Discovering Faithlife groups

I do not currently belong to any active Faithlife groups and would like to start exploring the social aspect of the app.

i tried to discover groups in my city but all I get was a list of churches in the vicinity. How do I know which of these groups are active (have active members and active postings)?

How else do I discover Faithlife groups with similar faith background as my own, and with active participants?

Thanks,

Peter

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NB.Mick

I do not currently belong to any active Faithlife groups and would like to start exploring the social aspect of the app.

i tried to discover groups in my city but all I get was a list of churches in the vicinity. How do I know which of these groups are active (have active members and active postings)?

How else do I discover Faithlife groups with similar faith background as my own, and with active participants?

Peter,

this is one of the biggest weaknesses in Faithlife. AFAIK, the group search function doesn't allow to specify "active" groups or sort results after any meaningful criteria such as # of members, last post etc. There are only workarounds:

You can click on the search results you got, if these are open groups, you'll see the posts in the "News" tab. You can even join as follower, check out what's there and leve the groups that are dormant (many of the churches are empty groups that Logos prepopulated based on some directories or web search results).

You can try and search members that seem candidates for your criteria (you may know them from the forum, especially the denominational subforums, from the files they share etc) and check out which groups they belong to. Same for active members of large active groups. In many cases, you can see the forums someone belongs to only when you are in a group together, thus you can try joining larger groups (such as Faithlife Beta, Logos' Year of Faith) and then worm your way through.

Another option would be to ask here in the forum, whether there are active groups of a certain kind of faith background or regional focus.

Hope this helps a bit.

Mick

BetteD

That is good advice, thanks. My situation seems to be rather unique. I am in Mexico and go to a small, Spanish-speaking church. I have many friends in this small church and see them often, so I'm not going to promote a group in here for my church--and most people in the poor neighborhood where the church is do not have computer access anyway. I was hoping for group that was more general, where friends from anywhere could interact over whatever subject come up. But I realize that if I start one, no one will come. From my recent research on Faithlife, I have come to the conclusion that all this is new and that's why people aren't in groups. Some are even started by people who are curious as to how it works, but they don't delete the group later. I did start a thread more or less asking what you said in your last paragraph. I've made a list of suggestions in case the Faithlife staff decided to answer my email about the things that do not work well on the site. Can these be the same programmers who wrote the Logos program which is the best program I have ever worked with?? Bette

Milford Charles Murray

hmmm ... There seems to be some kind of need here??? Peace!

David A Egolf

I agree with others on this thread who think that the user should be able to filter the groups based on criteria such as 'activity level' and 'membership numbers'.

However, my concern is even more fundamental. A search bar at the top of the page doesn't scream "FIND GROUPS TO JOIN" to me. It just looks like a search bar. I think the activity of locating new groups deserves a button just like the "New group" button. I would guess that many folks visited their Faithlife account and left the front page wondering how to connect with others.

I wonder if Faithlife has really taken off like Logos was hoping (a Christian version of Facebook for Bible studies?) if it's so difficult to discover relevant, active groups to join.

Logos, are you listening?

Peter

Helen Osborn

Evidently, we are speaking to nothing. [:)] This has frustrated me as well. I may go just back to my other Bible apps.

David Taylor, Jr.

Hey guys, Logos is listening but I think there is some confusion as to the purpose of faithlife.com

See my discussion on another thread: https://community.logos.com/forums/t/91395.aspx

If you are wanting just Theological Discussion head over to www.christiandiscourse.com

While faithlife.com may seem dead it is because a lot of groups are private because they are real world in flesh actual groups. Those groups are quite active just hidden from the general public.

That being said, I have reached out to Faithlife with some ideas on how to get something going that would allow people to interact and find how faithlife.com works. Once again, see the thread above, I have outlined some thoughts and explained some concepts.

Let me know if you have any questions or need anything! I am happy to help.

Ryan Nelson

I do not currently belong to any active Faithlife groups and would like to start exploring the social aspect of the app.

