Facebook witness
UK Christians are using social media to share their faith online, a new survey by Christian Vision, in partnership with Premier Christian Media, has found.
In a survey on attitudes to online mission, the majority (84 per cent) of respondents agreed that the online space is a huge mission field, with 65 per cent revealing they use social networks such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube to share their faith in an intentional way.
Some 71 per cent of respondents post links to Christian sites or sites with mission values, while 73 per cent intentionally post or link to content to share their faith.
Social media activity is prolific across the age spectrum and is not just a preserve of young people as widely thought. But younger people are more likely to have a larger proportion of non-Christian friends, and are more active in sharing their faith online — 87 per cent of 16-18 year olds said they do so intentionally.
Older people are less confident to share their faith online than offline, but recognise the opportunity to do so — 92 per cent of 35-44 year olds agree that online is a huge mission field.
Church leaders are more engaged than average in social media activity and welcome the use of the medium for ministry and evangelism. However, of all respondents only 25 per cent said their church encourages online mission, with 78 per cent saying churches should be more active in online mission.
The results back up claims that Christians do not need persuading about opportunities presented by the internet, although churches need more encouragement to embrace these opportunities and guidance on how to.
