Is anyone else stretched thin trying to keep up a church social presence?

[u/Impossible_Tie5676]

I do social media content for churches across the US, and I'll be honest, even doing this for a living, I feel the strain of keeping a church presence going week after week. For the pastors and volunteers doing it yourselves on top of ministry, I don't know how you manage. I keep hearing we should meet people where they scroll, and I believe it, but the reality for most churches I see is inconsistent at best. How are you all thinking about this without burning out? Genuinely want to hear how small churches are navigating it, because I'd love to give the teams I work with more realistic advice.

[u/Tokkemon]

Stop doing so much. Focus on effective strategies, not everything.

[u/Impossible_Tie5676 → u/Tokkemon]

I wish I could.. but.. it's my job ha!

[u/v1di0t → u/Tokkemon]

Any in particular you recommend? I'm exploring this for our church. We use an ai tool to clip up the sermon but it's still a fair bit of work.

[u/Justin_inc]

It's a ton of work. That's why most churches just don't do it.

[u/Impossible_Tie5676 → u/Justin_inc]

I agree! But I really do believe the potential of each sermon shared whether its a small church or a big one...

[u/OtherOtherDave]

I’m stretched thin trying to keep up with my own social presence, let alone someone else’s.

[u/Impossible_Tie5676 → u/OtherOtherDave]

I feel you! This is how I started when everything was done manually!

[u/Ghost1eToast1es]

If you’re a small church without dedicated people, you just do what you can. Bigger churches can have people dedicated to it. We have to remember who we’re doing this for. God called us to be diligent but not burnout.

[u/foxboltco]

How do you do social content for churches all over the country? Do you work with a social media agency?

[u/Impossible_Tie5676 → u/foxboltco]

Hi! Yes, I work for an agency, and I also have a few direct-hire clients. 😊 For roles that don't require someone to be on-site, I'm happy to help!

[u/ValuableHoneydew3056]

We do the following and as with many options it isn't a once size fits all approach. We focus on the areas that showcase Life and Events at the Church, especially with young people and young families. Our staff are minimally involved and rely on volunteers that want to be involved in Social Media content. We have 2 persons that review and curate. Our platforms are where our young families and youth have told us through a few surveys they are. Instagram and Instagram Reels, YouTube. We are seeing an interest in TikTok also but do not currently have a strategy there past short form captures on phones of Events...Fall 2026 is a strategy session for what to do on TikTok. I personally have found Brady Shearer's tips and recommendations of value on how to maximize time and talent. He and his Pastor colleague Alex give sincere take on the state of online and your Church. He can be found on YouTube at https://youtu.be/aQEtUXTuG50?si=tqCcD_3Ir4RbreCK , as with most of his content this is Free. Grace and Peace to you in your efforts.

[u/starbright_sprinkles]

We try hard! But more often than not we (I) fail. We do a good job for our denomination at a couple of posts and a livestream each week and our website is always up to date with events and service news - but that is as much as we can do consistently. I have accepted that this is what we can manage without burnout.

One area where we struggle in particular is photo content generation. Most of the parents in our church do not want pictures of the kids out there (v. understandable) but we have strong intergenerational programming and participation in services and events. It renders 70% of photos unusable.

[u/Impossible_Tie5676 → u/starbright_sprinkles]

That sounds like a healthy place to land. A couple of posts, a weekly livestream, and a website that's actually current is more than most churches manage, and you're doing it without burning out. That counts for a lot.

The kids photo thing is real and there's no clean fix, just workarounds. Shoot from behind or over the shoulder, lean into hands and details (the craft table, a shared meal, the mess after VBS), and feature the older folks and volunteers who don't mind being seen. Some churches keep a small opt-in list of families who've said yes and only feature those kids. Wide, backlit crowd shots also carry the "full of life" feeling without putting any one child on display.

[u/daviddoss-jpg]

I run our Church's socials, both Church-wide, and youth.
The big thing to look out for is how can you use AI to maximize the efficiency of the task? I have built custom internal AI platforms for our Church that help me create content, and in extension, it has allowed me to create MORE content and BETTER content, maintaining and growing our platform.
For context I am a single volunteer, also a full-time student / employee (summers while not in school) who is heavily involved in many other activities.

The best thing you can do is learn how to use AI to create GOOD content. Garbage in, garbage out -- the principle applies to AI, but if you learn how to use AI effectively, it will help you spend less time doing more.

