The Social Media Gospel: Meredith Gould Blog Tour @meredithgould

I recently had the opportunity to sit down (virtually) with Meredith Gould and ask her a few questions about her new book, The Social Media Gospel: Sharing the Good News in New Ways

This brief and compelling book packs a punch, combining immense insight into the phenomenon of social media with practical wisdom on the how of communicating gospel in social media contexts. It has become my go-to book to share with anyone interested in a combination of the why and how of social media ministry.

Here's what she had to say:

What's the most interesting early response you've had to your book?

At least two people, experienced users of social media, have publicly shared their surprise (and delight) at learning new ways of thinking about social media that will change their use of it.  My favorite was this tweet, “Holy cow! I really thought I knew everything there was to know on the topic…and I was wrong!”

I loved seeing this and at least one other similar comment but not only because I’m a triumphalist smarty-pants. I’m also an educator and former academician, so I rejoice whenever I’m able to help people expand and deepen their thinking.

Most surprising – as in unexpected –has been the personal warmth people have expressed for me.  Knowing that I’d be breathing into a little brown paper bag to cope with this appreciation, a few clergy friends have ministered to me via the back channel.

What drives your passion for this topic?

Here’s the trajectory:

• My passion for social media is driven by my call to the ministry of communications.
• My passion for communications ministry is driven by my call to preach and teach the Gospel.
• My passion for preaching and teaching the Gospel is driven by the imperative of tikkun olam (repairing the world), a legacy of my Jewish upbringing. 

As a semi-side note, I didn’t connect these dots until a colleague on the pastoral staff I was on said, “Don’t you get it? Communications is your ministry, write about that.”

The Social Media Gospel, which focuses on social media, is in fact a logical sequel to my first book about this ministry, The Word Made Fresh: Communicating Church and Faith Today. I’m hoping people find their way to that earlier book. 

Having written your book, what's the next step? I think we have been in social media 1.0 for a while now, and I think we are on the verge of 2.0. What's that look like?

We’ve been in social media 1.0 for a while and it may seem we’ve been stuck here too long. But that feeling of stagnation tends to be among those of us who have been at this for a while.  The vast majority of church folk are just now discovering social media. We need to teach, train, and support them.

From my experience in the world of healthcare (Note: I’m a charter member of the Mayo Clinic Center for Social Media advisory board and helped develop the Social Residency curriculum), I can say that social 2.0 looks like pushing beyond “how to” and into “why to” – strategy. 

And as I’m responding to this answer, I’m realizing my emphasis on strategy in The Social Media Gospel is a result of being in 2.0-ville with healthcare communications colleagues. My vehement emphasis on strategy can also be traced to the decades I spent in secular marketing communications. Have a good laugh: I worked on a pesticide account for two years.

In the secular world of business and industry, social media 2.0 includes a greater focus on ROI (return on investment) and measurement. I touch on the difficulty of doing this in The Social Media Gospel (p. 100).  I devote an entire chapter in The Word Made Fresh to explaining the near-impossibility of measuring effectiveness in the world of church communications.

Meanwhile, all this (i.e., becoming more sophisticated about social media use) is happening as we’ve entered Web 3.0 (i.e., portable personalized content and search functions).  As a sociologist, I’m delighted by the conceptual intricacy.  As a minister doing in-the-trenches work with churches and judicatories, I’m often in danger of tumbling  into a pit of despair.  To ameliorate that, I check-in with my social media tribe and prayerfully focus on everything that pops up in the “Fun” column I’ve created on Tweetdeck. 

For more information on Meredith Gould and her work:

Website: www.meredithgould.com

Twitter: @meredithgould

She is available for consulting and also for engagements as an interim (2 month) director or manager of communications.  

Thanks, Meredith, for taking the time. May our tribe increase, and may your social media gospel spread!

Lutheran Scoffers and Twitter Indulgences

When Pope Francis does things American Protestants like (like washing feet or advocating simplicity), everyone re-posts articles about him, commenting, "I think I love this new pope!"

When Pope Francis announces the granting of plenary indulgences for followers of his tweets, everyone re-posts articles about it, commenting, "Good Lord, those Catholics, they're at it again."

