Tech for the Local Church
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5 Reasons Your Church Should Use WordPress + 30 Million From Microsoft
Sep 29th
Microsoft just announced that it is abandoning its website / blogging platform and moving 30 million users to WordPress. This effectively doubles WordPress’s user base to 60 MILLION USERS!! With that kind of endorsement and success, I now pronounce all other website options for churches DEAD ON ARRIVAL. With the juggernaut, that is Microsoft, throwing in the towel and giving the nod to WordPress, the battle for your website content is now over. Read on for 5 reasons WordPress is better (and cheaper) than what you are now using. More >
Welcome Church 2.0 – the Blog!
Apr 10th
Credit where credit is due.
Church 2.0 [Link] is a blog that has been around a while. Kevin, or “Kez” as he is known on the blog, has been tirelessly blogging to inform tech enthusiasts of new developments online and beyond. This effort has not been missed. With hundreds of subscribers, readers, and commenters, Church 2.0 has even been featured on AllTop.com – a little site Guy Kawasaki runs.
Fast Forward to today.
Kevin is planting a church and will be dedicating all his time to that effort. He has agreed to hand over the reins of the blog to me, Brook Drumm, and we have now absorbed his content here at MinistryVault.com. More >
Free Books for Bloggers
Mar 16th
Are you a blogger? I am. Over the years I’ve been privileged to review dozens of books. Several of them were sent to me for free because the author wanted me to review it. Most of the time you have to follow blogs and find authors who want bloggers to review them, but now you can go directly to the largest Christian publishing company, Thomas Nelson, by using BookSneeze.
All you have to do is sign up, agree to do write a review on your blog and to a major book site. The the book is sent to you for free. Check it out!
Create A Key Word Cloud
Aug 25th
Most of us use design to communicate our message. We pick the right colors, choose the right fonts, and select the right media. But in the world of search engines, they don’t care what your website looks like, or how slick your user interface is.
They only care about words. By indexing the words on your page, sites like Google and Yahoo can determine what your trying to say. they convert that into relevant information and plug your site into search results.
Now enter, keyword clouds.
This is a great idea to give a user a visual of what words are being indexed and in what importance on their page. It can give a quick overview of what your site is communicating to user’s.
This is where wordle comes in. You can go to their site and paste in any url and it will generate a keyword cloud for you. Maybe the results reinforce your idea of what your trying to communicate, and maybe the results make you strategically think about the content of your site.
It’s not just for websites though, you can copy and paste random text too. I think a cool idea for pastor would be to paste the text from your next sermon into wordle and generate a keyword cloud.
Hopefully it’s a visual reminder about what you are communicating.
Honored by Alltop
Aug 5th
Church 2.0 – the blog is honored to be on Alltop‘s list of Church resources.
Check out who else made the list here.
Spotlight: Dear-God
May 3rd
Those of you who had interest in Kindle, might have interest in Dear-God.net
A site to post prayers, confessions, dreams, etc.
It’s very similar to Post Secret Project, but is specifically for prayers.
Different Kind of Blogs
Apr 12th
Aaron over at Digital Leadership Network wrote a great post on the different kinds of blogs and then gives some suggestions on why and how your church should blog. I’m summarize his comments below.
What Kinds Blogs Are on the Web?
1) Expert/Personality - an expert or big name giving you advice
2) Personal – someone sharing what they did that day [pictures, journaling, etc.]
3) News/Information – group of people who share information [ex- Church2.0]
4) Humor – just for fun
Suggestions for the Blogging Church:
The biggest keys to blogging is consistent updates. My suggestion would be to take the team blog approach, with different people taking on different roles. You can easily offer up separate RSS feeds or pages to break down the blogging into the three areas above:
The Expert Blog: The pastor, of course. If the community is interested in engaging in thinking about the message series throughout the week, the pastor could/should post ideas and thoughts that continue (or set up) Sunday’s message.
The Personal Blog: Other leaders in your church? Perhaps small group leaders can use a public church blog to toss information and thoughts around to their attendees. A small group can open up to any curious visitor to your church’s website using blogs.
The Information Blog: If a church’s blog was consistently updated with upcoming events, prayer needs, updates on church member issues (ex- announcements) it would be a great chance for church members to feel loved and want to interact with the site.
WordPress Driven Site Launched
Apr 10th
A few weeks ago I wrote a post on WordPress Driven Church. My friend, Luke, launched the Church site several days ago. Click the picture below to go check it out and let us know what you think.
If you are considering a WordPress Driven Church Website you should check out some unique themes posted over at Mashable.
WordPress Driven Church Website
Mar 5th
My friend Luke has been on a journey to create a Church Website using a BLOG. He is using WordPress to create the site.
Although we have written on this subject before – I’m very excited about this because it’s someone story, experience and journey as he works through making a fully functional Website for a Church using WordPress.
