Burb’s Eye View: Places of worship put faith in the Web

Scott Lasky taught himself how to build a website so that the church he belongs to could be online. That’s what you do when you’re a large, networked organization: You have a website and you get on the Internet like everyone else.

He quickly learned it was a big job to be responsible for the Web presence of an entire church community.

“It was hacked twice — I finally hired a programmer to help me,” he said.

Seven years later, the home page for the Burbank Church of Christ is sparse, and that’s on purpose. Lasky changes little on the website other than updating the weekly sermons that are sent to YouTube, then posted on theburbankchurch.org.

Since 2010, the church’s pages with the sermons have been viewed 71,000 times.

A button on the Burbank Church of Christ home page invites you to a Facebook link that was last updated over a year ago. It was a struggle to convince church leadership to even put up a profile on Facebook, and when the people who created it moved away, no one took it over.

It’s not that unusual for a church or synagogue to try some social media and abandon it because of time, resources or both. Of 28 religious organizations that have places for worship in Burbank, at least 20 link to some other kind of social media such as Facebook, Twitter, a blog, YouTube or other social site.

For some organizations, social media is a crucial vehicle for getting their message out. Others view it as a distraction from the core mission to gather people together to celebrate their faith, though even traditionalists are starting to see the value of adopting an online identity to attract younger members.

Pastor William Thomas Jr. from Little White Chapel believes you can never give people too much information. He sends out group emails about news in the congregation, maintains a Facebook page, broadcasts sermons on YouTube and writes a blog where he covers everything from matters of faith to the controversy over former Clippers owner Donald Sterling.

“Religion is more and more competing with family days and family picnics,” he said. “Of course, I would prefer people come to church … it’s as a community the word of God is most keenly felt.”

If people still can’t make it to his service, Thomas would rather they tune in on YouTube than miss the worship experience altogether.

Esther Dharmaraj of St. David’s Anglican Church said social media “is employed as a means of staying in community during the week.”

The church’s Twitter and Facebook feeds are a mixture of prayer, news and calendar announcements — all aimed at bringing faith into members’ lives more than that hour they spend inside its walls on Sunday.

Done right, social media can be an enriching extension of a faith community. On the Facebook page for Temple Beth Emet of Burbank, there are call-outs to create a Torah for Troops, thank-yous for the temple barbecue, birthday greetings for Rabbi Mark Sobel and special Shabbat plans.

Without a little training and some dedicated volunteers, it becomes a chore to update another page on the Internet that, at least at first, no one’s visiting anyway.

That’s where people like Lasky find themselves in a Catch-22. Longtime members don’t want or need to engage with their synagogue or church any differently now than when they were growing up, but younger generations who don’t know a world without the Internet expect to get their information on their phone any time, any day and in any location.

“That’s the problem, and that’s the future of any church,” Lasky said. “What worries me is not being replenished.”

Social media alone will not drive younger members to become more active in their faith — not in a culture where, as Pastor Thomas said, “the media can turn any holy day into a day of relaxation and enjoyment.”

The congregation at Burbank Church of Christ is averaging 50 years old and older. Lasky understands that social media will play some part in his faith’s future; the question now is figuring out what works right for the culture of the church.

“We’re going into a postmodern world and we have to start relating to a postmodern world,” Lasky said. “I’m all for anything that would … help us relate to a younger generation.”

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BRYAN MAHONEY writes about Burbank neighbors and the place they call home. He can be reached at 818NewGuy@gmail.com and on Twitter at @818NewGuy.