January 19, 2010

It's Time To Get Your Sermons Online

by Kevin Finn, guest blogger

Each week pastors across the world are creating valuable content. They work hard studying, praying and seeking the wisdom of others. They then polish of this all into a sermon that's (typically) delivered on Sunday morning. For years churches have been recording these sermons to CDs or tapes for those who are unable to attend the service. More recently though, some have been publishing their messages online. So is it time for your pastor to go digital?

Let's start by taking a look at the potential benefits posting your sermons online can have:

• For members who missed the service. Each week there is a percentage of your congregation that will be unable to attend the service for various reasons. For those people, providing easy access to the sermon online is a great service. This is especially important if your pastor teaches in series.
• Spreading the word. Beyond your own congregation, there are people who will benefit from hearing these messages. Posting your sermons online lets people easily share sermons with friends through e-mail, Facebook or Twitter. A timely message may speak to a non-Christian's heart in ways nothing else has.
• Easy distribution. Once you put the pieces in place, people can subscribe to your sermons. Each time a new message goes online, they can be notified and in some cases the sermons will automatically be loaded onto their portable players or phones.
• Listen again. There are some sermons that are just so rich and deep that it's hard to take it all in Sunday morning. Being able to listen to the sermon again at home, work or in the car can be invaluable.
• Promotional purposes. More and more people are searching online to find new churches. Letting people listen to sermons right from your web site gives them get a taste of the church culture, teaching style and the personality of the pastor.
• Historical archiving. Remember that sermon from last year's Christmas Eve service? Posting your sermons online gives your members, and your pastor, easy access to all past sermons; just a few clicks away.

Continue reading "It's Time To Get Your Sermons Online"

Posted by Guest Blogger at 7:06 AM
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December 3, 2009

The Smithsonian and Social Media Strategy

What do this, this and this all have in common? Someone thought they were a great idea, and they thought wrong. And sure, we can laud their creators for being willing to take a risk, but before we go there, let's consider some other possibilities.

• They saw their competitors doing similar things, and hoped to one-up them.
• They assumed they could build a successful product out of independently-successful elements.
• They thought of something neat to do and plowed ahead, ignorant of conventional wisdom and best practices.

Churches face all of the same temptations when it comes to social media. They feel they need to "strike while the iron is hot," "keep up with the Joneses" or worse, "extend and develop their identity through brand equity and presence in a digital world." And they forget to ask "Why?" and "How does it fit with our overall strategy?"

Continue reading "The Smithsonian and Social Media Strategy"

Posted by Joshua Cody at 7:04 AM
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November 17, 2009

The Internet Is Not Your Delivery Boy

The Internet is more than a delivery method.

As I was reading a report on the meeting of the European bishops and reps from Facebook, Google, YouTube and Wikipedia, one of the quotes really grabbed me. It points out why so many miss the power of the internet.

From the article:

During a press conference, [Bishop di Falco] described the Internet "as important as the invention of the printing press," saying just as the printing press helped make the Bible available to everyone who could read, the Internet can make the gospel accessible to everyone who uses the Internet.

Too many times this is how we've viewed the Internet, as another delivery vehicle and why we see so many sites as nothing more than electronic brochures. While the Internet certainly is great at delivering information quickly and does make that information accessible to millions what makes it so much more is people.

The Internet isn't powerful because it connects you to information, but because it connects you to other people.

A great example of this can be seen in LifeChurch's YouVersion. If they had looked at the internet as a delivery option, it would simply spit out scripture. Instead they looked deeper and created something that's about interaction with the scripture and each other.

This lesson is true for all of our marketing. It's not about delivering information, it's about making a connection.

Posted by Michael Buckingham at 6:23 AM
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October 19, 2009

Your Church: Is There an App for That?

You might have heard the old news that Mars Hill in Seattle has developed an iPhone application. As has The Reaction, a movement in Denver. And a couple weeks ago, NOOMA provided me the opportunity to preview one of their iPhone applications--designed to give owners an opportunity to look on with a friend and go through discussion questions together.

A search through the App Store revealed a few more church applications, plenty of church finders and some Christian quote search engines. It seems that the church is getting on board with this whole "app" thing. Even theWashington Post covered the idea of religious applications.

This whole idea has got me feeling conflicted.

Continue reading "Your Church: Is There an App for That?"

Posted by Joshua Cody at 7:49 AM
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September 2, 2009

YouVersion Live Brings Events to Life

Do you believe in tweeting in church? Do you always see people on their cell phones during the service and would like to tell yourself they're "participating"? Do you think that it's dumb when John Piper wants you to "just preach"?

If you answered yes to any of the above or if you're into checking out sweet new technologies, then YouVersion Live could be for you.

Essentially, people participate in polls, prayer, note-taking, giving and more through their phone while you preach. You set things up how you want them, and then your congregation can participate. Bobby Gruenewald of LifeChurch.tv (the church behind the app) shares some of the benefits, including replacing or augmenting the bulletin, encouraging participation and contribution, and getting anonymous responses on touchy subjects (youth group sex talk?).

Can't wait to see the full implementation over the next couple of months. It looks like everything should go full-speed in October.

ChurchCrunch has all the details and a recorded demo of the service.

Posted by Joshua Cody at 6:34 AM
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August 27, 2009

Still Don't Think Social Media Matters?

Many pastors still think technologies haven't caught on or that investing in social media isn't worth their church's time. Next time you hear that from someone, perhaps you could share a few of these statistics with them:

• It took radio 38 years to reach 50 million listeners. Terrestrial TV took 13 years to reach 50 million users. The Internet took four years to reach 50 million people... In less than nine months, Facebook added 100 million users.
• Universal McCann reports that 77% of all active internet users regularly read blogs.
• More than 120 million users log on to Facebook at least once each day and more than 30 million users update their statuses at least once each day. Combined, more than 5 billion minutes are spent on the site on a daily basis.
• Over the past 12 months, Twitter’s year-on-year growth rate has broken the 1000% barrier.
• If Facebook were a country, it would be the fourth most populated place in the world. This means it easily beats the likes of Brazil, Russia and Japan in terms of size.

Catch some more social media statistics in these two posts.

Posted by Joshua Cody at 7:44 AM
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July 29, 2009

Keeping Online Conversations Clean

Many of your churches have Facebook fan pages, Twitter feeds, Internet campuses, live chat abilities, Internet-capable computers on-site and a thousand other whizz bangs and gadgets.

