Blog

You Can't Do That on Facebook: Privacy

People often point to Facebook and wonder why the church would even need the Table. Facebook is ideal for outreach, but it falls short at building community. That's what the Table is all about. We encourage churches to use Facebook and the Table together. But the fact is there are things you can't do on Facebook that the Table is designed to do.

Like privacy.

Privacy on the Table
The Table is a private network. It's not open to the entire world like Facebook is. It's just the people who attend your church. You can find a certain level of intimacy in smaller social networks. Bigger isn't always better. Nothing you post online is 100% private, but the Table is inherently more local, more trusting, more connected.

You can post a prayer request to the Table and know that the whole world won't see it. If it's especially sensitive you can share it within a group instead of your whole church or even post an anonymous prayer request.

Plus, you get that level of privacy without thinking about it. You don't have to check your settings or set up a special group that's exclusive to the people in your church. The network is ready to go.

Privacy on Facebook
You won't find that level of privacy on Facebook. Your church's page is available to the whole world. Anybody can see anything you post there. And that's how it should be—Facebook is more about outreach. But that doesn't leave room for community-building, discipleship or intimate sharing—those activities don't work on a stage.

You can set up more private groups on Facebook or share things to more limited circles of people, but you have to set all that up and it's not automatically connected to your church. It's a lot of work, and when you're sharing something important and private, you shouldn't have to jump through those technological hurdles.

There's also no anonymous on Facebook. You either share it openly or you keep it to yourself.

Privacy Examples
We've seen firsthand how the private community of the Table creates a safe place for sharing and even openness. Here are a few examples:

• One couple shared their struggle with infertility on the Prayer Wall. There were more than 35 comments posted and multiple people came up to them on Sunday morning sharing that they'd gone through the same thing.
• One person was struggling with depression and thinking about suicide. They posted an anonymous prayer request and had more than 30 comments supporting them and lifting them up in prayer. A couple people even offered to meet in person, making it easy for the anonymous person by saying they'd be at a coffee shop at a specific time.
• A private community makes sharing and connecting safer, as we've seen people share airplane rides, connected with roommates and found babysitters.
• Sometimes struggling with your faith is not something you want to do in a public Facebook status update, but you still need help and support. That's what Patrick found in the Table as his family was baptized.

Privacy gives you the safety to be more open and honest. You can't do that on Facebook.

Permanent link for this entry

You Can't Do That on Facebook: Groups Directory

People often point to Facebook and wonder why the church would even need the Table. Facebook is ideal for outreach, but it falls short at building community. That's what the Table is all about. We encourage churches to use Facebook and the Table together. But the fact is there are things you can't do on Facebook that the Table is designed to do.

Like having a groups directory.

You can set up as many groups as you want on the Table. They can be official ministry groups like women's ministry, youth group or your small group, or they can be fun groups based on interests, like football fans, music heads or knitters. You can designate official groups and even make groups private.

You can create the same kinds of groups on Facebook. But good luck finding them. There's no connection between those groups and your church. If someone visits your church's Facebook Page, there's no automatic way to find all your groups. That makes connecting and plugging in kind of hard. There might be some manual work arounds, but that's staff time to set up, requires constant maintenance and discourages people from setting up their own groups.

But it's different on the Table. There's an entire directory of groups:

• You can browse through them all to find the group for you.
• You can search for a group that might appeal to your interests.
• You can launch your own group and invite others to join you.

You can do groups on Facebook, but you can't do interconnected groups. Which is really what happens in church, right? You've got your entire church, but then you have all kinds of groups within your church. The Table's groups directory was designed with that in mind: Simple groups that are easy to find and encourage connection.

Permanent link for this entry

You Can't Do That on Facebook: Map Your Church Members

People often point to Facebook and wonder why the church would even need the Table. Facebook is ideal for outreach, but it falls short at building community. That's what the Table is all about. We encourage churches to use Facebook and the Table together. But the fact is there are things you can't do on Facebook that the Table is designed to do.

Like mapping your congregation.

The Table offers a map view of all the people in your church. There they are, little people icons spread across the map. Each one gives you a general idea where people in your church live (icons are shown within a half-mile of the actual address to protect privacy).

• You can see who in your church lives in your neighborhood.
• You can plan a small group or an evening hang out based on location.
• You can find a central location to have a meeting.

It makes planning and connecting that much easier. You can't do that on Facebook. And with a worldwide social network, you probably wouldn't want to. Sometimes smaller is better.

Permanent link for this entry

You Can't Do That on Facebook: Church Directory

People often point to Facebook and wonder why the church would even need the Table. Facebook is ideal for outreach, but it falls short at building community. That's what the Table is all about. We encourage churches to use Facebook and the Table together. But the fact is there are things you can't do on Facebook that the Table is designed to do.

Like having a church directory.

The Table gives you a picture directory of your church. It's an easy way to connect with your congregation, whether you're meeting an old friend or getting to know a new one. You can learn names, search for interests and skills and even find contact information.

Not so much on Facebook. If your church has a Facebook Page, the best you can see is your fellow friends who also like the church page or maybe you can click on people who comment. But there's no easy way to meet people you don't know. There's no way to see all the people in your church. There's no way to connect and interact, unless you're already friends.

But with the Table's directory, you can do so much more:

• You can find and connect with new people.
• You can search for interests and invite people to join a new group.
• You can use the random feature to learn names.
• You can use the map to find out who lives in your neighborhood.
• You can use your mobile device to look someone up when you forget their name.

There are all these ways to connect as a body. You can't do any of that on Facebook.

Permanent link for this entry

You Can't Do That on Facebook: Prayer

People often point to Facebook and wonder why the church would even need the Table. Facebook is ideal for outreach, but it falls short at building community. That's what the Table is all about. We encourage churches to use Facebook and the Table together. But the fact is there are things you can't do on Facebook that the Table is designed to do.

Like prayer.

Prayer on the Table
The Table is designed to encourage people to pray for one another. You can't say that about Facebook. When you post a prayer request to the Table two things happen. First, an email alert goes out to everyone in your church who asks to receive those prayer updates (there are several settings). These are people waiting to pray for you. Second, every time someone clicks the ‘pray now' button and prays for you, you can get an email letting you know. It's instant encouragement in your time of need. (Here's a quick look at how prayer works on the Table).

Prayer on Facebook
Now it's true that prayer can and does happen on Facebook. And praise God that it does. People can post a status update asking for prayer, and people can pray for them. But it's not designed to encourage prayer like the Table. Facebook may send out notifications depending on people's settings, but no matter their settings they weren't signing up to receive prayer requests. In fact, posting a prayer request as a status update may mean it gets lost in the thread of political rants, weird links and kid photos. Prayer requests on Facebook would also only go to your circle of friends, where on the Table you can get church-wide prayer. We've heard stories of people praying for people they've never met and then introducing themselves at church. That's cool.

Designed for Prayer
Prayer might happen on Facebook, but it's designed to happen on the Table. We've heard that people are praying more because of the Table. That's because the Table inherently encourages prayer.

Need an example? Granger Community Church has had almost 1,000 prayer requests on the Table in four months. On Facebook they've had three.

Permanent link for this entry