Tech for the Local Church
Communication
FtW with Mission Ministry Video-Conferencing: Six of One, Half-a-Dozen of the Other
Oct 7th
Thanks to the folks at the Career Couch section of The New York Times, here are 6 basic questions and 6 practical answers about how to make the most of real-time video-interaction. It’s offered here in hopes that subscribers and visitors will be encouraged to give serious consideration to bringing located missionaries right into the “living room” of their congregations for interviews, as prayer-leaders, as sermonizers and devotional messengers.
How many of our missionaries would be thrilled to know that they are considered living, sharp, active members of our local faith-community, even though they might be half-way ’round the world? How many of us can benefit from a greater sense of God’s church universal from His perspective– physically distinct but spiritually interconnected, joined and fitted together, growing up into the fullness of the stature of Christ as each part does its work?
While we consider how to give this idea a try, these guidelines can be useful in the effort “to make the most of the times.”
Staying Professional in Virtual Meetings By EILENE ZIMMERMAN Published: September 25, 2010 
Approaching Omnipresence: Video-Conferencing as Ministry & Mission
Oct 5th
We here at ‘House o’Vault’ see tremendous potential for increased mission awareness and support with the use of web-based video-conferencing (by Skype or similar cloud-platforms). The benefits seem obvious, practical, and dynamic (and also completely, repeatably scalable), but adoption-adaptation-implementation is not, as far as we know, widespread (or even trending, for that matter). That seems like an ongoing series of missed opportunities …
For the time being, let’s forego any wild-eyed, leisure-suited rants which amount to old-wineskin-new-wine adaptations of church attendance-contests gone-by– in the spirit of mid-20th century “programming” which involved Sunday School bus overloading and pine-stressing revival service pew-filling– to hold ”fill an iPad” services (w/guest visitors counting when Skyped in from all corners of the compass). Some by-gones are best gone bye-bye.
And there’s no need to add to the “can-God-make-a-rock-so-big-He-can’t-lift-it?” ruminations about how many angels could be dancing on the head of a pin if each had an iPhone 4 running face time with other angels on other pinheads …
Pinheads, indeed.
No, instead, let’s consider the real-life, real-world, frontline, gates-of-hell-shall-not-prevail work that missionary ministers are doing on our behalf and by means of our all-too-thinly-stretched church budgets.
Are You Using Online Surveys?
Aug 17th
Feedback is critical to leadership and making sound decisions. But most leaders don’t have the time to poll more than a few individuals for their take on an event or new idea. Keep reading for some great online survey tools! More >
Online Giving & Landing Pages
Jun 24th
Landing pages allow you to customize the content to the reader who has just clicked through from an ad or special offer kind of click. These pages don’t have to show up in your regular website menus/navigation.
If you have an online giving option on your website (you do have that, right?), have you thought about what the donor sees after successfully sending money to your church?
Enter the ‘Thank You’ page.
Here are some best practices based on Hubspot’s blog article Thank You, Come Again!: Best Practices for Thank You Pages:
- Thank Them. Well, duh! Put yourself in their shoes and ask yourself what you’d like to see if you had just given money. Be sincere but not cheesy.
- Set Great Expectations. Will you send them a tax receipt? A written thank you? What are you going to do with their money? Let them know what happens next.
- Suggest They Follow You. Are you on FaceBook or Twitter? Invite them to be more involved in your ministry/cause by joining your circle of friends
- Better Yet: Suggest They Tell Their Friends. They’ve already given you a vote of confidence by their donation. Suggest they invite you into their circle of friends. Get the word out!
Don’t miss the opportunity to involve your donors in the mission & ministry of your church. People love to be a part of something bigger than themselves, and especially love being part of a ‘winning team’.
What good ideas could you add to this?
iPad Review – First Observations
May 6th
Fan Boyhood
I have to admit at the debut of this blog that I am an Apple Fan Boy. But, it may help to explain my history with the forbidden fruit tattooed tech company. I was first introduced to computers when my father first brought home a Radio Shack TRS-80 with a whopping 4K of memory. Then, in college I got my first geek job in a Macintosh Lab in the Business School at California State Polytechnic University at Pomona. At the time, Macs were squatty, beige boxes with green screens… but I was hooked. Even though my experience with and knowledge of Apple Computers pre-dates the Genius Bar, I think I can give fair assessment of the good, bad and the ugly of the Kingdom of Jobs. More >
Perfect Phone System for Office-less Church Plants
Apr 16th
A church planter turned me on to this and it seems like a great solution for church plants with office headquarters in Starbucks or their garage. RingCentral is a hosted phone service, which means it’s like a fancy office phone system (with extensions for everybody & stuff like that), but based entirely on the web.