With all of these things, it's easy for four-letter words, malicious statements and heresy from evildoers and hooligans to crowd your church's online space. So how do you keep these folks out? Content filters? Volunteer moderators? Weekly exorcism services to remove the demons in the Internet?

Media Salt has you covered with three solid tips:

• Moderate discussion, but rarely intervene.
• Have blocking controls in place.
• Trust your audience.

Make sure to read their entire piece to get all the nitty-gritty details.

Posted by Joshua Cody at 7:57 AM
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July 21, 2009

Preaching Zen

We've had a lot of comments on last week's post about John Piper's thoughts on video and mass media in sermons. Short recap: Piper doesn't like them.

You can read all the comments on the post. You can read Collide Magazine's response. Here's my take: Preaching, just like any presentation, doesn't work if you can't communicate it well. If you drown your sermon in PowerPoint slides and fancy video, you risk losing people. But if all you do is stand at the pulpit and talk, you risk losing all the visual learners and ADD people who simply don't learn that way.

The more I hear conversations about the pros and cons of technology in preaching, the more I think Garr Reynolds' Presentation Zen is very applicable to the church. Reynolds talks about how to give great presentations, and the same advice applies to preaching.

Rather than argue about the place of video and drama in Sunday morning, how about we focus on giving better presentations? If that means less video, so be it. If that means more video, so be it. Focus on the ideas and the clear, concise presentation of those ideas, and you'll be good.

Posted by Kevin D. Hendricks at 5:35 AM
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July 17, 2009

Keeping Preaching Pure

John Piper is someone I respect to an extraordinary degree. We might not agree on everything, but on those matters, if you want to be safe, you should defer to his point of view rather than mine. When it comes to theology and preaching, don't mess with this guy. So it obviously interested me when he addressed using movie clips and non-speaking material in the context of preaching. Here's the crux of his argument:

I think the use of video and drama largely is a token of unbelief in the power of preaching. And I think that, to the degree that pastors begin to supplement their preaching with this entertaining spice to help people stay with them and be moved and get helped, it's going to backfire. It's going to backfire.

So what say you, intrepid Church Marketing Sucks reader? Dare you step in the ring and go toe-to-toe with the hard-hitting (Christian) hedonist? Or do you buy his argument that we're getting a little soft in our preaching with all this non-preaching bologna?

Posted by Joshua Cody at 10:11 AM
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June 8, 2009

How Technology Can Help Your Church

I'm a fan of cool technology. I like Twitter. I watch Lost on my laptop. I don't have a landline. Seeing the church take advantage of new technologies to spread the gospel is pretty cool. It's actually the latest rage (did you see the recent Time magazine article on using Twitter in church?).

But for all the technology, what really matters is people. I like Twitter because it keeps me connected to people. I like watching Lost online because I spend my Wednesday nights when Lost is broadcast with my small group. And the landline? OK, I ditched that because I'm cheap.

As cool as new technology is, what I really like about it is what people do with it to reach others. Online video isn't what makes invisiblepeople.tv cool, it's the way Mark Horvath connects with homeless people and shares their story. An impressive use of social networking isn't what made 5 Days in May work, it's the way people gave up their Starbucks and Pepsi for plain old water and then donated to the tune of $3,400.

Technology is definitely cool. It makes so many things easier. But don't get hung up on the technology. Get hung up on the idea. Get hung up on the people. That's how technology can help your church.

Posted by Kevin D. Hendricks at 8:10 AM
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June 1, 2009

Blogging Church Members on Your Site

North Haven Church has a blog called Fresh Blog, focusing on daily insights from the Bible and a quick prayer you could offer up to God.

This is a really neat way to provide daily inspiration to folks who might not even think to pick up their Bible throughout the day. Instead, they can drop by your site.

But something I think is even cooler, although I'm not sure how often they're using it, is this:

From time to time, you will be able to read the thoughts of other members of North Haven Church, too.

They've found a great way to communicate that God is moving in the lives of not only pastors, but other members of the church. Not only does this help people connect with God, it helps people connect with one another.

It'd be nice to see them labeling some posts as "from a member of New Haven" or using another way to mark them as "from the community," but I still feel they've got a great idea here that could be useful to other churches.

Posted by Joshua Cody at 6:43 AM
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May 5, 2009

Monitoring Your Church Online

Remember a long, long time ago, when you were first thinking about church marketing? You had that argument with someone about whether stats mattered and whether churches should even keep track of the numbers. What do numbers really matter? It's not about that anyways.

Well, unless your church is the Russian Orthodox Church, you probably ended up keeping some sort of statistics. You know how many people are at a service, Sunday school, etc.

So why don't churches seem to care about the Internet? Too many times, we don't notice when people share experiences about our churches online, and we don't know how well we're doing in using the Internet to reach out. But it's not such a hard task.

Here are four quick and dirty ways to keep up with your church online:

• Keep up with your web stats. Perhaps your server provides this or maybe you need to install a tool like Google Analytics. But set some goals and see how you're meeting them. If you aren't, rethink what you can do to meet those goals.
• See if people are chatting on Twitter. Check out search.twitter.com and enter "Your Church's Name." See if people are mentioning you and what they're saying.
• Search blogs. Google's Blog Search or Technorati are good tools here.
• Get your Google on. You probably can't hire someone to optimize your site for search engines, but it's vastly-documented online. If you aren't getting high up in search results, look it up online. Providing great content that stays up-to-date will pay great dividends.

Posted by Joshua Cody at 7:22 AM
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May 4, 2009

Twittering the Sermon

The micro-blogging service Twitter has been soaring in popularity lately, and now the intersections between church and Twitter will get even more attention with this Time magazine article, Twittering in Church, with the Pastor's OK..

The article covers a few examples of churches using Twitter, most notably Westwinds Community Church in Jackson, Mich., which encourages Twitter use during the sermon (which we covered last June), as well as Trinity Church and their Twitter Passion Play.

The article is a quick overview and overwhelmingly positive. For a less enthusiastic take, consider four reasons to stop Twittering in church.

Of course Twittering the sermon isn't the only use for Twitter. This article covers how churches can use Twitter (and Facebook) to expand their reach. There's also the e-book, The Reason Your Church Must Twitter. And if you're still scratching your head, you can go back to our initial post on Twitter from January 2008.

Posted by Kevin D. Hendricks at 9:34 AM
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Technology X for Your Church

Media Salt recently answered the question, "When can we start using [insert Internet technology here] for our church?"

