Miranda Pederson/Daily News The Rev. Michael E. Blewett uses his iPhone to twitter on Tuesday at Christ Episcopal Church. Churches are using the high-tech method of communication with their congregations.

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Louis Tagliaboschi admits he twitters more than he should, although only five to six times a day, compared to his friends, who tweet 20 to 25 times a day.

What is twittering? It is the use of cell phones, instant messages and e-mails to post streams of short blog posts on the Internet.

“Community is no longer trapped to geographic terms with this,” said the Broadway United Methodist Church worship leader. “It’s like a virtual community.”

Social networks - MySpace, Facebook and Twitter, to name a few - have become increasingly popular among high school and college students, and even parents and grandparents.

Now, those same social networks that have connected and reconnected friends are being used as a resource for many religious organizations. Churches have crossed the virtual divide in efforts to build, foster and cultivate relationships and sustain their connections to congregations.

“At the heart of it is the church wants to build relationships and networks and that’s what Facebook does,” said Adam Shourds, associate pastor at Broadway United Methodist Church. “Like any other tool, it’s never the central part of the message, but it helps to facilitate that message.”

Using these social networking tools is a positive step, Tagliaboschi said. He said online communities are becoming more important to people, and “any way we can communicate with people in our congregation makes an impact.”

“It doesn’t take the place of worshiping together, or that face-to-face interaction. When you are involved in people’s lives, it makes that community stronger, and these tools bring people together.”

Tagliaboschi said the church’s youth ministry has a group page on Facebook as well as the church itself. Yet using Twitter has become a viable option for the church. Through Twitter, followers are updated about what the church is doing in worship and announcements.

“We are doubling information because we have a lot more people on Facebook than Twitter,” he said. “But I like Twitter for its future possibilities.”

Twitter has become really big, especially for people such as Christian authors, The Christ Episcopal Church Rector Michael Blewett said.

“It’s a really good connection tool,” said Blewett, who twitters. “You know we have a town square - well it’s sort of like a virtual town square - where you have brief interaction with folks as they are passing by.”

Through social networking, Blewett said he finds out what’s happening in his parishioners’ lives, making it a great way to keep the relationships going outside of Sunday morning.

“It’s a simple way to get into people’s worlds every day,” Shourds said. “It goes back to the concept of mission - going to people where they are. For churches, that field has changed a little, and going to them through (Facebook) every day ... gives them faith every day.”

When it comes to getting attention, Facebook is where they get their news, the “what’s going on,” said Matt Haste, college minister for Living Hope Baptist Church.

Haste said with college students, Facebook is their prime medium and the main way he communicates with them. He said through the college ministry’s Facebook page, he sends out a weekly post - a virtual newsletter, if you will - and uses it to post announcements, events coming up, readings and past readings.

“Say if I call, I might get a return call in one or two days, or if I e-mail I might get a response in three or four days, but if I use Facebook - leave a message on their wall - they’ll return it in an hour,” he said. “The message gets sent to their phone, they have laptops up in class ... it’s quick and simple.”

Haste said for some, computer stuff seems less authentic, less genuine, but for this generation, the Facebook conversation is just as real as if they were sitting face-to-face having coffee.

With any kind of communication medium, there will be advantages and disadvantages, Haste said.

“I think people will always use technology to stay connected,” Blewett said. “If you asked me a year ago about Twitter, I would have thought you were from Mars. But I think some of the danger of (social networking) is losing that face-to-face interaction.

“I hear of people that rail against the use of technology, but those connections are real.”

Haste said things have changed since the telephone, but with any new medium, there are limits. He said social networking can be sort of tricky. Web-based info sharing is very real, it’s public, he said, and there is only a certain level of authenticity that can be reached through the Internet. Over time, he said, it can be lonely. There is a distance between those who communicate through computers, he said.

“We still need gatherings; we still need in-person relationships,” Shourds said. “There are things you just can’t do through technology.”

Social networks, Haste said, should be a means of enhancing social interaction, not withdrawing from it. It should be a complement to that face-to-face interaction, Blewett said.

“It’s a valuable asset,” Haste said. “We would not want to substitute Facebook with actually reaching out to people, but if used wisely, it could have a lot of benefit.”