Follow You Follow Me: A Social Media Ministry

In Follow You, Follow Me, John Voelz explains why social media is now essential to the ministry of local churches.

Local churches are missing out on the greatest evangelistic opportunity since the parchment scroll and the goose-quill pen, and they need help to catch up and plan what to do next.

In Follow You, Follow Me, pastor and author John Voelz gives you a vision for reaching out and joining up through Facebook, Twitter and the social media world.

Love it or hate it, social media is here to stay

Either you love Facebook and Twitter as if your entire life depended on it, or you hate it and believe it to be the work of Satan himself and its users to be practicing the dark arts.

If you recognise yourself at either one of these extremes then according to John Voelz, senior pastor of Westwinds in Jackson, Missouri, you’re seriously missing the point. Worse you’re overlooking the best opportunity since the invention of writing to communicate the gospels and link up with a global Christian community.

In the first century AD it was the network of Roman roads that sped the good news of Jesus across the civilised world and beyond. No doubt even then there were those who spurned the paved surface blaming the ills of society on being able to get the latest news only weeks after the event, and keep in touch with friends almost a day’s walk away.

Applying biblical wisdom to human ingenuity

Follow You, Follow Me is written by a church leader who’s actually learnt the benefits that come from the applying biblical wisdom and human ingenuity to the use of social media. You only have to look at what the commercial world is doing with Facebook and Twitter to appreciate the potential. If big business knows social media is essential to getting your message out there, the Church ought to at least know what social media is about.

Where Christian users of Facebook and Twitter currently go wrong is in the way they blindly sign up to become to followers when they should be setting out to become leaders. Where they swap trivia and post up the most banal aspects of their personal lives they could be saying something important, exciting and life changing. Instead of connecting with people who merely want to you to follow and love them, Christians should be using social media to connect them with someone worth following, and who really loves them.

A vision for the power of Facebook and Twitter

Of course anything this powerful is potentially dangerous. But the lethal potential of electricity is no reason not to turn the lights on. There are rules to follow – for your own self protection, and to make sure your message is properly directed and effective rather simply background noise in the social media world. After all, why should we let the devil have a monopoly on all the best technology?

Most people will pick up John Voelz book looking for a crash course in how to use Facebook, Twitter and the other social media loved by the smart phone generation – not that it's purely a 'generational' thing anymore. But John Volez sets out to do a lot more than give you a user’s manual. What he wants to give you is a vision – the imagination to think how you could use social media to spread the message of Christ and link Christians together.

Using social media ethically and creatively

Follow You, Follow Me is the first practical handbook for using social media ethically, responsibly, and creatively in the church. With clear, practical and thoughtful guidelines John offers real encouragement for followers of Christ trying to use social media to help communicate the gospel.

The book offers wise counsel on how use to social media on how to use this innovative Christian ministry to reach the neighbours - not just the ones next door, but right around the world, with a message of grace and redemption.

A true believer in social networking, John is first of all a true believer in Jesus as he fills out his vision for turning the me-focused social networks into a tool for strengthening real-world relationships and pointing people to Jesus.

Author snapshot: John Voelz

John Voelz describes hismslef as a tamed rebel, writer, artist, songwriter, painter, musician and pastor. His love of all things creative and his severe angst towards mediocrity and religiosity has given him a unique a voice. With 8 CD releases to his name John is a lead 'Curator' at Westwinds in Jackson Missouri, where he lives with his wife and children.