Perhaps it's Twitter. Perhaps it's Facebook. Maybe it's a sharper site or and mobile platform application. Whatever it may be, they say, "Don't wait. Do it now."

They look at a few different technologies, and it's a good read. But we'd encourage you to get involved in the conversation. Are you wasting your time trying to figure our where technology is headed and plan ahead?

Posted by Joshua Cody at 5:40 AM
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April 10, 2009

Twittering the Passion of Christ

With all the headlines Twitter has received lately, it's cool to see a church get some ink for an innovative approach to Twitter. Wall Street's Trinity Church will be posting Good Friday tweets about the final hours of Christ's life for three hours starting at noon today.

The church will also have an online Stations of the Cross, allowing people to meditate on Christ's final hours with words, music and pictures.

Posted by Kevin D. Hendricks at 6:27 AM
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April 8, 2009

The Argument Against Social Media

Our own Brad Abare frequently muses on constant connectivity and social media over on his personal blog (e.g. Conundrums of Connectivity). And recently, Matt Haughey extrapolated some of these same lessons from his experience shopping for playgrounds. Here's the crux of what he said:

So maybe instead of getting your company on twitter, paying marketers to mention you are on twitter, and paying people to blog about your company, forget all that and just make awesome stuff that gets people excited about your products, hire people that represent the company well, and when your stuff is so awesome that friends share it with other friends, you may not even need "social media marketing" after all.

Zappos isn't great because they're on Twitter. They're great because they provide wonderful service, and Twitter is a part of that.

Your church will never be great because you figure out how to use Facebook and Evites. Your church will be great because you commit yourself to living the gospel in a radical way, and you can use social media as a balanced part of that gospel-centered diet.

Posted by Joshua Cody at 5:51 AM
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March 30, 2009

10 Things to Fix on Your Church Web Site

Kem Meyer recently linked to the WebDrivenChurch.com's entry on why church web sites can suck. As they looked through thousands of church web sites while updating a database, they came up with 10 things churches need to fix. Here's a quick sampling:

Bad pages/links/content: Website maintenance is really what I'm getting at here. Having a website is like having a new responsibility. You can't just put it out there and forget about it. Check it regularly for broken links, missing pages and out of date content.

Promotional banners/graphics: Don't fall into the trap of creating a new logo and banner ad for every event and placing these on your home page. I seriously doubt each of these events is that important.

Head over and check out the full list.

Posted by Joshua Cody at 6:00 AM
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March 11, 2009

To Text or Not to Text?

By Tim Schraeder, guest blogger

Text messaging has changed the way we communicate. I text message people more than I actually talk with them. In fact, my cell phone plan has the lowest amount of talking minutes you can have, plus unlimited text messages.

As texting transforms the relational landscape of our culture, we’re beginning to see how it’s influencing the way the church communicates.

While many churches have jumped on the Twitter bandwagon, others are taking it to the next level, incorporating texting polls and Q&A sessions into their weekly services as well as using text messages as a vehicle to communicate announcements and church news throughout the week.

But before you’re quick to start texting, here are some lessons learned that may help you figure out where, when and why you should and shouldn’t use text messaging.

Continue reading "To Text or Not to Text?"

Posted by Guest Blogger at 6:12 AM
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March 9, 2009

Next-Gen Church Sites

Alright church communicators, what do you think the future of church web sites looks like? The Chapel is asking that very question in a quick-hitting, single-serving site. It will take you about five minutes to plug in what you think the next generation of church site looks like, and it could help the church move forward on the web.

Pitch your thoughts to the question: What is the future of church web sites?

Posted by Joshua Cody at 6:48 AM
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February 2, 2009

Help the Church Get Their Online Act Together

One of the good guys over at Monk Development recently approached us about a survey they're conducting to examine the state of the church online. They figured our readers are a generally tech-savvy bunch who are passionate about the church using relevant avenues to communicate the gospel. And we figure they're a good-hearted bunch who really want to help out.

So if you have a few minutes, take their survey about online church communities and what matters in them.

Here's what they had to say about the study:

Are churches using the Internet to gather, disciple and build community? In the last couple years a number of new private church community networks have been launched in addition to numerous social networking sites. We are still very early on in understanding what churches are doing effectively online. We invite you to participate in this first survey of several that examine the State of the Church Online. This survey in particular begins by examining what churches are doing with social and community networks. How pervasive are the use of these web applications? Future surveys will expand to examine what Christians are doing with social networks, how churches are using their web sites and other online strategies. Our prayer is that these studies help bring clarity and guidance for churches to pursue excellence online to the glory of God.

Posted by Joshua Cody at 6:31 AM
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January 22, 2009

It's Twitter Time for Your Church

Anthony Coppedge recently released a $5 e-book entitled The Reason Your Church Must Twitter.

It covers everything from what in the world a Twitter is to how your church can make maximum use of Twitter in various flavors--from simply having public conversations to using Twitter as a devotional tool.

The book would be ideal for a pastor who is open to the use of technology but hasn't embraced Twitter yet. You'll hear uses of Twitter like driving traffic to your church site, increasing your web presence or supplementing your blog, so it's not ideal for the pastor who doesn't realize the value of the web.

Some churches are already doing this, and a few who have been successful (by various metrics of success) come to mind:

• Buckhead Church
• Park Community Church
• West Winds Church

I'm sure there are plenty more, but those should give a little context for what successful Twittering can look like. And hopefully The Reason Your Church Must Twitter can get your church there.

Posted by Joshua Cody at 7:47 AM
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November 28, 2008

Texting to Keep Members

Target Marketing Magazine recently published a case study called Retaining the Flock. They take a look at the way one church is making their church more sticky--text messaging. Their pastor had this to say:

We had a series that we called TEXT. It was a study of the Bible, a play on the word, obviously. What we wanted to do was to help our people get to interact more with scripture on a daily basis. So we tried to find an apparatus to communicate with them that was relevant, already ingrained in their daily life. So we said, 'Well, what if we text message them Bible verses for the day?'

Church marketing isn't good for too much if you can't keep people involved after they arrive, and this is just one way churches are using technology to focus on closing the back door.

Posted by Joshua Cody at 6:09 AM
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November 25, 2008

Church 'Walls' with Graffiti

I received an e-mail the other day from someone—I'll call him Dave—who is struggling with the idea of using social media sites like Facebook for their church community. He was conflicted because on one hand he sees Facebook as a great way to communicate and dialogue with people who are a part of the church. On the other hand, he sees some organizations on Facebook with profanity on their "walls" and other user-generated clutter that seems to distort the intent of the group.

