I met with my older brother (he's a novelist and a software architect) the other day to get his advice on forming a local Messianic fellowship. I had 2 concerns.
(1) I want to make sure that all meetings occur within a stable organizational system;
(2) And I need to create an online communication forum which can be promoted with fliers and posters and in which local Believers can schedule real-world meeting locations and meeting times (e.g. reserving a meeting room at local library or coffee shop). I explained that I had tried Facebook groups but became disheartened when I couldn't figure out how to do it (I'm not as technically sophisticated as my brother).
On the first point, he explained that it's not the newness of Messianic Judaism that causes the instability--and he said that Messianic Judaism isn't a new movement at all--but rather the same types of destabilizing factors occur in any type of group. The solution is simply proper organization and management.
On the second point, he explained that I just need to create 3 dummy Facebook accounts so that I can test how the Facebook group works, how to moderate it, then I can move on to promotion phase. I wondered why I hadn't thought of that. For some things, I can be so very slow to understand...
I thank G-d for having such a wonderful older brother!
UPDATE:
Well, I guess I'll have to ask my brother if there's a way to build a website for Messianic meetups. The issue I'm having with Facebook is that they don't allow you to create multiple accounts with which to figure out how intra-Facebook interactions with their pages/groups work. There is a website called meetup.com (among others) that is specifically designed to help people build, promote, and manage local, offline (i.e. real-world) communities. However, that site costs $$$ which is in short supply in this economy. So it would be nice if there was a free social networking site for Messianics that provides the online communication forum, the promotional toolkit, etc. I wish I knew more about computers so that I could create it myself!
Well, I guess I'll have to ask my brother if there's a way to build a website for Messianic meetups. The issue I'm having with Facebook is that they don't allow you to create multiple accounts with which to figure out how intra-Facebook interactions with their pages/groups work. There is a website called meetup.com (among others) that is specifically designed to help people build, promote, and manage local, offline (i.e. real-world) communities. However, that site costs $$$ which is in short supply in this economy. So it would be nice if there was a free social networking site for Messianics that provides the online communication forum, the promotional toolkit, etc. I wish I knew more about computers so that I could create it myself!
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