Gateway Church has no difficulty attracting attention.
The Southlake-based megachurch, with six campuses across Dallas-Fort Worth, boasts an active congregation of approaching 36,000 people who attend any one of Gateway’s 26 weekly services.
But in recent years, with the advent of social media, Gateway has fully embraced a new method of reaching the faithful.
“Social media, I think, is really the front door of the church,” said Lawrence Swicegood, Gateway’s Executive Director of Media and Communications, addressing the shift in society’s approach to faith, and the response of his church. “It’s fine, absolutely, because I think if the church doesn’t adapt to the culture then we, the church, have been left behind.”
Gateway boasts a broad following across multiple social media platforms – more than 45,000 followers on Twitter, nearly 51,000 followers on Instagram and more than 128,000 likes on Facebook.
Swicegood leads a team of media professionals who are dedicated to carefully executing a social media communication plan that is in line with the teachings of Gateway’s ministry.
“We’re very aware of it,” said Destiny Vandeput, Gateway’s Social Media Manager, about the potential reach of its online presence. “We see this as an incredible opportunity to reach thousands, tens of thousands, sometimes even hundreds of thousands of people that we wouldn’t be able to reach on a weekend service.”
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Gateway created the social media position and hired Vandeput about two years ago when it decided to become more strategic with its social media approach.
“It’s very important,” Vandeput said about having a strong social media presence. “We want to make sure that everything we put out has a level of excellence to it.”
For example, Gateway began to craft a plan for its Easter Sunday social media campaign more than two months ago.
The team settled on the “Love is Here” theme, and then set about creating graphics, video and photographs that all revolved around a single thread being both the literal connection between the posts– a series that includes people toting a red rope at various locations around the Metroplex – and a spiritual connection between Gateway’s parishioners.
“This is one of the biggest communication pieces that we have, and so it allows us to not only inspire and encourage our congregation but it also allows us to reach beyond the four walls of the church to reach people that we normally couldn’t reach,” said Stacy Burnett, Gateway’s longtime Communications Director.
Burnett attributed much of Gateway’s social media success to its responsiveness; its commitment to engage with people in the comment section of its posts.
“We just know that so many people are so frustrated and just so tired of all the hate [that they see on social media] and we just want people to be able to feel love and peace and hope,” Burnett said.
As for the future of faith and worship in an increasingly-online world, the communications team at Gateway Church said that its social media strategy will continue to focus far more on love than likes.
“I don’t necessarily know if the goal is to get [social media followers] to walk into the building,” Vandeput said about how often it translates followers into churchgoers. “The goal is to let them know that there is a God out there and that God loves them and that he cares for them. So I think our goal here is to show the love of God and to show it in as many different avenues as we can.”