Dave's assumption is that the church is accountable for what ends up on their "walls." He even thought about limiting "friends" to members. "But when you have 2,000 members, this really doesn't help so much. Get 2,000 people involved and you've got your share of chowderheads and gadflies who will post anything."

Dave feels he's between a rock and a hard place. "If you limit the social interactivity, then you are left with one dimensional communication and the question 'What's the point?'"

I understand Dave's dilemma. I like to think of Facebook as the mall where you go meet people, not the church building where they come meet you. You don't control what stores are in the mall or what music is playing or how people are dressed. But you can guide the conversation. You just might need to talk a little louder over all the noise, or move the conversation to another environment altogether.

People are messy. And because of this, we should be discipling people to better belief and behavior, not creating or controlling environments. How this translates online might look like digital discipleship, not digital construction. Let's build people, not places. Just like we can't control everything offline (graffiti, filth, vandalism, etc.), we can't control it online either.

But we shouldn't ignore malls or Facebook just because they're messy.

Posted by Brad Abare at 7:47 AM
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October 30, 2008

Church Metrics

Those digerati geniuses at LifeChurch.tv have created a free, web-based application to track church statistics, ChurchMetrics. It's a pretty simple tool that only tracks four core areas: attendance, giving, salvations and baptisms. It creates charts and reports for the infographic geek in all of us and also has a mobile version.

They pitch it as "ChurchMetrics is here to take care of the numbers, so you can focus on taking care of people." You can read more about the launch from Bobby Gruenewald.

Posted by Kevin D. Hendricks at 9:00 AM
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October 20, 2008

The Illusion of Community, Part 1

This is part one in a series about the illusion of community. First up, let's talk about how we're doing at building community online. Not so well in my opinion.

I have serious concerns with online social networks. I take issue even more with Christian online social networks. I am all for redeeming technology, using it for good, and leveraging its potential to deliver the good news of Jesus. However, and I know I'm going to get flack for taking this position, but I am really concerned that too much emphasis is being put on building community online as a substitute for building community offline. The ease and excitement that revolves around online ministry/community is understandable. The telegraph, the telephone and the television all brought similar euphoria.

If ever there was a buzzword for the past several years that the church--myself included--has been in love with, it would be the word "community." And rightly so because community is so desperately lacking these days. People are lonely and isolated. Today, 1 out of every 4 households in the U.S. has just one person living there. In 1950, it was 1 out of every 10. So while we may be more connected than any other generation, we're more detached than ever before.

Bubble Trouble
Perhaps the biggest issue I have with Christian social networks is that they are following the exact same path churches have been on for 2,000 years. Instead of churches permeating culture, we've created our own culture. We've taken the idea of church and made it a place instead of a presence. For more on this idea, read the late Bob Briner's book, Roaring Lambs.

Continue reading "The Illusion of Community, Part 1"

Posted by Brad Abare at 12:18 PM
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October 8, 2008

Stop Using Media

The Collide magazine blog just began "an ongoing and open-ended series devoted to convincing you, the church leader, not to use media."

Scott McClellan quickly clarifies, "Yes, Collide exists to encourage the use of media and technology in the Church … the proper use."

And number one is calling you out for using media just for the sake of using media. Keep an eye over there for subsequent posts (like this one with a rather painful picture). It will be a great challenge to church communicators who have gotten addicted to media and can't wait for their next Sunday morning fix.

Posted by Joshua Cody at 7:31 AM
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September 16, 2008

Social Media, Stories and Your Church

by Jeff Goins, Guest Blogger

I love my blog. Some days, I stay up until midnight working on it. Quite honestly, I tend to obsess over it. Yet, I know it’s worth the time investment (minus the obsession), because I’ve seen God use that little piece of technology do some amazing things.

About two years ago, I really got into social justice. It started with my friend and I visiting a group of homeless people living under a bridge. For Christmas, we contacted several local churches, co-workers and friends, asking them to contribute to helping meet the needs of this homeless community. The response was astounding. We carted two carloads of clothes and personal items downtown to celebrate the birth of Jesus with the poor.

Around this same time, I started blogging. At first, I hesitated sharing these stories of helping the poor via the web. I felt guilty for making a spectacle of them. Reluctantly, I posted a couple stories, curious to see how readers might respond. As I started to get some feedback, I saw how the blog was profoundly affecting other people’s lives. One reader in Oklahoma was so inspired after reading one of my stories that he immediately got into his car, found the nearest homeless person, and gave him a ride across town.

Continue reading "Social Media, Stories and Your Church"

Posted by Guest Blogger at 2:42 PM
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September 1, 2008

Factors That Improve Online Experience

Looking for a church web site overhaul? Or do you know a pastor who needs to be looking for a site overhaul? IDEA has released a study titled Factors That Improve Online Experience. If your church web site sucks, this is a great place to begin brainstorming something new. They interview three different groups--nonprofit organizations and cities, web designers and firms, and the general public. And you wind up with some of these gems:

• Designers are overly optimistic about visitors' ability to maintain orientation.
• Good visual design and up-to-date information are critical.
• Visitors want information fast.
• Visitors point to the lack of breadth and depth of site content as causing an “Information Gap.”
• Visitors still need handholding.

Some of these seem like "Duh" statements, but you can get a deeper explanation with their executive summary, or the truly adventurous can download the full report.

Posted by Joshua Cody at 8:29 AM
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July 29, 2008

Top Tweeting Church Leaders

Today the Catalyst blog shares a list of Top Tweeters & Church Leaders. So if you're on Twitter and want to see what church leaders are saying, check out the list. Be sure to check the comments for even more folks.

Oh, and I suppose it's worth mentioning that our very own Brad Abare made the list.

Posted by Kevin D. Hendricks at 8:30 AM
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July 3, 2008

10 Commandments of Web Design

We've learned about church web sites from John McCain and Barack Obama. But the lessons don't stop there.

Kem Meyer quotes a Business Week article, The 10 Commandments of Web Design. Here are four of the great bits:

• Thou shalt not abuse Flash. The technology can easily be abused--excessive, extemporaneous animations confuse usability and bog down users' web browsers.
  
• Thou shalt not clutter. The web may be the greatest archive of all time, but sites that lack a coherent structure make it impossible to wade through information.
  