In other words... we like this new pope when he is "like" us, and we revert to our latent anti-Catholic bias when he isn't.

Lutherans are particularly inept at responding to any news about plenary indulgences. Because of Luther and his famous 95 theses, lots of us assume we're experts on indulgences. But our expertise is rather limited. Basically, all Lutherans can say about indulgences is: They're bad!

Back in 1999, the Roman Catholic and Lutheran communions signed a Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification. Any time there is news about indulgences, Lutherans tend to circle up, and declare, "Wow, I wish those Catholics would read our common agreement on the doctrine of justification. They're drifting again, if they were ever really on the same page with us to begin with..."

But really, if we have a common agreement with the RC on justification, isn't it our duty, first of all, to try and understand how Roman Catholics practice indulgences, and not make assumptions that they are "just like" the indulgences practiced at the time of the Reformation?

So, first, consider this quote:

"What really counts is that the tweets the Pope sends from Brazil or the photos of the Catholic World Youth Day that go up on Pinterest produce authentic spiritual fruit in the hearts of everyone." (Claudio Mario Celli, excerpted from an article in the Guardian).

Plenary indulgences are not the absolution of sin, even though a lot of Lutherans assume they are. It's rather more complicated and interesting than that. They are, in fact, remission of temporal punishment due to sin.

So a Lutheran, if they really wanted to understand what the pope was up to in granting plenary indulgences for specific kinds of actions (like following the popes tweets during the World Youth Festival in Brazil), would need to learn at least the following:

1) The difference between eternal and temporal punishments
2) The relationship in the development of doctrine between severe penance and indulgences
3) The relationship between the Roman Catholic view of purgatory, and whatever position a Protestant is going to take on how God goes about make things right and just after death before the kingdom of God is established.

They might also want to consult the Catholic catechism, which reads in part:

The forgiveness of sin and restoration of communion with God entail the remission of the eternal punishment of sin, but temporal punishment of sin remains. While patiently bearing sufferings and trials of all kinds and, when the day comes, serenely facing death, the Christian must strive to accept this temporal punishment of sin as a grace. He should strive by works of mercy and charity, as well as by prayer and the various practices of penance, to put off completely the 'old man' and to put on the 'new man'. (On Indulgences)

Why does this matter to me? Since we have been seeking fundamental agreement in our doctrine of justification with Roman Catholics, I believe it behooves us to begin from a posture of understanding rather than judgment. Is there a way for us to see or observe what is admittedly a very different practice than our own faith practice, but try to understand it internally according to its own merits? Are we willing to read Aquinas, and the catechism, and the modern teachings of the pope, in order to actually try and comprehend what they/he mean by granting such indulgences?

Or are we just going to scoff?

And can we try and see how this is actually parallel to our own faith practices in many ways? Aren't most Protestants trying to figure out how social media can be faith forming? Don't we hope that some of our tweets, this blog, our photos on Pinterest, produce spiritual fruits?

Most profoundly: Don't we believe, in some form or another, that what we do now as the communion of saints, is already participation in our life with God, in which case, reading tweets, when they produce spiritual fruits, really does function something like "indulgences."

If we like this pope, aren't we willing, at the very least, to give the benefit of the doubt? Can't we follow the first rule of improv, and begin by agreeing, and see where that takes us?

So, consider one last quote from the catechism. If we as Lutherans really believe in the office of the keys, the power of God's Word, especially that word spoken extra nos, if we believe Christ really entrusted the work of mercy and grace into our hands (the church), can't we begin by listening, and working hard to see clearly where there is common ground?

An indulgence is obtained through the Church who, by virtue of the power of binding and loosing granted her by Christ Jesus, intervenes in favor of individual Christians and opens for them the treasury of the merits of Christ and the saints to obtain from the Father of mercies the remission of the temporal punishments due for their sins. Thus the Church does not want simply to come to the aid of these Christians, but also to spur them to works of devotion, penance, and charity.

Silence Can Mean Many Things: On the Tragedy of George Zimmerman and Trayvon Martin

If you follow my blog, you know I have lots to say on lots of subjects. When possible, if a spiritual crisis is exhibited in popular media, I try to address it. Not always, because it's not my full-time gig to be a blogger, but I try.

