Digital Pastor: Are you one?

You can always count on the Barna Group to release interesting studies/statistics on churches and christianity in general. If you’re interested in stats, they are the people to follow. Recently, Barna Group posted an article called “The Rise of the @Pastor.” It’s full of interesting statistics and has a great infographic. Some highlights and the infographic are below. Be sure to check out the complete article if you have time.

• More than one in five American pastors (21%) say their churches use Twitter, up from only 14% in 2011.
• Facebook usage in churches has likewise jumped from just over half (57%) to a full seven in 10.
• Pastors themselves are also engaged in online communication, with nearly one-quarter (23%) who use Twitter, well over six in 10 (66%) who are on Facebook, and over one in five (22%) who have a personal blog.
• While both Twitter and Facebook gained church-based users in the last 24 months, Twitter’s growth has been more impressive: Facebook increased penetration among pastors 12% in the last year, while Twitter jumped by 77%.
• In 2013, 70% of churches report they use Facebook, compared with 57% in 2011.
• About two-thirds of pastors (66%) say they use Facebook in their role as a pastor.
• In 2011, only about half of pastors (51%) said social media would be a major part of their church’s ministry. That means there has been a 27% increase in the percentage of pastors who believe social media tools are important to leverage for the sake of ministry.