Sticks & Chisels 1.2

There are 168 hours in every week. The highest proportion of church members will spend about 2 of those hours "at church" on Sunday morning. Add in a couple hours with a small group and an hour or so in a Sunday School class or Bible Study and you get 5, maybe 6 hours for the people who seem to be at church "all the time".

What does three and a half percent look like?

Most people would consider someone who goes to Sunday School, worship, Bible study, and a small group to be pretty heavily involved in church. But this heavily involved person, in reality, has spent about 3% of his time in those congregational activities. (Doesn't sound so heavy when you look at it that way...)

It's obvious that 3% of a person's time is not enough to be truly connected with the body and engaged in Jesus' mission for the church. If we really are the Body of Christ, we need to be connecting with each other outside of a congregation's weekly-held, regular programming. We can do that through meals, sports, hanging out, working out, working for the good of someone else together... Projects like Habitat for Humanity and the soup kitchen are some great opportunities we have locally to connect with each other AND engage in His mission. One of the greatest assets of the trips we take in our youth ministry is the time we spend together, getting to know each other and growing relational connections to each other.

It's easy to see how these things help us to be a continuous church - one that is always open. But I wonder, too if we can effectively leverage technology to help people in the church stay connected outside of Sunday mornings? What could a great web site coupled with solid social media training do for our level of engagement? What if every message and lesson were echoed by dozens of tweets, blogs, and status updates?
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In a related post for leaders, Ron Edmondson lists these 7 Reasons You Need Social Media as a Christian Leader: (though he does qualify that "need"may be too strong a word)

• Networking with people who are making a difference.
• Go where people are. 
• You’ll meet great friends. 
• Keep updated on breaking news. 
• Wise use of time. 
• Breaks down barriers between people. 
• Stay current with culture.