If you don’t have a church website or are thinking about re:vamping your current one, you really should check out his blog posts [listed below]. Follow his progress and discovery.
Bonus Posts: Useful Plugins, Banner Ads
Happy New Year from Church 2.0 – the blog
Dec 31st
It has been a fun undertaking this year to write for Church2.0 – the blog. In addition to opening up a channel for talking about some of the more interesting ministry-applicable tools, it’s been fun working as part of the C2.0 writing team.
It’s not easy picking a favorite post. Like Kevin, I also like Jott. I spend a lot of time on the road in my day job and find Jott incredibly (as in what did I do without it?) helpful for noting ideas and making reminders that I’m sure I’d forget before I get back to the office.
“My nominee for favorite tool is Remember the Milk.”
[Chad Lemon, Contributor, C2.0 - the blog]
Included as a gadget on my iGoogle page (along with Jott and a couple other Google tools), I use Remember the Milk daily to keep track of upcoming tasks of all kinds and recurring tasks like bills.
RTM has an unexpectedly extensive list features – you can even use Jott to add reminders directly to your RTM to do list – two of our favorite tools playing together!
Find out more about some of the neat RTM features in RTM’s end-of-the-year wrap-up. Firefox and Gmail users won’t want to miss the RTM in Gmail extension for Firefox.
Update 1.2.08: Working on planning for next Sunday, I became keenly aware that I can’t afford to leave Planning Center Online off my favorites list for the year. Even though I don’t use it everyday, I would sorely miss it if I didn’t have it. So, Planning Center Online is officially my second nominee for favorite tool! Hey, nobody said I wasn’t allowed two.
C2.0 Pick of the Year [2007]
Dec 31st
Happy New Year!
While celebrating the new year the C2.0 staff wanted to highlight some of their favorite tools/products of the 2007 year.
“My pick of the year has to be Jott!”
[Kevin Rush, Creator/Contributor of C2.0 - the blog]
Jott is an easy and very powerful voice to text communication tool. Several times earlier this year we featured this powerful Web2.o application. Since these posts we could easily have done two or three additional posts on all the new features the Jott team has added.
Here are my favorite ways to use Jott…
- Leave yourself a note (both voice and text messages)
- Transcribe your voice to a blog or send it via email
- Update your Google calendar & social networking sites
- And much more [check out Jott Links]
Jott has changed the way I use technology for ministry. You should be using it. What a great tool!
Pinger is a close runner up to my pick of the year.
[Previous C2.0 posts on Pinger]
Blogs in Plain English
Dec 5th
I’ve been reading blogs regularly for a few years now, but occasionally I am reminded that there are still a number of folks who don’t share my appreciation of the medium.
Common Craft has produced “Blogs in Plain English,” the latest installment in their “Plain English” series (check out some of our other references to the PaperWorks series).
This is the clearest explanation of blogging, what it is, who does it, how, and why, that I’ve heard or read – and all in under 3 minutes. Take three minutes and watch the clip below. You’ll be glad you did, this could be a really helpful tool in explaining the concept to others around you.
FeedBlendr: One Feed Is All I Need
Oct 14th
If your website is built on RSS technology you should be using it to it’s full potential.
One of the best ways to utilize RSS feeds as a church is to make a blog page for each one of your ministries. One for Youth, one for Adult, one for Children’s, one for missions, etc. Then take the individual feed of each ministry blog (four in my example) and put them into FeedBlendr to make one RSS Feed for all your ministries. This link should then be placed on your churches main page so it’s easy to find.
By doing this a church member could subscribe via RSS Reader to just one feed and be sent all on events and information that your site has to offer, instead of having to subscribe to many.
Getting started is incredibly easy. Your first stop on the FeedBlendr site clearly asks you for each piece of information it needs and the process is set in motion.
Terapad
Jul 19th
Terapad is the real deal if your interested in using a Blog as a church website and/or Brochure as a church website. Those of you who are looking to create a church website or move away from your current provider to something more flexible and functional, check it out.
Content Management System, Blogging, Online Store, Message Boards, Online Calendar, Video, Images, etc. – all FREE!
Discipline of Sermon Prep (via blog) Bonus
Jun 13th
Only thing better than one Web 2.0 tech, is two 2.0 techs working together, thus:
Since Jott can transcribe to an email address…
and, since most blogs accommodate posting via email message…
and, since your notetaking blog is private, so exact transcription isn’t critical…
you could use Jott to post a thought directly to your blog.
Discipline of Sermon Prep (via blog)
Jun 12th
You ever start to prepare a sermon or teaching on a specific topic (say ‘love’), but you really don’t have any material on it? Finding yourself flipping to the concordance looking up the scriptures on ‘love’ and praying to G-d that he gives you a divine revelation or at least some sort of intervention!
This isn’t the best way to preach. It’s like trying to cook something w/o any of ingredients.