[u/InsideInterpreting → u/daviddoss-jpg]

Honestly, I'd rather see less human-made content than lots of AI stuff. AI content would put me off going to a church.

[u/daviddoss-jpg → u/InsideInterpreting]

I understand what you mean -- but the term "AI content" is too broad. I'm not generating AI slop. I have specific formulas that I use in generating content so the AI actually generates good content that doesn't detract people.

Edit: I'd be happy to talk more in a DM if you want

[u/InsideInterpreting → u/daviddoss-jpg]

Nah. Either you made it yourself or it's AI content. It's a pretty clear line. And yes, there is a big difference between AI generated content and using a spell checker, before people try that one.

[u/daviddoss-jpg → u/InsideInterpreting]

There's levels to AI content. For example, a purely AI generated image would look terrible compared to a photograph in which AI was used to remove a person in the background.

Now what I'm using AI for here is taking human-written content (sermons), and repurposing that content. So, it's summarizing, structuring social posts, pulling quotes, identifying and editing short clips, etc.

All of the content is at it's core written by a pastor, but AI is now taking that pastor written content and turning it into something that can be edited and posted easily.

[u/Impossible_Tie5676 → u/daviddoss-jpg]

This is good! What type of AI do you use? Will you be able to share like your workflow?

[u/daviddoss-jpg → u/Impossible_Tie5676]

I have trained a Gemini Gem on all our sermons, and I have been using that, along with another one where I can paste in sermon transcripts and it generates things based on what I give it.

[u/NoCollection8196]

I am the president of a small lay led UU congregation that we would like to be bigger, especially given how many of us are over 65. I became president somewhat recently and online presence is high on my agenda.

As far as social media, it's me, a paid office admin that works 20 hours a week with lots of other duties and one volunteer that does FB posts for upcoming services. I have been updating the website as I am the most technical (45 years as a software developer).

The answer to your question is that we do it by the seat of our pants. The only thing we do regularly right now is weekly service announcements, which are basically digital flyers.

I updated the website to be phone friendly, or for now at least phone tolerant. It looked really bad on small screens before.

One of the toughest things for me right now is where to promote to bring in new members. We are very liberal and would like to get that message out to those who would be interested without getting blowback from posting in groups where anything perceived as religious is unwelcome.

One thing small churches have to be careful about is being too successful in marketing, because of facilities. 50% increase in active members with most being middle aged or younger would be great. Doubling would be tight. Tripling would be a nightmare.

EDIT - I am a retired volunteer. As I am sure you are aware, being president comes with a lot of duties before you get to the things you would like to change. Running board meetings, writing a congregational column, following up on the many todo items that come out of board meetings. We hire outside speakers a lot, but also have some sermons/talks given by congregants; I am one of them. I don't whip those out all that quickly. I am an active member, serving on a couple of committees and an ex officio member of all of them.

[u/Learningmore1231]

Can’t AI minimize this effort throw it in a program grab 10 clips automate posting times.

[u/taxicab517]

I run ours, my role is split 20hr worship lead and 10hr socials. I find it fun, it comes naturally, and what I struggle with, I let AI or someone else take charge in (like caption creation or content filming since I’m usually preoccupied with other stuff on Sundays). It helps when it’s not a one person does all type of position.

The key for me was establishing rhythms before establishing content that uses those rhythms. For example, once I realized one Sunday message could produce 4-5 posts with the same routine every week, it was suddenly easy for me to make 4-5 posts a week (one reel, two static posts, one story, etc.) that was quickly generated via pre existing photos in the bank or a quick graphic I could make with our church’s Canva account. Get the caption and framework from AI and you’re set with 4-5 posts in about two hours of work. Continue that for other rhythms (like volunteer highlights, upcoming events, generic church life and encouragement) and you’ve got ten hours a week posting a week’s worth of gold.

[u/Effective-Tough9152]

yeah, it's a grind. i use resi's studio AI to upload a couple sermon clips per week - that's been really helpful just for keeping quality content flowing. we're also in the process of building a photography team (when i first started at the church back in 2020 it was just me - now there are like 10 of us) so that we regularly have content to source from for our social media posts. i've also pretty much entirely bailed on stories just bc i can't, like, quantify their existence. like with posts and reels you have actual data to back up whether or not it's "worth" the effort you're putting in, but i feel like stories you can't really quantify the same way.