Facebook is a great tool that Christians can use to serve God. One of the main benefits of Facebook is that it allows Christian groups to connect together online. But there is one question for a Christian group to consider: Should we create a group or a page?
A facebook group can have members, officers, admins, a wall, news, a discussion board, as well as links, photos and videos. Members of the group an interact through some or all of these means (depending on how the admins set up the group). Admins of the group can also message all of the members and create events for them. So a group is like a community.
A facebook page acts more like a profile. People can only become fans of the page, which doesn’t sound great for a Christian group. Do I really want to become a fan of my church? A page can host events, but you cannot host discussion. It is very similar to using twitter, as your updates come for everyone (who is a fan of the page) to see.
For me, becoming a fan of a page is just that, a one way connection, which is not ideal for Christian groups. Groups however, allow discussion between members, as well as allowing the admins access to address the group as a whole.
So let’s create groups (and use them well)!
i don’t know of any groups that actually work.
are you part of any?
what makes them work?
So when writing this I was thinking lots about Christian groups on campus at Sydney Uni.
1. I’m part of eu education and we use the group well for advertising events and connecting people together. The group is not used them for discussion.
2. I think it works because the people running it use it well, and also everyone at Uni uses facebook and is used to the medium.
3. However discussions don’t happen because I don’t think that people value online discussions on the whole.
Thinking through other groups that I am a part of, I think a lot have little or no role.