Has Facebook Really Killed the Church?

I interrupt my posting about some of the things I talked about with a group of Brehm Center students earlier this month at Fuller Seminary to move the conversation ahead about social media. On Wednesday, I read an article entitled How Facebook Killed The Church by Dr. Richard Beck. I got there by originally stumbling upon a blog post entitled Facebook Killed the Church (notice the slight but significant shift in title emphasis) by Drew Goodmanson.

I couldn’t help leaving a comment, which I reproduce in whole below…

I read all the way to the bottom of the post [ed. the Beck post] in question, and the bottom line conclusion was:
“Why are Millennials leaving the church? It’s simple. Mobile social computing has replaced the main draw of the traditional church: Social connection and affiliation.”

I would make the case that if that is true, the response shouldn’t be hand-wringing, or changing the church, but rather a shift in how “church” perceives relationship-building, social connection, and affiliation.

I have been talking with others here at Creator magazine (http://www.creatormagazine.com) and with my friend Chuck Fromm at Worship Leader magazine, about how there seems to be an analogy between social media and the introduction of the guitar into the church’s worship back in the 1970s. In fact, I’m in the middle of writing a book about that, and you can read my progress and struggles with this topic at my blog. [ed. which you are now doing]

The introduction and/or banishment of the guitar into worship (whether in fact or in passive/aggressive disdain)launched an extended period of “worship wars” from which we are now finally seeming to see the end of the tunnel. I think there is a great possibility that social media, and the new style of affiliation and relationships will have as big an impact.
The question then becomes: fight, flight, or embrace?

I am not a fortune teller, but I suspect that the centuries-old pattern will play out here: “church” as a big institution will change slowly, and, over time, incorporate the best practices of social media. Individual churches, and the people who affiliate with them, will run the gamut from early adoption (which is already happening) to never adoption. It is there that we will see, in the laboratory of real life and ministry, whether or not facebook actually kills the church.

I have a vested interest in this topic, of course, since my next EBook is about how to use social media for positive results in churches. But I do think that the cultural parallel is not just significant, it is imperative that we learn from the historical parallels. I remember the 1970s exodus from the traditional churches over arguments like “is Jesus Christ Superstar church music?” What is still often conveniently overlooked is that the exodus was as much toward something as from something, as the history of the Vineyard church movement can still attest.

If there is a millenial exodus from today’s church, I haven’t seen it in the places I’ve served…although, to be fair, in some of those churches, there never were any millenials, so it is not a statisically balanced survey. But if there is an exodus in progress, isn’t it more important to figure out where they are going, and whether or not the “church,” in some form or other, can meet them there, or be waiting for them?

For more information about millenials, including a link to a free EBook about them, you can read my post Understanding the Millenial Mind.

What do you think? Has Facebook really killed the church? Is your church giving any attention at all to social media? Please leave a comment below.

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Tagged as: Chuck Fromm, Creator magazine, Dr. Richard Beck, Drew Goodmanson, facebook, Understanding the Millenial Mind, Worship Leader magazine