Using Facebook Pages

Here in New England, one frequently finds that people are willing enough to participate in church activities, but are embarrassed to belong to a church (or at least to acknowledge that they belong to one).

Facebook -- and we assume that any house of worship of any denomination has a Facebook presence by now -- has recently made available to small organizations (and even to small businesses) their "Pages" capability, of which one can be a "Fan".

This is distinct from their "Group" capability, which one can "join" (and which perhaps makes church Facebook groups less than overwhelmingly popular where we come from (see paragraph #1).

We're still grappling with exactly how to use Facebook Pages, but we think that it holds some promise for connecting with the easily embarrassed, and thus is worth a fair amount of effort in implementing.

Here's our current effort, just three days old, but with some "fans" who would not be caught dead "joining" a church group.

Trinity Lime Rock Sports on Facebook

What do you think?

You CAN do this....

Yes, you CAN do this!

A regulation volleyball court is 60 feet long, and 30 feet across. You need 10 feet on either side for the guy ropes for the net. You need four feet on each end for serving space.

Look around your church.

Is the church hall 70 feet long and more than 30 feet wide?

Is there a parking lot that big?

Maybe a front lawn, or a back yard (as in our parish, where the people that went before were smart enough to realize that stewardship of open space is a pretty important kind of stewardship)?

We paid under $200 for the volleyball net (including poles, guy ropes, and the pre-marked rope to outline the court. We got the ball for points from a Citibank promotion.

Anyway, it should not surprise you to know that the volleyball court is a people-magnet. Even more than soccer was when we started the Sunday School playing soccer in the summer when Sunday School classes are on vacation.

We also rounded up the captain of our local high school's volleyball team. She doesn't go to our church, but she was delighted to be involved with getting younger kids involved with volleyball and teaching them skills -- and possibly keeping an eye out for potential players for her team amongst our kids who will be entering high school in the fall.

We also found that dads seem to like volleyball a whole lot. Even the ones who mainly don't show up on Sunday mornings!

More pics are on our website, and on our Facebook page (your church DOES have one of them by now, don't you?)