The needless shooting death of the child Trayvon Martin at the hands of George Zimmerman is an example, but with a difference. As soon as the verdict in the case was announced Saturday night, people in my various networks started saying, "We have to say something. You have to say something." I received individual messages from people asking why I had not blogged yet. Clergy I know stayed up late re-working their sermons to incorporate the news.

In the meantime, I tried to just listen. I read posts from African-American colleagues and friends who were heart-broken and stunned. I read articles the next day from people who were angry and confused. Two quotes stuck with me, and they are the ones I tried to feature in what I re-posted in my own networks. The first is a prayer, posted by a friend and hip-hop artist:

"In the name of the almighty God, may our grievance become hope, may our vengeance turn to justice, and may our tears turn to prayers that this never happens again to anyone's child."-prayer from the widows of Srebrenica (Bosnia) 

I think this prayer says as deeply as I know how what I knew even before the verdict. I imagined my own son, age seventeen, being shot and killed while walking home from the store. I do not want that to to happen to anyone's child, ever. I am angry that it happened, sad that state laws and other social norms allow for such an event to happen. I don't always know how to comment on court verdicts. Anyone not on the jury needs to tread carefully. But regardless of whether or not George Zimmerman is innocent or guilty, I know for sure it is atrocious that Trayvon Martin died at the hands of George Zimmerman. It's horrible. And so we pray for justice and hope in the midst of it.

The other quote was from a very angry blog post at the Esquire blog. It's John Dos Passos, and he wrote:

All right we are two nations.

We are two nations. I am convinced that if Trayvon Martin had shot and killed George Zimmerman, the entire situation would have gone differently, because Trayvon is black. African-Americans, and especially African-American men, are still treated quite differently in our country. As if we are two nations, not one. I've blogged a bit about this in the past, in a review of James Cone's stunning and challenging The Cross and the Lynching Tree.

http://lutheranconfessions.blogspot.com/2012/03/cross-and-lynching-tree-by-james-h-cone.html

The racial divide in America is not over. It is just post-racism. It has been sublimated. You're not allowed to talk about it. No one thinks they're racist anymore. And so, in that situation, after results like the jury decision in Florida, voices can be shrill.

As a white man and pastor, it is hard to know what to say. I feel guilt. I feel complicity. I strive to do more. But I don't always know what the best next steps are to try and address the racial divide in America. But with the widows of Srebenica, I really do pray that our grievance become hope, our vengeance turn to justice, and our tears turn to prayers.

In a way, all I can really say is, "Lord have mercy."

But what about the shrill demand I heard from many corners that sermons HAD to name Trayvon Martin on Sunday morning, or the apparent desire people had that I write an immediate response on my blog. That particular idea seems to be new. We want all our commentary immediately. You're a slacker (or immoral, insensitive) if you don't. One person I know and like even went so far as to say that any pastor who didn't name Trayvon Martin in their sermon yesterday should reconsider their vocation.

Really? Really? I'm sorry, that's neither true nor fair.

First, one of my main rules on preaching is you can't announce broad rules about preaching. Preaching is contextual. It is a mix of the preacher, the people, and the word. I can imagine many faithful ways to preach after a major event in the United States, depending on the context.

On the other hand, I have heard enough from my African-American brothers and sisters to know that this is a decision that is deeply troubling, and that as a white man, I might not fully fathom how deeply troubling it is.

So my silence, if I am silent, can appear not as what I think it is--shock, confusion, helplessness, prayerful reflection and listening--but as something else, more sinister in character--complicity, acedia, white privilege.

But I have to admit, mentioning this on my blog at this time can itself be sinister, on another level. I track hits on my blog, so I know how many people are reading it and sharing it. I know this is a hot topic right now in social media. It is "blowing up." So when I post this blog post, I can watch that happen.

Is it good for me to try and ride a wave of social media, when that wave is precipitated by an event that has been a tragedy in which absolutely no one is a winner, and all suffer?

