Mars Hill Church is now on Tumblr.
“And Jesus came and said to them, ‘All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.’” Matthew 28:18–20
Jesus is alive. The implications of that statement are massive, and if you truly believe them it will change everything you believe about this world and your purpose in it.
Today, the living Jesus is ruler and King of all, his kingdom is advancing, and the church is central to his mission to seek and save the lost.
The implications of Jesus’ resurrection are found in his words to the disciples upon his defeat of death: “Go therefore.”
In today’s world, to “Go therefore” takes on many forms, including engaging people with the truth of Jesus in the digital spaces where they work and play for hours a day. That is the heart behind every digital endeavor we do at Mars Hill Church.
As the digital space evolves, we want to be good missionaries and change with it while presenting the unchanging gospel of Jesus. Earlier this year we launched a Pinterest account to accomplish this. You can read more about the reasons for that on the blog Church Marketing Sucks in the post, “Churches Reaching Out with Pinterest.”
Today, we’re excited to launch our Mars Hill Tumblr.
Why Tumblr?
Over the last few months, we’ve spent some time researching and discussing where we might expand the reach of Christ’s gospel most effectively. Tumblr emerged as the natural choice for a number of compelling reasons.
- According to Quantcast, Tumblr is most used by a demographic we desire to reach with the gospel. In the U.S., the bulk (55%) of users are under 34 years old—a group that is increasingly questioning the existence of God and the least-churched generation in U.S. history.
- Design and photos are big factors on Tumblr, and as a church that is blessed with talented artists and designers, the platform is a good fit for us to reach the creative community.
- Tumblr is exploding in terms of engagement. The Nielsen Company’s recent “State of the Media: Social Media Report Q3 2011” noted that Tumblr’s unique visitor count from May 2010 to May 2011 grew by 183%. In June of 2011 Tumblr surpassed WordPress in amount of hosted blogs. Today, Tumblr hosts more than 54.9 million blogs and has 17,140,255,744 monthly pageviews, numbers that continue increase on a daily basis.
- Sharing content on Tumblr is very easy. This allows the reach of Jesus-centered content to spread quickly and because the majority of search on Tumblr is based on tags, there is much opportunity to reach those who don’t know Jesus on the platform.
What to Expect
While our main content strategy for Mars Hill Church is still focused around our website and blogs, we’ll be using Tumblr as a more dynamic social media presence that allows us to present information in a more visual and fuller way than Facebook or Twitter—and to some extent, even Pinterest—allow.
Some things to expect include:
- Photo essays
- Sermon and music videos
- Quotes from current and past sermons
- Original art and design
- Links to articles we find useful or interesting
- The occasional survey through the “Ask” feature
- Behind the scenes photos
- Excerpts from past and present stories and posts on Mars Hill’s website
As we engage with the Tumblr community, I’m sure new types of content will be shared. We’re looking forward to seeing what works and doesn’t.
Now It’s Your Turn
I invite you to follow us on Tumblr and please help us spread the word. If you find a post on Tumblr compelling, please reblog it to help spread its reach. Also, please always be praying for our teams and our church as we desire to use all the tools and platforms God has given us to help as many people meet Jesus as possible.
Finally, if you’ve been blessed by our online ministry efforts, please consider supporting Mars Hill Global by giving online. Mars Hill Global generously supports the overhead necessary to maintain these efforts to preach the gospel online.
Jake Johnson is a deacon at the Downtown Seattle church and serves in Mars Hill’s Media & Communications department as the chief copywriter and content strategist.
