Supporting Local Churches to Support their Communities…
CONCEPT
In response to the stage 4 lockdown, we have the opportunity to be an encouraging, supportive voice in our communities. Harvest Victoria and Adventist Media are offering to
support local churches to be online Centre’s of Influence. This can be through an existing church Facebook page or through a Community Care Facebook page in each pastoral district
(or more locally in rural areas) across Victoria.
PURPOSE
The purpose of an online COI is to post encouraging, uplifting content and provide a digital place for engagement with the local community. The content will promote mental, social,
physical and emotional well-being with the intention of meeting current needs and then provide evangelistic opportunities through one-on-one engagement between page users
and local teams.
The purpose of this is to support and encourage those in your local community. Sermons and evangelistic content are not recommended. Save this for your church Facebook page.
DURATION
The project will commence ASAP. While it will run for the duration of Stage 4 lockdown there is potential to extend indefinitely if effective.
PLAN
HV is working with district leaders to develop the pages. You will need to bring together a local team to manage the page. These could include your district-leader, pastors and can
extend to hand-picked members who are savvy with, and appropriate at, communicating online. You will need enough people on your team to ensure you can respond quickly to any
engagements on the page (recommended to have at least 3 page Admins). The team can bring in health professional, mental health experts, social workers and other
suitable people (personal trainers, dieticians, counsellors) to help achieve the purpose of the page.
NOTE: All advice given on the page MUST be general in nature and page managers will need a suitable referral system for individual requests for professional support.
CONTENT
Adventist Media and the AUC are developing media you can download from www.disciple.org.au/communitycare (website in development). You can access this and
create your own schedule or there is also the option of having Adventist Media create a Posting Schedule (this will also be available at www.disciple.org.au/communitycare).
Local teams will have flexibility to follow the posting schedule or manage their pages locally based on their needs/context. See ideas below.
Local teams can also coordinate across Community Care pages to share resources, speakers
and events.
TIPS TO MAKE THIS WORK
1. Post a maximum of once per day and at least three days a week.
2. There is no best time to go live, just do it when it suits your team.
3. Be positive.
4. For engagement, ask questions. For example, “What are you reading during lockdown?”
5. Mix up your posts to ensure a combination of video and images. (www.canva.com is a free, online tool for creating quality images which you can post instead of plain
text.)
6. If promoting Zoom events, it’s recommended to enable registration.
7. Avoid controversial and overly spiritual/theological topics (if necessary, only engage in these in private, one-on-one conversations).
8. Ensure your team are all prepared to moderate the page at all times.
9. Respond to page engagements quickly.
10. Encourage members to like, engage with and share the page.
POST IDEAS
Here are some ideas for your page:
– Exercise tips from a PT or Physio
– Family meal ideas from a dietician or chef
– “Post a photo” campaign of a flower found during your one hour outdoors
– Zoom invitation to an interview with a Psychologist/Counsellor
– Facebook Live session with a daily check-in, count-down to the end of Stage 4 and some inspiring quotes or funny jokes
– Links to community services like meal programs or support services
– Advertise a “mocktail” making night (or cooking class) with required ingredients and then run it the following week
– Parent Groups: like a mums group, meetup on Zoom for morning tea or have
– Share links to Grief Support/Gambling/Addiction Support
– Support local emergency services or front-line workers by tagging them and asking for “likes” to show support or asking for comments to show support
– Interview: a parent who’s working from home and/or supervising remote learning; an elderly person to ask how they are dealing with the lockdown; a health care worker from your community
SUPPORT
Some short guides to using Facebook are available at www.disciple.org.au/communitycare. You can find helpful videos and articles online to guide you through any Facebook questions
you may have. You can find these by typing your question into Google. If you aren’t able to find the answer you need, James Lombart from Adventist Media has
kindly offered his support. You can email your questions to him at [email protected].
WHAT NEXT?
To set up a district page, please contact Pr Fraser Catton at [email protected]. To use the content for your local church Facebook page, you can begin straight away. All
content and some support documents are at www.disciple.org.au/communitycare.
Online Centre of Influence