• Thou shalt not overuse glassy reflections. Some experts say Apple's habit of creating glassy reflections under photos of its products has been far too commonly copied, turning the style element into a cliché.
  
• Thou shalt worship at the altar of typography. Designers say that despite the increase in broadband penetration, plain text has gotten a second wind in cutting-edge web design.

Posted by Joshua Cody at 7:28 AM
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June 20, 2008

3 Ways to Sink Your E-mail Newsletter

That's it. I tried to let it roll off my back, but no more. I'm sick of stupid mistakes in e-mail newsletters. If you want your e-mail newsletter to be effective, you've got to do it right. I've seen three e-mail newsletter mistakes in the last week alone:

Where Do I Click?
Offender number one is my VOIP-provider Vonage. They sent me an e-mail pitching their annual payment plan. Save $60/year. What a deal--where do I sign up? Turns out you can't sign up anywhere in the e-mail. There wasn't a single link in the e-mail, aside from privacy policy and unsubscribe (hmm ... tempting) links. I felt like a web rookie, clicking all over the e-mail trying to figure out who was stupider, me or Vonage.

Continue reading "3 Ways to Sink Your E-mail Newsletter"

Posted by Kevin D. Hendricks at 8:51 AM
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June 4, 2008

Twitter at Church

We've talked a lot about Twitter lately and some of you are probably wondering what Twitter might look like inside the church. Well, here's a real live example of using Twitter during a church service.

They ran the Twitter feed on the big screen and encouraged people to take part. Some people loved it, some people hated it, some people didn't care. It did give those who weren't physically present a chance to take part and the tweets ranged from light banter to theological reflection.

Some of the positive response included comments like, "I felt like part of what was happening," "I felt part of the community" and "I felt like it was more than just about me."

Organizer John Voelz said: "Bottom line, it is worth it to try these kinds of things. Out of this experience, we came up with a list of 20 other ways to use Twitter." (link via michaelhyatt)

Posted by Kevin D. Hendricks at 8:18 AM
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May 30, 2008

What Would Jesus Twitter?

We've been talking up Twitter--the 140-character message/mini-blog application that's sweeping the early adopters--a lot in the past few weeks (Oh, and if you're looking for church marketing Twitter friends, about 70 or so have identified themselves in the Church Marketing Lab). We'll try to move on to a new obsession, though I promise this post has a wider application.

Marcus Goodyear blogged about speaking the truth in love and how sometimes it's too easy not to do that, especially in an immediate response environment like Twitter (or blog posts/comments, message boards, IM, cell phones, etc.). He points us to Cheryl Smith's post, What Would Jesus Tweet?. I suppose it's the same question we've been asking since the bracelet came out (and for 2,000 years before that), but it's always a bit jolting to apply it to our latest technological fad.

Our very character comes across in the things we say and do on a techno-wonder like Twitter (or blogs or message boards or cell phones or pick your poison), and while that should be obvious, it's easy to forget. And as Joshua Cody reminded us earlier this week, it's important to remember that our actions are out there for the world to see, and they speak a lot louder than our words.

What are your Twitter posts (or blog commenting or text messaging or whatever) telling the world about your church or your faith?

Posted by Kevin D. Hendricks at 8:03 AM
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May 8, 2008

Small Churches Should Embrace Cheap Technology

Last week's poll/quiz revealed the encouraging stat that 62% of churches have a web site, up from 57% in 2005 and 34% in 2000. The results come from a recent Barna survey (nicely summarized with pretty graphics by Kent Shaffer).

One of the interesting, though hardly surprising, things about the survey is that no matter the technology--web sites, projection systems, e-mail newsletters, podcasting--large churches are adapting these new technologies much faster than small churches.

Continue reading "Small Churches Should Embrace Cheap Technology"

Posted by Kevin D. Hendricks at 8:02 AM
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April 23, 2008

Facebook for Pastors

Chris Forbes just released a free 32-page e-book, Facebook for Pastors. The booklet can help you make the most of Facebook for your church (beyond just playing Scrabble). Check it out.

Posted by Kevin D. Hendricks at 7:33 AM
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February 18, 2008

Lessons from 15 Compassion International Bloggers

Last week the child sponsorship organization Compassion International took 15 Christian bloggers to Uganda to see what child sponsorship looks like firsthand. Among those bloggers are musician Shaun Groves, BooMama blogger Sophie, worship leader Carlos Whittaker and Church Marketing Sucks guest blogger Anne Jackson among others. It's quite a group.

And they've been taking pictures, shooting video and penning words about their experience, describing how the $32 a month of child sponsorship can change a life. And not just a life, but an entire family's life.

It's big. You have to be made of stone to hear these stories and turn away unchanged. If I weren't saving every penny and selling half my crap for my own adoption, I'd be sponsoring one of these kids (even though I have my own questions about sponsorship).

What's central here is the power of a story.

Continue reading "Lessons from 15 Compassion International Bloggers"

Posted by Kevin D. Hendricks at 9:29 AM
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February 5, 2008

21 Factors to Consider Before a Redesign

If your church is thinking about a redesign (and who isn't?), you might want to check out 21 factors to consider before a redesign. It's exactly what it sounds like and covers a lot of the important bases when considering a redesign, from content to tech to design. It's a good way to make sure you ask the questions you need to ask.

Posted by Kevin D. Hendricks at 7:27 AM
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January 28, 2008

Twitter for Churches

The mini-blog application Twitter seems to be the new shiny tech toy of late (which means it's already old news). So what is Twitter? Basically you send out 140-character to updates to anyone following you via the web, text messages, Facebook, etc. Twitter prompts you with the question "What are you doing?", which when taken literally can be incredibly inane. But the more creative folks can get interesting--especially trying to work within the 140-character limit (Ana Marie Cox of Wonkette fame has good, entertaining coverage of the Republican primaries).

It's basically digestible, bite-size, temporary content.

So what's the point?

Continue reading "Twitter for Churches"

Posted by Kevin D. Hendricks at 8:35 AM
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January 23, 2008

Your Church, the Wifi Sharer

The geek world has been abuzz lately regarding Ars Technica's look at the ethics of stealing wifi. At Church Marketing Sucks, we don't make too much of an effort to be arbiters of morality. But we would love to be proponents of ideas.

How about opening your church up?

