Launching a Christian social media network

I chat with Mark Wagner, the founder of Soultime App and now more recently Nabor.ly a Christian social media network. I wanted to find out more about what he’s learning as he launches a Christian social media network

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Before we dive in, I want to introduce you to Mark Wagner who I have had the privilege of knowing for many years. Mark became a Christian at university after hearing Jackie Pullinger speak and was taught the basics of the faith by his college compatriot Justin Welby. He started attending HTB in 1978, helped plant the Vineyard church in the UK before returning to HTB 13 years later. He has spent most of his career in the investment management business. Four years ago he founded the Christian meditation app Soultime and is currently building a Christian social network ‘nabor.ly’.

He's the real deal which was why I was excited to hear from him at the recent Stronger Digital conference what he was learning and what we can take away for ourselves.

1.God is at work through an app?

It’s shouldn’t come as a surprise should it, but when we hear how God is at work through an app it reminds us that God isn’t really interested in the methods, he will use all kinds of tools to draw people to him. It sounds like he’s using an app to do just that. This is what Mark said:

So about four years ago, I started a Christian meditation app called Soultime app. Which was a complete shock. I mean, I've never done anything like this before. In my life, I've lived in the finance world, so I had absolutely no idea about anything to do with that….but we've ended up with a very well loved app. We get incredible reviews from it, actually, every day about change lives and people saying how much it's impacted them and how they it's completely transformed their faith, which is incredibly heartening and gratifying.

Notice a few things about what Mark says: 

1.We get incredible reviews from it
2.Every day he’s hearing about changed lives through this app
3.People are saying how much it has transformed their faith

God is at work through an app, all because one man (and of course a team of people) responded to a vision God put on their hearts.

2.Why a ‘Christian’ social media network?

You might think what’s the point of launching a Christian social media app when there are much larger companies and resources behind some incredible social media apps already? Don’t we just need to be present where the people are as salt and light, why do we need a Christian network? Mark has a compelling answer:

For the first couple of hundred years, Christians met in public places and private homes, and eventually they thought, ‘this doesn't quite work for us, we need we need our own spaces’. So they started building churches, which has been where we've met ever since. [And when it comes to social media apps out there] they do some good things, apart from anything else, somebody else pays for them, but there's a lot of things which they don't do very well, they're not particularly safe, the incentives are very weird and it's more like standing in a shopping mall than it is in a in a church, and so we thought would it be possible to do a social space, a community space that really works for churches and the Christian community in general.

What do you think? I like his argument and I like it because it’s no claiming to be the only answer. It’s not claiming to be the next big thing, but what it is saying is that having spaces specifically geared towards Christian community is important now just as it always has been.

Actually, I’ve been on a beta version of his Nabor.ly app for a number of months now and have been interested to see how people have been using it. Click the link above and you can join the waitlist for when it launches.

Having a network that specifically seeks to encourage Christian community and discipleship? Isn’t that the sort of thing God would want to encourage? Having the opportunity to be in the world as salt and light in other digital spaces, but also a space where I don’t feel like I’m in a shopping centre, but actually in a sacred space? I think it’s both-and isn’t it.

3.In a crowded market, should the Church be battling to obtain attention?

I was interested to hear what Mark would say to this. It’s something I’ve thought about before. As the Church, do we need to compete with others and make enough noise to be heard? Shouldn’t we just live provocatively and be ready to answer the questions that flood in?

It’s a bit of both isn’t it. Yes and no. Yes we need to live provocatively and we need to live noisily, as it were. Listen to what Mark had to say:

‘On the last and greatest day of the feast, Jesus lifted up his voice’ (John 7.37)….it was the last great stay at the feast. It was a noisy time, which is why he lifted up his voice…. [we have] a responsibility to make some noise too…’.

It’s a good reminder.

You may not be developing your own social network, but I’ve no doubt you are thinking about content creation and getting your message out in a crowded and noisy digital world. Keep pressing forward. Ask God to anoint you as you do it and as you respond to the message God has put on your heart.