Earlier this week, I was working on my Pinterest Boards and trying new things when I noticed how much Pinterest could be used as a tool for churches. Many times, we think about combining social media and churches as only a marketing tool for evangelism or church growth. However, many different areas of social media can be used as tools for the church. Focusing primarily on Pinterest, this tool can be used to develop creative plans for events, for Bible Study Illustrations, and for sharing helpful targeted information.
As a tool for churches, Pinterest can help leaders develop creative plans for events. Many churches have great ideas for church socials, smaller class gatherings, or even large productions. The leadership can pin these ideas to use as a reference for future events that your church may want to mimic, or use as a spring board to a completely new idea. Using Pinterest, the board does not have to completely be limited to church ideas, but from some secular sources as well. There are many different conferences that happen all of the time and each one seeks to implement some type of ice breaker or social gathering. These are great sources of creative ideas to investigate to use as future project to bring the people of the church together. As long as the final result is God honoring and in keeping with the mission of the church, this use of Pinterest would be a great tool to generate event oriented projects.
Another way Pinterest can be used by churches is to provide leaders a creative way to save or discover Bible Study Illustrations. There are illustrations of Biblical concepts everywhere on the internet. These illustrations can be built into a Pinterest board to provide relevant ideas to support the lesson that others may be teaching, or as a way to build illustrations for future projects. A pastor could keep a secret board to curate ideas to use in upcoming sermons, or a Sunday School Director can curate ideas to pass along to other Sunday School teachers. Using Pinterest as a curation tool is a great way to socialize the teaching experience for the leadership of our churches.
Pinterest can also be used for sharing helpful and targeted information. Sometimes when I am preparing sermon, I may have a book I recommend, or another study that I refer to in my sermon. While I would love to spend time outlining the wonderful research I discovered, doing so is not always the wisest use of my sermon. This is especially true when the idea is essentially a rabbit chase away from the main idea to the sermon. Having a Pinterest board set up to share the research links would be a great use of Pinterest as a way to encourage further investigation as well as allowing the people to see what else is available pertaining to the idea addressed in the sermon. Pinterest is a great place to share this important information to the followers of your boards.
There are many different uses that a church can develop for Pinterest. While I have only outlined three, the tool for creative events, Bible Study Illustrations, and sharing information are great ways to start the social conversation with the congregation.
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Logo from Pinterest.com