See how deep our sinfulness and depravity can go. Even the desire (the demand) to be righteous in having a voice can, from another perspective, be a kind of idolatry (look at me, the white blogger, posting this!)

I'm reminded of something I read and posted last week:

When preaching prophetically, "preachers stand with their people under God's Word, rather than with God's Word against their people." "Old Testament scholar Walter Brueggemann observes that the opposite often happens. When most congregations struggle with biblical interpretation, three voices are operative: the voice of the biblical text, the voice of the preacher, and the voice of the congregation. Far too often, Brueggemann says, pastors team up with the texts to 'triangle' against their congregations in preaching, leaving the congregation 'a hostile, resistant outsider.' Brueggemann contends that it is better for the preacher to stand with the congregation against the text, letting God's Word offend them both" (51).

As a blogger, as a human being, I think this is the main thing, the main response I need to have. We're in this together, under God's Word, under the cross. I'm trying to listen, trying to write, trying to be faithful. My silence may mean many things. So may my speech. But I'm praying for justice and hope, and I'm praying that no child is ever killed by a handgun again.  

Meet the rock stars of progressive Christianity all in one place

This photo includes some of my favorite people in the whole world. Nadia Bolz-Weber on the far left is the closest thing the North American Lutheran world has to a rock star. She has great theological "chops." Sometimes I think of her as the reincarnated Gerhard Forde, just taller and with tattoos.

Will Willimon, next to her, helps preachers out with incredible and thoughtful books. I had the honor of spending a week in Birmingham with Will at a Doctor of Ministry class on the theology of preaching. He also happens to have written the foreword for my book coming out with Fortress Press February of 2014. I also think of Will Willimon as a Gerhard Forde, just a Methodist Gerhard Forde, with no tattoos, and about the same height.

Continuing to the right, although I haven't met Jose Morales, I've heard great things. Jay Bakker I've gotten to know primarily through the Twitter-sphere, and have heard speak at National Youth Gatherings. Rachel Held Evans is another rockstar blogger and social media presence. Phyllis Tickleis the leading systematic theologian on emerging church, and Eric Elnes does the whole Darkwood Brew thing.

I would love to bring any one of these speakers to my church. They would energize, inspire, challenge, form. The fact that Sparkhouse has succeeded in bringing them all together in one place in a video venue for congregations, missional communities, house churches, and more, is simply phenomenal.

Last year our high school group picked up Animate: Faith, the first installment in this video series from Sparkhouse. The design is incredible. It's the perfect cross between media platforms for faith formation. Most of us now are native "watchers." We are ready to receive information, get emotional, and more, from videos with high production values. Rob Bell, an early adopter of video as a resource for faith formation, got this kind of intuitively. Our youth really liked the Nooma videos he put out, at least for a while.

But the Nooma series, though outstanding, has a kind of sad tenor to it. It's the same voice and feel again and again. What's refreshing about the Animate series from Sparkhouse is the diversity of voices and faces. There's still a center. This is progressive Christianity, a kind of mashup of Lutheran and emergent (in this case, more emergent than Lutheran). But it's pitch perfect. Our group can't wait to watch the videos.

I've never been in a high school class setting where discussion was as energized as it was around the topics in the Animate: Faith video series. Sometimes, after discussion, we'd want to go back and watch the video one more time, just to see what we missed, forgot, or misremembered. That's another advantage of a video resource. With a live speaker, you can't go back to see it again. With these videos, you can.

Although the resource is marketed to adults, and can work well with them, we are finding our greatest traction on these videos with high schoolers and their parents. I even think a savvy group of middle school youth would get tons out of them.

We're still somewhat old school in our worship space, so I don't know whether long form videos would fly for Christian worship, but these are also some of the first longer videos I've imagined using in Sunday morning worship. Given the right context, they could be profoundly energizing of conversation, prayer, and deeper reading of Scripture.

Check out a couple of the sample videos embedded below. And here is a link to an overview of the whole program: http://youtu.be/0o_NEi8eCC4

Thanks to the whole staff of Sparkhouse and Augsburg Fortress for their work on this incredible resource.













p.s. As a resident of Arkansas, I'm especially pleased that this "Lutheran" resource includes some rather southern accents.