As David has said, there are a lot of misconceptions about how Faithlife Groups work. It has changed a lot since it was first created years ago, and it's strengths are quickly becoming more apparent to us. We (Faithlife) can do a better job communicating those strengths.

Faithlife Groups is not a social network, which is why a lot of people get frustrated and feel like it's a ghost town. There are plenty of groups actively using Faithlife Groups, but as David suggested, most of these are not visible to the public due to our privacy settings.

While Faithlife Groups work best in conjunction with the real life groups in your life (small groups, families, ministry teams, churches, etc.), we have recognized that there is still potential for groups that are open to anyone (and they do exist!). In light of that, I've been highlighting some of the more active groups that are open to the public, or that have the potential to be valuable to people who don't know each other from "real life" relationships.

All that being said, here are a few active groups that are open to anyone:

Community Study Bible (a group that shares Community Notes): https://faithlife.com/communitystudybible/activity

Prayer Partners (a group that prays for each other): https://faithlife.com/prayerpartners/activity

Faithlife Beta (where you can test new features and interact with developers and experienced users): https://faithlife.com/faithlife-beta/activity

Faithlife Groups 101 (where David is teaching people how to use Faithlife Groups): https://faithlife.com/faithlife-starters/activity

Logos Author Collections (a group that thrives on document sharing): https://faithlife.com/logos-author-collections

Natural Theology (a group that discusses natural theology together): https://faithlife.com/naturaltheology

Over on blog.faithlife.com, I regularly blog about Faithlife Groups, discussing ways people are using them, how different features work, and what makes Faithlife Groups a powerful church communication tool, and not a social network: http://blog.faithlife.com/blog/2014/05/faithlife-the-ultimate-church-communication-tool/

I hope this helps, and I hope we can do more to showcase the strengths of Faithlife Groups in the future, as well as make active, open groups more widely viewable.

Rayner

All that being said, here are a few active groups that are open to anyone:...

I hope this helps, and I hope we can do more to showcase the strengths of Faithlife Groups in the future, as well as make active, open groups more widely viewable.

I am not that interested in any of the groups listed and wondered whether it's worth setting up a FaithLife group for every book of the bible? Maybe it's worth having 4 groups for each book eg. advanced original language, intermediate exegetical, beginner's questions, devotional etc. I am surprised that nobody has requested a group that follows the Revised Common lectionary so that users can discuss the questions that inevitably arise in preparing for sermons or the questions that arise having listened to the texts.

Lynden O. Williams

I am surprised that nobody has requested a group that follows the Revised Common lectionary so that users can discuss the questions that inevitably arise in preparing for sermons or the questions that arise having listened to the texts.

Start the group and promote it in the appropriate forum. It only takes a spark to get a fire going.

Rayner

I am surprised that nobody has requested a group that follows the Revised Common lectionary so that users can discuss the questions that inevitably arise in preparing for sermons or the questions that arise having listened to the texts.

Start the group and promote it in the appropriate forum. It only takes a spark to get a fire going.

Well, today is certainly a good day for suggesting a new group on the lectionary. We're right at the beginning.

Could you just advise on what you'd consider to be the most appropriate forum? I think I'm going to start a group on Mark too.

Ryan Nelson

I'm always interested in what people are doing with Faithlife Groups: https://community.logos.com/forums/t/96559.aspx

It's worth creating a new group if you can put in the work to get it going, but as an administrator, you have to invite people directly, or else use a more public platform to direct people to your group (social media, blog post, church, a forum, etc.). Due to privacy settings, it's difficult to stumble into a group if you don't know exactly what you're looking for.

Rayner

I'm always interested in what people are doing with Faithlife Groups: https://community.logos.com/forums/t/96559.aspx

It's worth creating a new group if you can put in the work to get it going, but as an administrator, you have to invite people directly, or else use a more public platform to direct people to your group (social media, blog post, church, a forum, etc.). Due to privacy settings, it's difficult to stumble into a group if you don't know exactly what you're looking for.

Am I allowed to mention it in the General Forum on here? General seems to have a higher readership than Faithlife.