Get Your Ingredients First!
I have found that the discipline of collecting information, scripture, theology, practical application and personal experience makes all the difference when preparing to teach/preach. The hardest part is developing a system of collecting theses thoughts and making it a discipline.
In the last post I explained how to create a discipline of sermon preparation on your desktop. Rarely am I on the same computer, so I appreciate web applications and tools that I can access from any PC via the Internet. Know this is what I came up with. My system is similar to “Buckets, Chunks & Marinade” but instead of using my desktop applications I use a blog.
First, I created a private blog using WordPress (any blogging system would do). Then when an idea, thought, quote, scripture, etc. comes my way, I make a new post on it. While making a post I tag it with as many keywords as possible that would make sense. (Example – Gospel, justice, love, marriage, church, family, death, kingdom, peace, possibly book of the bible the scripture comes from, etc.)
After a while you will accumulate many tags that will organize your information/thoughts for you. Your tags become your topics and sermon ideas will start to emerge with little effort. Then when someone asks you to preach/speak you can go back to your private blog and select any given tag to prepare that sermon.
This way you already have some ingredients to start with and your not completely starting from scratch.
Blog as Church Website
May 23rd
If “Brochure as Church Website” is the low-maintenance, fix it and forget it option, a Blog as your church website is perhaps the exact opposite, but still easy to set up.
You’re familiar with a blog and its format. If you’re not, uh, well… Welcome. You are here. For more details though, you can see some of our other posts on blogs.
A blog format enables you to communicate with your church community regularly and without an extensive knowledge of website construction. In this respect, blogging is an easy way to get your site established quickly. If you’ve composed an email and clicked send, you are prepared to blog.
A bonus is that there is virtually no cost associated with the frequency of publishing. Contrast this with newsletter mailings. With blogs, it’s not only practical, but it’s preferable to publish an idea, church update, announcement, or reflection on the week’s message one entry at a time as the matter arises, instead of waiting until the next newsletter issue goes to press (and they can be really short too!). In turn, your website is as current as it could possibly be. What you write is up to you.
Another bonus is the option of offering RSS feeds (click the link for an intro to RSS) to your readers.
Most blogs allow the user to place extra items in the columns at the side, so other important information, like the core elements mentioned in yesterday’s post and maybe even a calendar can sit happily next to your posts, rounding out your site a little more. Now you can reach both current members with up-to-date postings and seekers with your brochure-type info.
Yes, there is a catch. Blogging requires commitment – I would recommend that you post something not less than once or twice a week to keep things fresh. And blogging requires authorship –the nature of blogging lends itself to a single author or a reasonably small, coordinated team of authors. It would be more difficult to be a hands-off pastor with this website structure.
If you want to get a flavoring of the process, set up a free blog on blogger.com (the site where Church 2.0 presently lives) and play around. You’ll have a blogspot address (e.g., holypotluck.blogspot.com) which is less than ideal, but will give you a chance to get your feet wet.
Add your comments below, including a link to your pastoral blog, and share your experiences (be forewarned that if your comment links us to any product that can be shipped to us “discretely,” we’ll probably remove your comment and call your mom).
Next up: Bare Bones Basics of Site Design
Blogging, 10-4
Mar 16th
I often get this question, “Kevin, what should I Blog about?” So here is a list that comes from an article at Pastors.com by Cory Miller.
Ten Topics for Pastors to Blog About…
- your city/town – events, stores, local projects, etc.
- news/culture/issues – be loving yet biblical
- money/personal finance – practical lessons
- marriage/family/parenting – lessons learned
- devotional thoughts – how God revealed himself to you
- people – from called, changing to changed people
- your sermons – expand a point/idea from your sermon
- discipleship resources – books, media, websites, etc.
- informing – distribute information & reminders
- the Gospel – spread the good news in your life
4 Simple Principals When Blogging
- Be realistic – Set a doable posting schedule. Post once a week and keep it short (100 words or less).
- Write to a friend – Think of your posts as an e-mail or letter to a close friend.
- Use a free blogging service – Use WordPress.com or Blogger.com
- Keep it simple - turn “off” the comments. Comments could keep you busy. Start with one of their free templates and keep it simple. Later, if blogging is for you, start adding more bells and whistles.
What Is A Blog?
Mar 15th
A Blog originally was called a “Web-log” and was shortened to “Blog”. Blogs started out in the 90s as website where people posted a journal online.
Since then the Blogging phenomenon has included images, audio, video, applications, and collaborative blogging. But what is so powerful about a blog is that people can choose to view, subscribe (using XML code), comment, collaborate, and link to other posts. This interaction creates new communities where a fresh webbing of ideas, knowledge and friendship are being formed like never before. Below is a video of a book I highly recommend for any pastor interested in Blogging.
Recommended Reading – The Blogging Church by Brian Bailey
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