Justin Wise at Luther’s social media summit

Luther’s Kairos program sponsored a class this week entitled a “social media summit.” I’m not sure how much of a summit it was? (That metaphor speaks to me of high level users engaging in major reflection), but it was definitely a very useful introduction and strategies session for pastoral leaders wanting to get involved in social media.

Here are Justin Wise's six slide shows from the day. The first was a basic introduction to himself and to social media, the second delved a little more deeply into specific elements of social media, the third offered pragmatic ideas for using social media in a church setting, the fourth was a brief introduction to managing settings at facebook, the fifth one was on "return on investment" (and basically made a case for broadening and theologically deepening how we use that term), and the sixth offered a lot of statistics on things that work and don't work in using social media for an organization. His primary message -- with which I heartily agree! -- is that engagement is a key factor in using social media well.

I would probably have worded this a bit differently, since I generally talk about practices, Trinitarian relationally and my three a's (authority, authenticity, agency), but nevertheless I think he did a great job of introducing people to basic concepts in the world of social media, and beginning to think about them from the standpoint of churches. Of course, what he didn't talk much about -- and that's appropriate, given who his audience was -- is the fundamental transformation of learning now taking place in mobile and gaming terms, and how that transformation is already transforming pastoral communities. For those conversations, I'd highly recommend Elizabeth Drescher's Tweet if you [heart] Jesus, and Brown and Thomas' A New Culture of Learning.