River Run Online Organics [3/19/2019]
The River Run Online Organics was formed at the beginning of the 2016-2017 church year. It registered as a Parent Affiliated Congregation [PAC] and Organic Church under the River Run Church of the Nazarene. River Run Online Organics began as a collection of several small online organic groups. Each organic group has a group leader, is Christ-centered, and focuses upon building relationships with each other and with God. The River Run Online Organics structure is being expanded to include all of River Run’s cyber, internet, or social media activities.
The River Run’s public Facebook Page can be found at http://www.facebook.com/riverrunchurch. We have a regular following. We are learning how to use this page to increase our territory or reach. Our geographic reach and followers have grown much beyond the reach of any of the individuals involved in managing the site. Our goal has been to set up a more regular schedule for posting Christ-centered and spiritual formation related material. We have made significant progress in this area over the past year.
“River Run” is a Facebook closed group. It initially became the hub for River Run Online Organics. We are using this closed group for general church communications. We have been regularly posting Scripture verses and words of encouragement to this group. Our goal is to expand our use of this group for more church related and discipleship activities.
Our other Facebook secret groups may be quite similar to more traditional discipleship related small groups. We have worked to increase the Christ-centered nature of these secret groups by posting relevant Scripture and linking God’s Word to Christian action and activities related to daily living. RR Health and Wellness, RR Community Crafters in Service to Him, and Homesteader’s Blessings are three particularly active groups.
Our website and blog began as dbkfaithfullyyoursforever.wordpress.com, but we have upgraded our site and registered a domain name. This upgrade is allowing us to explore the use of video, audio, and other media techniques. Our registered URL is river-run-church.org. We resumed a regular blogging schedule in early July and are again tracking new likes and followers. To date, since we resumed daily blogging, we have had added twenty eight new WordPress followers, from this country and from across the globe. We also have one new email follower. In addition, we have engaged fifty five other WordPress bloggers, several of whom have begun to regularly follow the blog. In November, we added a daily prayer, praise, and promises post to the daily devotional posts. On the last Sunday of November, we began an online service that is establishing a following.
Our mobile Back to the Bible/GoTandem app is River Run Naz. It is for iPhones and Android devices. We have only been able to do an initial configuration. We need to learn how to use app features, begin to expand what we offer through the River Run Naz app, and be more intentional about promoting the app.
The River Run Church of the Nazarene reaffirmed its desire to focus more intently on online activities, while still maintaining a local presence with face-to-face discipleship groups and other church related activities. Early in 2019 we began envisioning our online future and created and action plan to move us forward. We plan to experiment with other technologies, pilot some new online approaches, and have a more formal launch or kick-off of an online congregation later in 2019.
PowerPoint handout of 2018-2019 Church Year review of activities and impact:
RR 2018-2019 Status Report for Online Organics
Faithfully Yours Forever 