I was sent this article and asked my opinion:
Clergy must navigate traditional boundaries in new social media world Developing policies is a challenge, observers say By Mary Frances Schjonberg

[Episcopal News Service] When the Episcopal Church's Province III
Youth Ministry Network earlier this month issued a set of guidelines
for interacting with young people through social media, it was on the
cutting edge of a growing effort to help guide ministers as they walk
through the digital landscape.

Two or three years ago when Elizabeth Drescher was researching her
book "Tweet if You ♥ Jesus," she said, the "big conversation was about
why do we need to do this at all -- why does it matter?"
Now, she said, "that conversation is pretty much over … now they're
really starting to wrestle with what's the best way to do that in
light of our standards and practices for professional ministry. That's
just unfolding. There's not really a clear standard for how that's
working."Full story: http://www.episcopalchurch.org/79425_130316_ENG_HTM.htm


My answer:
This is the old split between recruiters and witnesses writ large and new.

I believe that the social media is a great tool for organizing the people we have, but that the spirit will move people to join us through onwe- on- one witness to God's action in our lives. I tell my story, I act on God's insiration and people see it and want to join. ("Look how they love one another.)

Others believe that one must "sell" christianity and convince people to see the light and turn to jesus. For them the social media are a great sales/recruiting tool and they believe that they must channel great effort into using if well for that purpose. ("and in all 3 thousand souls were brought to Christ")

There is nothing new here, it is the same difference in what we think of as what church is, what missionary work is. Is it servant-hood, helping the Other because the Spirit moves us, or is it spreading the word of God to bring more souls to Christ? Is it inspiring by example or saving souls
to be the agents of God? Each one of us has to decide what one believes and then find a church which most closely fits that theology.

I will never stand on the corner and preach hellfire and damnation. I will pontificate to a semi-captive audience. I will never do a commercial market analysis and then change my church to conform and therefor recruit better. But I will look for ways to serve the community and therefor make my church useful, helpful and welcoming. But there are others, and have been others within Christs church who believed differently: the missionaries to the heathens of Africa and Fiji, the Inquisition, the Crusaders, elements of the Pilgrims, elements of the protestant churches in America at the turn of the 19th to 20th century, and so on.