LCC’s seminaries online

Facebook.

ONLINE – Concordia Lutheran Theological Seminary (CLTS – St. Catharines, Ontario) has recently announced the use of social media as part of its communications strategy. In doing so, it joins Concordia Lutheran Seminary (CLS – Edmonton) which also utilizes social media to connect with the wider church.

CLTS will now highlight news and events via Twitter (www.twitter.com/ConcordiaStCath), Facebook (www.facebook.com/ConcordiaStCatharines), and Google Plus (plus.google.com/105116515576955081986). The seminary’s first tweet proudly announces—appropriately—“CLTS Gets Social.”

CLS in Edmonton is also active on social media, having operated a Facebook page since 2008. In recent weeks, it has posted videos of its Quest course lectures, news about upcoming events , photos, and more. Visit its Facebook page at www.facebook.com/ConcordiaLutheranSeminary.

“It’s great to see Lutheran Church–Canada’s (LCC) seminaries using social media to keep connected to church members at large,” said Mathew Block, Communications Manager for LCC. “Studies consistently show that Canada is one of the most internet-engaged nations in the world. Given this reality, the importance of online communication—especially through social media—only continues to increase.”

A recent report by social media research agency We Are Social suggest that, on average, Canadians now spend four hours and fifty-three minutes online per day via laptops and desktop computers, and an additional hour and 51 minutes connected via mobile devices. A large quantity of this combined time online is spent using social media services: a total of 2.3 hours per day on average.

It’s not hard to reason why: Canada is second only to the United Kingdom in terms of population having access to the internet. In fact, a full 86% of Canadians access the web regularly, whether at home, at work, on mobile devices, or in local community centres (like libraries). A total of 19 million Canadians are active users of Facebook alone (55% of the entire country), to say nothing of other social media platforms.

CLTS is online at www.brocku.ca/concordiaseminary and a news blog at www.concordiastcatharines.wordpress.com. CLS’ website is www.concordiasem.ab.ca, and its blog is blog.concordiasem.ab.ca.

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