{"id":2801,"date":"2008-12-19T21:11:50","date_gmt":"2008-12-19T21:11:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.covchurch.org\/newswire\/?p=2801"},"modified":"2010-12-20T12:52:08","modified_gmt":"2010-12-20T17:52:08","slug":"6766","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blogs.covchurch.org\/newswire\/2008\/12\/19\/6766\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Facebook Pastor\u2019 Uses Networking to Help 500 Students"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Stan Friedman<\/p>\n

ATLANTA, GA (December 19, 2008) \u2013 Five hundred needy students at the Frank L. Stanton Elementary School received Christmas gifts and new school uniforms this week after Covenant Pastor Shaun King used Internet social networking websites to raise funds from across the country and internationally.
\n
\nThree hundred people across 22 states and several foreign countries donated some $21,000 during the campaign that ran through November and into the first week of December, says King, who calls himself the \u201cThe Facebook Pastor.\u201d King serves as pastor of The Courageous Church<\/a>, an Evangelical Covenant Church plant that doesn\u2019t even hold its launch service for another three weeks.<\/p>\n

King was at the school on Tuesday to watch the students open the gifts and receive the uniforms. \u201cIt\u2019s been really exciting,\u201d he says. Click here to see additional photos from that event.<\/p>\n

\"Gifts\"The excitement has grown across the country since national media carried an Associated Press story about King\u2019s Facebook experiment that has been published on the websites of outlets including MSNBC, Forbes<\/em> magazine, and the Atlanta Journal Constitution<\/em>. Several TV stations also have carried stories, including a major Atlanta news broadcast.<\/p>\n

King, who had volunteered at the school more than a decade ago while a student at Morehouse College, asked administrators how the church could help. They told him that although the school required uniforms, half of the children\u2019s families couldn\u2019t afford them. They asked whether the church could raise money for the clothes.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe can help with that,\u201d King immediately replied, not considering there was no way the people in his congregation could donate that much money. \u201cIt was something dumb I said, but as soon as I said it, we couldn\u2019t go back on that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Looking back, King adds, \u201cCrisis and lean budgets can really cause people to be creative.\u201d<\/p>\n

That creativity led he and congregation members to fan out across their social networking sites such as MySpace, Twitter, Facebook, blogs and the website 500toys.com<\/a> they created for the campaign. They also posted videos of the children on YouTube.<\/p>\n

\"Laughing\"He and other church members were nervous when only $80 came in after the first day. As church members continued to advertise the campaign through their own virtual communities, however, the donations began to build.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe didn\u2019t spend one dollar to raise $21,000,\u201d King says. For him, the experience recalls Jesus multiplying the fishes and loaves.<\/p>\n

Although they spent no money, members did invest a lot of time. \u201cWe worked it really hard,\u201d King says.<\/p>\n

Members continually updated their sites with information about the drive. King says he doesn\u2019t know 80 percent of the people who donated.<\/p>\n

He also has used the social networking sites to build the core group of his church, which now numbers more than 100. Roughly 60 percent of the people learned of the new work through the sites, King says.<\/p>\n

Rochelle McAllister told the Associated Press that she found King\u2019s Facebook ad a month ago and added him as a friend. She was one of several volunteers helping pass out toys at Stanton Elementary.<\/p>\n

Whether it was raising money or starting a congregation, King says the key is to convert online contacts into relationships. And that takes time. \u201cYou can\u2019t just get on Facebook and do a project.\u201d<\/p>\n

Before launching the campaign, King already had an extensive online presence, maintaining his own blog, the church website, and engaging others through Facebook, MySpace, YouTube, and, Twitter.<\/p>\n

Report This Post<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

ATLANTA, GA (December 19, 2008) \u2013 Five hundred needy students at the Frank L. Stanton Elementary School received Christmas gifts and new school uniforms this week after Covenant Pastor Shaun King used Internet social networking websites to raise funds from across the country and internationally.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2801","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n\u2018Facebook Pastor\u2019 Uses Networking to Help 500 Students - Covenant Newswire Archives<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"http:\/\/blogs.covchurch.org\/newswire\/2008\/12\/19\/6766\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"\u2018Facebook Pastor\u2019 Uses Networking to Help 500 Students - Covenant Newswire Archives\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"ATLANTA, GA (December 19, 2008) \u2013 Five hundred needy students at the Frank L. 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