Take a look at this blog by Beth Kanter if you are trying to figure out how social media helps nonprofits like churches.
Her "Working in a Networked Way" blog is about how the process of working and getting things done is different in a social network environment than in an institutional environment. In an institutional environment everything is meetings, whereas a social networking way is non-linear and snippets of time.
Some of us are "social network immigrants" - i.e. we are "come heres" rather than "born heres." Immigrants - those moving over to the new country of social networking - didn't grow up with this culture and there is a learning curve involved. Church institutions, in general, are immigrants to the scene and we have a lot of cultural learning to do.
But learning itself can't be linear! We have to be fully immersed in the culture - a cultural immersion - to effectively "get it" and switch processes in our brain. Thus, the sand box principle. See what Beth suggests.













Talk for those serving God creatively.