Looking for a way to engage with your local community without excessive manpower? One west London church uses a very simple and effective tool to help build community spirit without costly resources. This is done by using basic social media techniques and applying them to everyday life, which has most recently earned them a nomination for UK-wide digital awards.
Part of the challenge with Twitter is that the conversation is live and you never know when people want to talk or how they will respond to your comments. With the #EalingHour, set up by a local estate agent, in March 2014, Twitter users have one hour every Tuesday, between 8 and 9 pm to comment on local issues that matter to them and affect their lives in Ealing. From this short burst of activity, thousands in this pocket of London are engaging with others interested in local issues using the search term or hashtag #EalingHour to connect.
When St Barnabas church Ealing, decided to become active on Twitter, they took their inspiration from the Apostle Barnabas being known as “the encourager”, who used his heart and soul to encourage others in the Christian faith.
A small team of tweeters, including parishioner Hilary Nicholl, worked hard to promote not only their events and Christian information, but also encouraged news from the Ealing community – local businesses, schools, politicians and residents. This meant responding live to other #EalingHour tweeters by repeating and supporting other local information.
Tweeters in the area have posted about special events, news, issues of concern, services, business recommendations and have simply connected with other like-minded Ealing-loving people.
Immediately the church could see the potential of helping to support and getting to know the community. One of the first roles was to invite around one hundred Ealing Twitter account holders they already knew about.
Then in April of this year, the estate agent stepped aside from hosting #Ealinghour due to staff changes. Not wanting to let it die they approached three active members of the hour to take over the weekly hosting as co-hosts. St Barnabas is now one of those three co-hosts.
The benefits to St Barnabas of being involved are many. It has allowed the church to support community efforts through encouragement and publicity. Church tweeters have an insight into local worries and concerns and has allowed staff to introduce prayer into the conversation when it is needed. When there have been terrible incidents, for example, prayer messages by the church have been very well received and re-tweeted. Finally, it allows the congregation to show themselves to the community as an active and welcoming church.
Discussing her involvement in the initiative, Hilary Nicholl said:
“Serving St Barnabas and the wider church by getting involved in #Ealinghour has been enjoyable and brought many exciting new links and opportunities. It is a way I can help, which fits in with my own life, but still seems to bring real value to the church.”
Commenting on the success of the initiative, the Revd Justin Dodd said:
“The EalingHour has provided a very effective way for St Barnabas to network with local traders, educators, politicians and artists to name but a few. I’m not sure we could have connected so quickly with these opinion leaders without it.
“It is a great honour that our social media has been nominated for Tweeter of the Year award, which is attributed to our hard work and dedication to the local community.”
The shortlist and categories for the Premier Digital Awards 2015 on the 14 November is available online as are tickets for awards and the accompanying conference. Alternatively, you can tweet the church by using the Twitter handle @Barnabites.