Continue reading "Your Church, the Wifi Sharer"

Posted by Joshua Cody at 3:33 PM
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January 17, 2008

Overnight Web Site Challenge

A Minnesota tech company is hosting the F1 Overnight Web Site Challenge, where teams of geeks will create fully functional web sites for Minnesota nonprofits in only 24 hours. Public radio's Future Tense covered the challenge on January 4 (scroll down):

"When you look at 24 hours of time from a team of five or six people, that's a lot of value we're delivering to the nonprofits," said Mark Hurlburt of Sierra Bravo. "We're hoping the teams are going to like working with the nonprofits and they'll continue to be working with them and making that donation as time goes on," he said.

I love this idea. Most nonprofits (like churches) have terrible web sites and don't have the resources to do them right. So here's a way to give one highly-caffeinated push and move those nonprofits into the 21st century.

I think it could work for churches, too.

Continue reading "Overnight Web Site Challenge"

Posted by Kevin D. Hendricks at 5:29 AM
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January 14, 2008

Four Pastoral Blogging Taboos and How To Fix Them

by Scott Magdalein, Guest Blogger

We see from the Blogging Pastor Poll Results that were posted back in November that 72% of pastors aren't blogging successfully. I can't imagine that the percentage has changed over the Christmas season, so we'll assume those numbers are still accurate.

Ignoring the fact that 56% said that they don't even have a blog, we'll jump straight to the next issue. What's keeping your blog from being as effective as possible? We're going to look at four common problems and offer four easy ways to fix them.

1. Using misspelled words and poor grammar.
While distracting readers is one risk, another is the possibility of losing credibility with your readers. Although there's little need to stick to MLA or Turabian formatting rules, that doesn't mean you're allowed to throw out intelligent writing altogether.

Continue reading "Four Pastoral Blogging Taboos and How To Fix Them"

Posted by Guest Blogger at 6:43 AM
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November 6, 2007

Death of a Podcast?

Tony Morgan, over at his blog, discussed the end of Yahoo! podcasts a while back. The service shut down, and it begs the question: Is podcast listenership in decline? He lists a few barriers to the success of podcasts:

• You can't scan through a podcast to find the good stuff.
  
• It's tough to carve out time to listen to podcasts.
  
• Other things like videos and reading sound more fun than listening to someone talk.
  
• Podcast quality often stinks.
  
• They don't lend themselves to viral distribution.

Why in the heck does this matter to church marketing, you might ask. Well, podcasts for weekly sermons are integral parts of many churches. Some churches even podcast more than just weekly messages. We have to ask ourselves if this form of media is something we should continue to pursue, and if so, how should we improve the state of the podcast?

Continue reading "Death of a Podcast?"

Posted by Joshua Cody at 8:44 AM
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August 15, 2007

A Content-Centered Internet

Ars Technica reports on a new study on the focus of individuals' time on the Internet. Here's what they found of people's time online:
In 2003:

• 34% of Internet users' time was spent reading content.
• 46% of their time was spent on online communications.

And today:

• 47% of their time was spent reading content.
• 33% of Internet users' time was spent on online communications.

These numbers almost completely reversed in four years. So, "How does this relate to church marketing?" you might ask.

Continue reading "A Content-Centered Internet"

Posted by Joshua Cody at 7:25 AM
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July 26, 2007

Church YouTube Contest

A few days ago we talked about online church video. We encouraged everyone to embrace the phenomenon of online video and harness its power. One church in Boston is doing just that.

The Greater Boston Vineyard is having a YouTube video contest for their fall kick-off service. It's certainly an interesting way to harness the power of web 2.0 and mobilize church members outside of church walls. I see some really good things coming of this.

Continue reading "Church YouTube Contest"

Posted by Joshua Cody at 11:25 AM
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July 23, 2007

Embracing Online Video

According to comScore, 75% of Internet users watched online video in May 2007, averaging 158 minutes per viewer. Nearly 8.4 billion videos were streamed online in the month of May. That's a lot.

Online video isn't a market that's too saturated to succeed in, either. It's not even a market that can become too saturated to succeed. If you missed the boat on the whole web 2.0 craze, you should read up on it. No matter how many videos stream online (in our case, 8,357,000,000), if you have a solid message and something fresh to offer, you can succeed.

Continue reading "Embracing Online Video"

Posted by Joshua Cody at 3:56 PM
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June 11, 2007

Where's the Church on Facebook?

If you're plugged into the social networking site Facebook at all you've probably heard about the recent launch of their developer's platform. For the uninformed, basically third party companies can now build applications for Facebook that integrate directly with the Facebook system. This isn't slapping badges onto a MySpace page, this is full-blown interaction with your Facebook friends. Your Facebook friends can now see your Flickr photos, check out your Flixster movie ratings, listen to your Last.fm playlist and interact in new ways.

Bottom line: It's cool (I go on and on about it on my personal blog).

Don't believe me? Check out the Cause application and the 125,416 people who have joined the Save Darfur cause, donating $9,517 since May 24 (as of June 11 at 10:21 a.m. CST).

Continue reading "Where's the Church on Facebook?"

Posted by Kevin D. Hendricks at 8:18 AM
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April 2, 2007

Understanding Attack Blogs

by Bill Seaver, Guest Blogger

There's a new and unfortunate trend in church disputes that you've likely heard of by now: the attack blog. Attack blogs are most commonly established by members within the church who take issue with some aspect of the church leadership or direction. In some cases, the attacks come from outside the church, like in Mark Driscoll's case last fall, but the majority of cases seem to be from within.

I personally know of four churches that are dealing with this to some degree right now. Here are two examples from Bellevue Baptist in Memphis, Tenn. (these are not blogs in the purest sense of the word but are text-only web sites that serve the same purpose).

The issues that prompt the attacks vary, but in each case the church is under fire from a small group of individuals who disagree with the leadership (either the pastor himself or the leadership as a whole). Also, in every case the churches had no idea what hit them.

Continue reading "Understanding Attack Blogs"

Posted by Guest Blogger at 7:53 AM
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March 27, 2007

RSS For Your Church

So today, I was thinking to myself, "Self, those guys over at the Barna Group have some pretty neat statistics, why don't you subscribe to their RSS feed?"

Problem.

I searched. And I searched. And I searched. Almost frantically, in fact. Where was the little orange button with the white circly things? You know, this one:

Continue reading "RSS For Your Church"

Posted by Joshua Cody at 7:42 AM
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February 12, 2007

Innovative Churches: Technology

Part 7 in a series on Innovative Churches. Be sure to contribute to the Most Innovative Churches list.

