on social media should look to Facebook Groups, not Facebook Pages. But most churches haven't set up a Facebook Group - at least not yet.

It's easy to understand why Facebook Groups should be a priority for churches. They provide a platform for collaborative, multi-directional, and asynchronous conversation. Nona Jones, author of the book "From Social Media to Social Ministry," summarizes her research into how churches use Facebook:

"The research pointed loud and clear to one major finding: people want to spend time on Facebook when they are able to engage with content in a meaningful way. And that content needs to invite conversation, not just consumption."

Setting up a Facebook Group is a relatively simple process:

• Create your group: Add a description of your congregation - and what types of conversations will take place in the group. Include photos from your church's life, and invite members to join.

• Customize the settings: Most importantly, determine the group's public visibility. Most churches will likely make their groups private, but visible in search results. This makes the group findable but restricts the visibility of posts and conversations to group members. You may also create a list of membership questions, to ensure those joining the Facebook Group have a previous connection to the congregation.

• Determine the privacy policy: In other words, determine the rules. Set expectations that direct group members to remind kind, courteous, and to respect the privacy of others.

Each step in the process is thoroughly documented in Facebook's guide "Getting Started with Groups." Examples are plentiful - click here for examples from Facebook's faith and spirituality category.

But cultivating Christian community takes more than software settings. It requires intentionality, answering questions like:

• What is the specific purpose of the group? Active church members spend just 8.3 minutes per day on faith-related activities. The most engaging church Facebook Group will never be a frequent hub of online activity. At most, members might check in on the group a handful of times each week. So give them a specific purpose. Does the group exist to share prayer requests? Does it exist to respond to the week's preaching text or sermon? Perhaps it was established as a replacement to a book study group and invites members to respond to a shared reading, video, or podcast episode. When it comes to church group purpose, less is more. If church leaders can precisely define the reason that the congregation should participate in the group, church leaders will find that individuals are more likely to stick around for real conversation.

• How will participation in the group integrate with the church's broader life together? Facebook Groups ought to be situated within the church's broader movement towards hybrid ministry. The conversation should not happen in abstraction nor in a vacuum but should respond to events in the community's life together. Sharing photos from an event, offering reactions to a sermon or podcast, or inviting reflection on a shared discussion question are ways to connect the digital Facebook Group to the analog aspects of Christian community.

• How can church leaders create a distinctively Christian Facebook Group? As the group gains traction within the community, our task isn't so much to cultivate conversation but to articulate lived experiences of faith. This is the difference between a distinctively Christian Facebook Group versus a group that exists for a non-profit or neighborhood. Eventually, the Group should become a place where ideas are exchanged and where community members share stories of God's work in their lives and world. Getting to this point takes effort, curation, and months if not years of active conversation. God can work through the discussions on a Facebook page, provided the community shows up for the conversation.

Have you curated conversations in your church within a Facebook Group? Share your experience in the comments below!

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@ryanpanzer, the author of "Grace and Gigabytes," accompanies churches on their journey towards more immersive, authentic digital community.

Facebook for Faith is here. Will it forever change church community?

Last Sunday, the New York Times published an article on Facebook's outreach to faith-based organizations. Recently, Facebook's top leadership has spurred the development of new technologies developed for faith communities. The company has also established partnerships with numerous denominations and interfaith organizations. Sheryl Sandberg, the Chief Operations Officer of Facebook, who has spoken publicly of the importance of her Jewish faith and heritage, is leading the effort, along with Nona Jones, the author of "From Social Media to Social Ministry."

Their work culminated in the launch of faith.facebook.com, a resource portal where faith leaders can learn about and deploy tools for their communities, from Facebook Live to online giving. Atop the resource portal is information on Facebook Groups, which Facebook sees as the future location of web-based religious community. Facebook continues to invest in the development of Groups, a feature and an offering that they see as the antidote to misinformation concerns on their platform.

Facebook's investment in technologies for faith communities is a significant milestone in the ongoing redefinition of church community. Early in the pandemic, faith leaders largely repurposed existing technologies for religious purposes. Now, tech giants have recognized the upside to engaging religious communities on their platforms and have begun developing their technology accordingly.

This development should prompt some ethical reflection, and perhaps even some scrutiny, amongst church leadership. What does it mean that tech giants, who didn't have much interest in faith-based organizations before the pandemic, are suddenly funding partnerships and software development targeted to the religious space?

For starters, it shows that big tech smells a business opportunity. For all of Facebook's rhetoric about communities and togetherness, faith.facebook.com would not have launched were it not a potential revenue stream for the social media giant. The simple, and perhaps ugly reality, is that the more faith communities venture on to Facebook, the more Facebook makes via advertising revenue as adherents and members view and click more advertisements.

Still, the fact that Facebook is a business should not deter churches from cultivating community on its platforms. From insurance providers to stain glassed window makers, congregations partner with businesses for many purposes, and church leaders should not dismiss Facebook simply because it is a publicly-traded corporation. And after all, there are more global Facebook users than there are Christians. Clearly, Facebook represents an important missional opportunity. It's where our communities can be found. Simply dismissing Facebook because of its vast wealth would be nearsighted.

Instead of rejecting Facebook for Faith, church leaders should consider how to establish well-marked boundaries between Facebook's revenue-generating impulses and the mission and vision of congregational life.

These boundaries can be established by decisions church leaders make about how to utilize Facebook for Faith. For example, a congregation might choose to limit their connections to the platform, so as to preserve some independence from the social giant. A church might collect donations from a platform outside of Facebook (Tithe.ly is one option among many). They might choose to deactivate the monetization of video content posted to Facebook, or even to host worship live streaming off of the social media platform, on a site like Vimeo Livestream.

Perhaps most importantly, these developments should also prompt faith leaders to consider boundaries between user data and Facebook's ever-present algorithms. Church councils and boards should be actively reviewing how member privacy will be respected not just on Facebook, but in all digital spaces where the congregation is present. One aspect of this review should concern images and video. Many continue to raise concerns over Facebook's facial recognition technology, which is capable of scanning any photo posted to the social media site. From photos to videos to blog posts and podcasts, congregations should be transparent about what they plan to share about their community's life together.

As an ethical principle, community members should opt-in whenever a church plans to post close-up photos and videos to any social media platform or website. But the conversation on privacy goes beyond photos and videos. Facebook can target ads based on user-generated posts and comments. This necessitates the development of a set of community standards, or rules of engagement, for any church Facebook group. Determine what topics should be kept for offline conversation. Specify how posts that encroach upon the privacy of others or that violate community standards will be handled. Name how community standards will be kept up within the group.

The quality of our partnership depends just as much on our own processes and commitments as it does on the actions of the social media giant. When we use Facebook for church community, Facebook will seek to monetize the connection. There's a reason why they are currently valued at over a trillion dollars. The question is whether this will be a fair exchange. Will Facebook monetize data that is best kept private? Or will a combination of intentionality, purpose, and privacy commitments from a congregation's leadership facilitate a mutually uplifting partnership?

Facebook for Faith is here, a sure sign of religion's sudden advance into digital ecosystems. Now is the time to plan how faith communities will make the most of the connections that Facebook has to offer.

In the next post in this series on Facebook for faith leaders, we'll dive in to some of the core features in Faith for Facebook, including the differences between Facebook Pages (widely used amongst churches) and Facebook Groups (widely promoted by Facebook).

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@ryanpanzer is the author of "Grace and Gigabytes," a book that explores what it means to minister alongside a culture shaped by digital technology. Ryan speaks to and consults with church groups seeking to redevelop ministries for a digital age.

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