An AVAIL Conversation: Nona Jones on social media stewardship, culture and what it’s like to work at Facebook

AVAIL Media Host, Virgil Sierra, recently sat down with Nona Jones for the AVAIL Podcast. Nona is a global thought leader, pastor, author and director of Global Faith Partnerships for Facebook. She is co-pastor, with her husband Tim, of Open Door Ministries in Gainesville, Florida. Her most recent book is From Social Media to Social Ministry: A Guide to Digital Discipleship. To listen to the entire conversation—and others like it—subscribe to the AVAIL Podcast.

Virgil Sierra: Can you tell us a little about yourself?

Nona Jones: I did not grow up in a Christian home. I was subjected to physical sexual, verbal abuse at a very young age, and I was suicidal twice at the ages of nine and 11. And it was after my second attempt that a classmate in the sixth grade invited me to church. I remember walking into the church—I didn’t even know what church was—and people were so welcoming and loving, and it was the first time that I can remember feeling like I belonged, like I was wanted. So, the Lord really started doing work on me that day, and shortly thereafter I accepted Jesus as Lord of my life. I got into ministry at the age of 17, and the Lord has placed me in really interesting situations. I’ve also been in leadership roles in the public, the private, the nonprofit sector since I became an adult. My husband and I also pastor a church together, which is a blessing, because it really helps me to stay grounded. It helps me to remember I’m here to serve people in a very tangible way because sometimes you get into leadership roles, and you can get removed from people. God has, has given us this incredible church—it’s a small church, not a megachurch—that we can support and serve. It helps to keep the ground of my heart, just good soil so that he can continue to grow out the purpose He has for me in my life.

Virgil: What is it about working with Facebook that might be surprising to some of our readers?

Nona: I think it's important to know that Facebook, and all of these tech companies, are simply tools. They are tools that can be leveraged for good. And we also know that there are tools that can be leveraged for bad. What I encourage Christians to realize, especially Christian leaders, is that God has placed a tool in your hand that can now reach the far corners of the earth. What you have to understand about Facebook that people may be surprised to know is that the company's mission is to give people the power to build community and bring the world closer together. That means everything the company is doing is to ladder up to that purpose. So, if your mission is to build a faith community, that is the platform to do it on because that’s why the company exists.

Virgil: How do you approach staying true to your Christian faith while you're serving in what’s obviously a secular, global company?

Nona: I think sometimes we compartmentalize our faith. Sundays are about church. Monday through Friday are about work. Saturday is about family. We compartmentalize our life. And yet God is calling us to live an integrated life where our faith is not what we do, it's who we are. For me, everyone knows at Facebook that I'm a pastor. They know that I love the Lord, that I am a strong Christian. Because of that, I have opportunities all of the time to minister inside of the company. I have employees reach out to me all the time who are like, “Hey, can I set some time with you? I need prayer.” Or, “Can I set some time with you? I'm really struggling with faith.” There's been a bit of a controversy surrounding Facebook, and we've been in the news a lot. One of the first things I did is I reached out to Mark [Zuckerberg] and Sheryl [Sandberg] just to say, “How can I pray for you?” We forget that these are human beings, these are people who have feelings and hurts. The first thing I want to do as a pastor is I want to be pastoral. I think we have to take that on as a mandate, as we're leading in these spaces.

Virgil: As we look at the impact of social media on our culture—for example, the spreading of fake news, or cyberbullying—what do you think the role of Christian leaders should be with regards to social media engagement?

Nona: I think we have to be in these spaces to model righteousness. Instead of being someone who shares a post that is about a conspiracy or misinformation, maybe we share a post that points people to Jesus. Instead of liking or commenting on a post that's arguing back and forth, instead, we message the person that made the post and we offer words of encouragement and conciliation. What's happened is, instead of modeling what Christlikeness is, we've really been mirroring culture. It’s part of our human fallen nature to argue and be malicious and have vitriol and hostility. But that's why God appoints us as His priests. He appoints us as his leaders so that we can be the ones to show the world what it looks like to lead with love and truth and compassion and conviction. I think we have to take the mantle up. Don't delete your account and go away. Instead, model righteousness, model love and be that light.

Virgil: When Christian leaders engage with social media, what are some of the best practices that you've seen or that you recommend, and then maybe give us a few worst practices.

Nona: I've noticed that there are many leaders whose entire goal is to build their following and to build their reach and get people to follow them. The problem with that is that we're building a following that we're not leading, we're amassing this population of people that we hope will like and comment and share our posts, but we're not really leading them anywhere. It doesn't matter how many followers you have if your followers are not following Jesus through you. Secondly, I think it's really important to have a community mindset. There was a saying many years ago that “content is king,” and content does matter. Content may be king, but engagement is the emperor. What does that mean? You can share a post, and you may get some people to like it, but the algorithm across most social platforms is not just about how many people like it. It's also about whether people are commenting, interacting, and building relationships between and among each other. Instead of just making statements, you want to ask questions. You want to spark conversation, but remember it needs to be a healthy conversation, a conversation that encourages and challenges people to grow in their faith and grow in their maturity. Also, if you are doing live streaming, you do not have to have a ten- or 15-minute countdown. If they're spending 15 minutes watching the time go down, they're going on to do something else. So, a super, super short countdowns, a minute or 30 seconds at the most, if you need a countdown. Finally, remember that, with engagement being emperor, you need to respond to people's comments. I heard leaders say, oh, I don't have time. Well, the reality is, if you don't have time to interact with the people who are following you, you probably don't have time to be a leader in the social space. And if you don't have time to be a leader in the social space, while we're in the digital age, you really need to question, what you are doing. Because we live in an age that is fueled by and powered by social media. So, respond to people's comments with questions, get to know them, and structure your social so that it's interactive.

Virgil: What’s are some of the trends in social media that Christian leaders need to know about?

Nona: First would be short-form video—anything that's 60 seconds or less. As a leader, begin thinking about what type of conversations you can spark through those types of experiences because that's how algorithms across the different social platforms are prioritizing content. The second trend is virtual reality. You may have heard phrases and words like the metaverse, and there are multiple social platforms that are thinking about how can we create experiences for people who want to build communities in virtual reality. That's something that will take some education to deeply understand, but those are two trends that are happening right now that I think have a tremendous amount of promise.