The creation of a Facebook group to facilitate the transition of our confirmands to full membership and activity within the church.

This is a conversation starter about being a holy presence using social media connections. It can be used in any Adult Education setting.

This is an exploration of the usefulness of Facebook for a particular context, a small rural church in Upstate NY. The page can be found at: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Milton-Marlboro-United-Methodist-Church/226271034060400

I have wanted to create a Facebook page for my congregation for a long time, and finally took the initiative to just do it this spring in conjunction with my participation in EL3517, Media & Technology in Parish Education, at Luther Seminary. The experience has been incredible. Within 24 hours of creating the site we had over 100 fans. Within one week we had over 200 fans. Several weeks later we now have 262 fans that receive frequent updates from the congregation and view often photos, videos and links that we provide. I hope that this will only continue to grow. You can visit our page for yourself at www.facebook.com/zumbrolutheran. I’ve received a great deal of positive feedback about the congregation’s Facebook page. Here’s what a couple parishioners had to say: "Are you in charge of the Facebook stuff? What a great, I mean it, great outreach. I think it makes me feel even more connected knowing that my church is understanding how to communicate to this generation!" -stay-at-home mother of three, 34 years old "It is so cool to see how many people I know from church that are on Facebook and to connect with them. It has been great to see all the different ages of people that are fans of the site, too! I love the updates, knowing what is coming up on Sunday, and reading the Bible verses that have been posted. It has made me feel more connected while I'm away at school." -college student, 19 years old I’ve only been doing this for two months so I certainly don’t have all of the answers. I have, however, learned a lot about creating and maintaining a congregational Facebook page. I hope my experience might in some way be able to help you or your congregation reach people through this relevant form of social media. I’d welcome your comments or additions to my list!