How will technology, including the use of media and the web, influence churches in the future?

Technology is one of innovation's best friends. Technology can be such a creative conduit for innovation. At the same time, technology can also be one of those friends that get in the way of innovation. I am weary of anybody that comes to me with a great idea for how to use technology to tell a story. It seems a little backwards. First, let's figure out the story and who needs to hear it, and then lets find a way to do it. This makes room for technology or methods that may not even exist yet! Imagine 100 years ago if we would have approached transportation through the filter that we must use cars to get everywhere. How foolish! We would have missed out on the train, the airplane and the spaceship.

Posted by Brad Abare at 7:46 AM
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February 7, 2007

Church Web Site Design Checklist

With Internet Evangelism Day fast approaching (April 29, 2007) you might want to check out the Church Site Design Checklist. It's an automated 51-question survey that will help you figure out how your church web site stacks up.

If your site needs some help you could always check out the Improving Your Church Web Site series. (link via Mike Atkinson)

Posted by Kevin D. Hendricks at 11:11 AM
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February 5, 2007

Visitors, Beer and Sex--Oh My!

Yet again the links have piled up around me faster than I can blog them, so it's time to blow the dam and just let you have them. Here we go...

• The Visitor's Card - The most potentially interesting of the new Outreach Magazine blogs, it's written by a non-Christian describing her experiences visiting church (via Dan Ohlerking)
• Beer and the Bible - Interesting news article about a church outreach that unfortunately draws too much attention to the alcohol. The pastor of the church in question offers some explanation in a comment on this blog post (via Brenton Balvin).
• Does Size Matter? - Swerve, the new blog from lifechurch.tv, has an interesting series on church size.
• My Dad Went to Church. Yay! - A video of a son taking his dad to church for the first time in 20 years--this is what it's all about. It's also so raw and quirky that it almost seems made up, but that's just the Internet hoaxist in me. (via Tony Morgan)

Don't worry, there's much, much more after the jump ...

Continue reading "Visitors, Beer and Sex--Oh My!"

Posted by Kevin D. Hendricks at 4:29 PM
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January 11, 2007

Outreach's Top 20 Web Sites for Church Communicators

In my haste to dump some links on you yesterday I forgot one: Top 20 Web Sites for Church Communicators. It's a web exclusive from Outreach magazine written by, oh yeah, me. If you read this blog regularly you probably know about many of these sites (like, ahem, #20), but you might find a couple gems you didn't know about. Enjoy.

Posted by Kevin D. Hendricks at 8:58 AM
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January 10, 2007

Post-Holiday Linkfest

My post-holiday recovery never quite happened, thanks to the fact that my family is trying to sell our house. So I've got a pile of links I haven't had time to blog about. But lucky for you I'll take the lazy route and throw 'em all up here in one big list. Enjoy:

• Congregations Go High-Tech to Deliver Message - From PowerPoint and basic web sites (ooh, shiny!) to podcasting and blogs.
• Location Doesn't Matter for Most - Storefront churches are working despite locations: "I quickly discovered that the absence of typical church decorations doesn't matter a bit. What makes a church 'church' is what goes on inside the heart and soul of the pastor and the congregation."
• How Toyota Would Run a Church - Church Relevance speculates about how Toyota might run a church.
• The 25 Most Innovative Churches in America - Outreach put out the list with help from Tony Morgan, but we'll link to Church Relevance since they have the list in non-PDF format and show what other lists those churches have landed on.
• What Makes a Church Grow? - Growing churches are often multiracial, have more men than women, make an effort not to be reverent and use drums in worship (gasp!).
• New England Churches Shy From 'Baptist' Name - Even NPR is getting in on the church name change game. Dawn Nicole Baldwin is even planning a series on church name changes.
• God Bless the Bulletin - Wow, some newspapers still run bulletin bloopers?

Posted by Kevin D. Hendricks at 11:16 AM
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November 22, 2006

More Pastors on MySpace

Churches using the latest technological tool (gasp!) gets more attention with a feature from San Antonio on pastors using MySpace. The piece includes some good examples of pastors making use of MySpace, including one pastor who received some four-letter tirades via MySpace for a direct mail piece the church sent. But rather than end with a tirade, the pastor was able to apologize and interact with the offended people.

"MySpace might be history in a year," [Pastor Robert] Emmitt said. "I'm not saying everyone's got to do this. Let's try it for a while and see what happens."

The article also includes a quote from yours truly going off on the proliferation of Christian MySpace knock-offs, but otherwise it's an interesting read.

Posted by Kevin D. Hendricks at 9:54 AM
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November 21, 2006

Church Loses Domain to a Porn Site

Here's some bad news for your marketing efforts: You lost your domain and a porn site snatched it up. Too bad you just handed out fliers at the local Apple Harvest Day with the old site--now sending lots of unexpecting potential visitors to a porn site. Doh.

True story. It happened to Hope Community Church in Dover, N.H. The mix-up happened when the church was switching Internet service providers and the ISP that sold the url admitted fault. But it's still a good lesson for any church--especially if your annual domain renewal could easily get overlooked by a non-techie staff member or volunteer who hasn't had the time lately. (link via Cory Miller)

Posted by Kevin D. Hendricks at 8:22 AM
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October 27, 2006

I Help Pastors Blog

Cory Miller is doing the ultimate Blogging for Pastors series over at Church Communications Pro. So far he's got 44+ five-question interviews with prominent church bloggers (including all your favorites: DJ Chuang, Tony Morgan, Mark Batterson, Gary Lamb, Kem Meyer, Perry Noble and so many more), as well as 23+ entries on how to blog.

It's a great place to send your pastor, especially until that much talked about blogging church book comes out.

Posted by Kevin D. Hendricks at 8:07 AM
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October 26, 2006

9 Lists for Web Designers

Some of these lists and resources are older, but they age like fine wine and can still offer some help and hope to church web designers.

• 8 Web Design Cliches of 2006 - Odd names and misplaced dots and gradients, excessive use thereof are my favorites.

• 9 Ways to Misunderstand Web Standards - This one's pretty techie in nature, but if you're a designer you've got to understand (and not misunderstand) your web standards.

• 5 Techniques for Picking a Domain Name - Some great ideas and tips for how to pick that pesky but all important url.

• The Worst Web Design Techniques Featured on Web Pages That Suck in 2005 - Don't do what they do.

• 5 Steps to Building Better Web Sites - A few basic ideas for starting a site right.

