Teaching ministry plays a big role in people’s spiritual life. Hearing Biblical principles being taught systematically with in-depth revelations and insights can be life-transforming.
In my opinion, sometimes we fail to consider teaching as the primary element of modern Christian ministry. We focus too much on the activities, community and socialising parts of ministry that teaching starts to take a backseat.
When we don’t teach the Bible in depth, people don’t understand the principles of God, and without those principles the doors are open for confusion of ideas and dilution of values.
So it is important to give top priority to teaching ministry. But once you decide to give top priority to teaching ministry, you are faced with a few challenges:
– There is not enough time to teach all that you like to teach
– People are too busy to come and attend multiple teaching sessions
– The rate of retention of the knowledge is very low in this day and age of information overload
This is where social media can play a role.
The Role of Social Media in your Teaching Ministry
Social media can help you overcome most of these challenges and help in your teaching ministry by playing 4 important roles.
Role #1 – Enabling Consistent Delivery of Content
You can take a specific subject and deliver the teaching material consistently on social media over a long period of time. Unlike on TV or radio where you have a limited amount of hours, social media is your own broadcasting station and you can take as long as you like to deliver your teaching material. You can pace it without any external pressure.
Role #2: Adding Interactivity to your Teaching Sessions
Social media is all about comments, feedback and inputs flowing in both directions. Almost all the platforms allow free flow of communication, creating a highly interactive teaching experience. Your audience can ask questions, express their opinions and share their expertise on the subject.
In a Bible context, usually God gives different revelations to different people based on their situation and personal walk with him, so teaching on social media enables sharing of such valuable experiences, which can strengthen the body of Christ in unique ways.
Role #3: Providing Relevance & Context to the Subject
Teaching on social media is very different compared to traditional teaching in a room. When you teach in a particular location, the audience comes with a specific mindset. They shut out all other thoughts and focus on the teaching, which is a good thing.
But when you are able to teach while people are at work or taking care of their everyday tasks, the teaching becomes more relevant and appealing because of the context.
Example: Suppose a person listens to your teaching on the subject of forgiveness during his lunch break at work when he’s just had a fight with his colleague.
The teaching comes alive and takes on a whole new dimension. It becomes a reality due to the context. This is possible only when we use technology and social media as a platform for teaching.
Role #4: Empowering the Audience
Today many believers face questions from their friends, family and colleagues concerning their faith. If your congregation has easy access to teaching material or can chat with elders or pastors on mobile devices, then they’re able to answer questions and minister to others.
Example: Consider a working professional who is serious about living a Christian life. Her colleagues know this about her, and during a coffee break they ask her questions about the relevance of the Bible and what it says about marriage and family.
This can be a great opportunity for the Christian woman to lead her colleagues to the truth if she has access to your teaching material on her mobile phone or if she can quickly connect with elders or pastors in your church on social media to ask them for the answers to tough questions.
She’s empowered to minister to her colleagues during their time of need because she has the information she needs at her fingertips. These little conversations with the right answers are the ones that make a big difference in building the Kingdom.
Conclusion
Think of ways in which you can integrate social media into your teaching ministry. You can teach directly on social media using any of the channels, or you can teach in your church or event and use social media to amplify and reinforce the message to your audience.
If you have had any experience teaching Bible concepts on social media, and have any piece of wisdom that you like to share, please use the comments section to share it. I would love to hear from you.
If you have any specific questions about teaching biblical principles using social media or additional thoughts on the topic, feel free to share it too.
