Leading Your Virtual Flock:  How to Shepherd Your People Digitally

As a leader in the ministry, you are probably looking for ways to improve and enhance how you interact with the flock with which God has entrusted you. And knowing the that Lord expects even more from you because He has given you this responsibility, the stakes are even higher. So how should you faithfully shepherd in a constantly-changing digital age with access to massive amounts of content, numerous distribution channels, endless content sources, and noise? In other words...

How do you, as a leader, navigate and utilize digital technologies to serve your "virtual" flock?

There are all kinds of solutions and options to discover and evaluate. You have avenues to post podcasts, access and sell music, and even church management companies that help you check in kids at sunday school, capture donations, and track volunteer activity. I won't spend too much time here because you are probably doing many of these things already.

What about books, small group studies, and sermons? How do you connect, grow, and shepherd your flock in arguably the most important area--the written Word? We have traditionally just trusted that people were studying on their own, but I think we can agree that this approach has fallen short. We are called to be a community, an intricately-connected body of believers. And for us to do this well, we can't rely on people coming to us. We need to reach out to them. We need to extend beyond our physical walls and "be the church" by developing digital and virtual community around our content.

And I'm not just talking about Facebook or Twitter. While these are useful tools, I think we need something more.

I came across one of these potential game-changers recently and think you should know about it. It is called Bookshout!, a revolutionary new e-reading platform started by Jason Illian that is actually changing how we interact with content and each other. BookShout! allows people to create virtual book clubs, interactive bible studies, or ministry groups to study, learn, and grow in our relationship with Christ virtually. It allows these groups to be public or private and to share as little or as much as we want.

As an example, any church can now read Matt Chandler's "Explicit Gospel" together and virtually discuss his approach to power and the validity of scripture. A small group can read through Francis Chan's new upcoming book, "Multiply", and truly disciple and learn collaboratively. The ability to share notes and highlights allows anyone to share what God is revealing to them, the very moment he or she reads the passage. More importantly, leaders and church staff can lead these groups, guiding the conversations and enhancing their in-person time with ongoing digital discussions.

Imagine the ability to create a virtual group (Bookshout! calls them "circles") for your church where everyone in the congregation can share stories, scriptures, and illustrations around your 8-week study on "Humility". What a rich and powerful way to build community and worship among the body of Christ!

Think of the fruitfulness your small group could experience if they could study, communicate, and pray seven days a week, 24-hours a day. They could also have an evangelistic focus and share their thoughts, comments, and favorite passages across Facebook and Twitter.

In today's constantly evolving technological landscape, the question is no longer whether or not we will use these tools, but rather how do we effectively use them to equip the Church (body not building) to take the message to the ends of the earth. Technologies like BookShout! are leading the way and the great thing is that most of them, like BookShout!, are free.

You are a leader, so lead. Get out of your comfort zone and actively engage people on a daily basis, both in person and through technological means. Please don't make the common mistakes of fleeing any form of social and technological interaction (because most of your people are already on-board) or trying to create an equal alternative (because you are a ministry, not a technology company). Instead do what Jesus did. Meet the people where they are with the relevant tools already available to you.

You can find out more about Bookshout! and sign up at www.bookshout.com. Bookshout! is available on iPad, iPhone, through the web and will have an android version out in the next few weeks.