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!
Planning a Super Bowl Party?
Jan 18th
ChurchRelevance.com has a great article and video link from the The Church Law Group outlining some great guidelines on enjoying a Super Bowl watch party at your church while respecting copyright law.
For those of you who’ve ever made an attempt at trying to understand copyright law, you will find these guidelines very reasonable and fair.
Enjoy the game!
P.S. The video also includes a great, understandable overview of what copyright and fair use are and what they affect, particularly relating to church use.
ChurchMediaDesign.TV
Nov 19th
ChurchMediaDesign.tv is a great site to learn more on how to use and create media for church.
Their newest episode #89 featured a documentary that Hillsong Television made about “Church News”. Church News is a 3-minute segment in their weekend services where announcements are made or ads as they call them. There area a lot of good tips on filming and producing video elements in this show along with the resources, technology, and programs they used to produce this seqment of their weekend services.
It’s worth checking out! www.churchmediadesign.tv
Go Where The People Are
Nov 10th
It’s obvious, that in the social networking scene, facebook has emerged as the front runner. Not only is Facebook powerful because of it’s ability to collaborate, communicate, invite, and present to one another. But it’s powerful because it’s where the people are.
I can’t even tell you how many people (from nearly every demographic) want be my friend on facebook. And I can’t tell you how many people who have never set foot into our church gatherings/services, but have become a fan on our churches facebook fan page. So now our church has direct access into their lives and a platform to connect with them, and the best part is that they found us!
If your church or organization is not on facebook, you should be. I always say, ‘Go where the people are.’
Free Web Hosting for Non-profits
Sep 9th
DreamHost is offering FREE web hosting for Non-profits. Yes Church, this means you!
Click here to see how you sign-up.
Make the Shift…
Sep 4th
The culture and industries are making the shift to social media.
Has your church?
8 Keys to Effective Word of Mouth Advertising
Sep 2nd
Truth Advertising just put out 8 Keys to Effective Word of Mouth Advertising in there latest newsletter. They are…
- Give people something positive to say
- Be the church “that”
- Make it easy for your members to invite others
- Throw a party
- Don’t do boring types of marketing
- Put your pastor’s picture in your direct mail cards
- Be Relevant
- Be the church that changes lives
My favorite one is #8 followed by #4. My least favorite one is #6.
What is your favorite and least favorite? What would you add to the list?
Death to Jott, Long Live Dial2Do
Feb 13th
I was a big support of jott when it came out [see previous posts]. However, they have slowly transition from having all of their features for free a year or so ago to offering no features for free today. Not smart…
So I have been looking for other free solutions and along came Dial2Do.
And it kicks the snot out of jott. Not only does it have all features that jott has, but it also can read your calendar, email, weather, news feeds to you. All commanded by your voice! Sick! And did I mention it’s FREE!
Ministry Wrestling
Jan 14th
I wanted to know what you, your church, or your ministry are wrestling with in the New Year?
I hope to get some good dialogue going, so I can write on topics that are passionate to you and your context.
What do we need to rethink?
TokBox | Video Chat Room
Dec 16th
Need to get a bunch of people together in a video chat?
Check out TokBox. No Software to download, just have your webcam and microphone hooked up to your PC or Mac and wallah! Your in! And, it’s FREE!
Facebook for Pastors
Apr 23rd
Ran across this e-book today, “Facebook for Pastors” by Chris Forbes. It’s essentially about using the power of web 2.0 to reach people, he even uses the reference of “church 2.0″. I found that very fitting.
We could debate whether or not Jesus would have a Facebook account, but what’s not in question is that Facebook is where people are at. With 70 million active users, and the 6th most trafficked site on the net. Facebook has made huge leaps to catch myspace in the last year, and is predicted to pass myspace in international traffic sometime in mid April 2008.
So go check it out, it’s only 31 pages so it won’t consume your whole life, and it’s FREE!
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.
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