• 75 Helpful Web Design Resources - More resources than you can handle.

• 8 Web Design Warm Fuzzy Feelings - You didn't think techies were warm and fuzzy, but this is what makes them smile.

• 50 Redesigns from Scratch - Soon to be a series of 50--you guessed it--redesigns. So far it's only two, but the new designs and detailed explanations are insightful.

• The Next 35 Sexiest Designed Web Sites You've Forgotten - Ignore the tongue-tripping copywriting (and what was that about gradients?), and check out some web design that doesn't make your eyes bleed. You can also check out the first 35.

Posted by Kevin D. Hendricks at 6:19 AM
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October 2, 2006

Church Outreach & MySpace

by Joe Suh, Guest Blogger

In the real world, preaching to the choir is as effective in outreach as preaching to the choir. Community within church walls is great, but it makes for an easy excuse to avoid outreach outside the church building.

The digital world is no different. 80% of church visitors come because they were personally invited by friends. Now we have a fancy term for it: social networks. And now we have an incredible way to engage our social networks: MySpace.com.

You can choose to believe or reject the latest numbers about MySpace demographics. In taking surveys before creating MyChurch.org, I also found that MySpace users were older than what we originally thought. Social networking isn't just for teens and twentysomethings. The point is there has never been an easier way to connect with the congregations' social networks in history.

A year ago, we canvassed church flyers at the local shopping mall. Today we manually post bulletins and church events on Craigslist and blogs. In one year, we’ll be automatically syndicating widgets of the church event calendar and sermons onto MySpace profiles. It may seem ironic, but our purpose of creating online community at MyChurch is to drive content outside of that community. Shouldn’t that be the purpose of every church, both online and off?

Technology will continue to change. The need to outreach and evangelize to the un-churched on their own turf will not. MySpace is the new mall hangout.

Archbishop William Temple once wrote, "The church is the only organization that exists for the benefit of its non-members." We love our church communities. But it is not just for us to love.

Posted by Guest Blogger at 6:06 AM
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September 25, 2006

The Ageing MySpace Population

We've talked before about how your church can use MySpace and other social networking sites to connect with people, whether it's connecting your congregants or giving visitors a preview, but some interesting new stats prove that social networking sites aren't just for the youngsters. While MySpace.com (the runaway hit with 82% of traffic in the category) is perceived [and vilified] as the online hangout for teens, 87% of users today are 18 or older. If that's not shocking enough, 52% are 35 or older, which means the majority of users on the youthful MySpace are, well, old. And it's still seeing 230,000 people sign up every day.

For churches it should be clear that MySpace is no longer a tool for youth groups or young adult ministries. It's something the whole church should consider. (link via churchrelevance)

Posted by Kevin D. Hendricks at 6:31 AM
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September 19, 2006

More Church Web 2.0: MyChurch.org

The church web 2.0 trend continues with another new site and some media attention. This time around it's MyChurch.org, founded by recent guest blogger Joe Suh. And the media attention is from Red Herring in an article covering web 2.0 and the church, including MyChurch.org, eBible and a quote from yours truly.

MyChurch.org is basically MySpace with an emphasis on churches (in case you couldn't figure that out for yourself). Much like Facebook builds community around colleges, MyChurch.org builds community around churches. It's a cool idea, though you have to wonder if people will go for another social networking site. MyChurch.org doesn't have the same customization as MySpace, which could be a bonus--or boring, depending on your take.

The real question tech-savvy pastors will have to answer is how many of these web 2.0 sites their church can really take advantage of. You can build an online community in so many places. Time will tell.

Posted by Kevin D. Hendricks at 8:23 AM
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September 7, 2006

Making the Most of Your Sermons

The sermon is the bread and butter of church life. We get a new one every week. 52 per year. Start adding up the years your church has been around and that's hundreds, even thousands of sermons. Multiply that by the number of churches and you've just won the content lottery. And you know what they say about content: Content is king.

So what is your church doing with its content? I'd guess many rely on the old faithful cassette tape ministry. My church does. Some lucky churches have tapped into podcasting and are making sermons available online. It's a good first step, but we could do so much more.

Continue reading "Making the Most of Your Sermons"

Posted by Kevin D. Hendricks at 6:03 PM
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September 6, 2006

8 Lessons from My Secret

by Cory Miller, Guest Blogger

An Internet confessional booth?

That's what LifeChurch.tv has provided web surfers with their Internet site MySecret.tv--an online drop box of sorts where people can anonymously post their secret sins.

Right out of the gate, LifeChurch provided the site with all the proper elements to start a marketing virus that most of us, in church marketing circles, still drool at--providing church members with yard signs, bumper stickers and easy-to-use online links, graphics and videos.

The frenzy has been incredible. It's stirred discussions--online and off. Incited some criticism. Generated tons of media attention. And in the process, a bunch--I mean, a bunch--of people have actually gone online and come clean--anonymously, of course--to the deepest, darkest, hidden sins in their lives.

Continue reading "8 Lessons from My Secret"

Posted by Guest Blogger at 8:06 AM
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August 24, 2006

The Power of the Blog

by Joe Suh, Guest Blogger

Everyone reading this blog knows the benefits of church blogging. Sometimes the soft touch of a personal story convicts us of its power.

We've heard the same old talking points about blogging within your church community. From guys who pastor, to guys who know more than our pastors, to guys who think church marketing sucks. We know blogs engage the congregation. We know they are culturally relevant for outreach. We even know they increase your church's Google page rank. We know already!

Like Jesus' disciple Thomas, many must see to believe. I saw. Actually I heard. It was from a presentation by Rick Klau, a vice president at Feedburner, addressing an audience of Lutherans at the ELCA Conference.

Continue reading "The Power of the Blog"

Posted by Guest Blogger at 6:35 AM
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August 16, 2006

Churches use Technology!

Yet another story appeared this week on how churches are utilizing technology. "'Godcasts' Spread the Gospel" appeared in the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review on Sunday. I'm amazed that this continues to be news. Are churches that far out of touch that no one expects us to use technology? Thus churches tapping into new innovations warrants news? Weird.

As cool as technology is (and I admit to being a tech booster), we always need to remember that balance is in order. I love the comment from Rabbi James Rudin, senior inter-religious adviser for the American Jewish Committee:

"Human touch can never be replaced," Rudin said. "The congregation will always be the sum of its people."

Oh, and the article quoted some guy named Brad Abare.

Posted by Kevin D. Hendricks at 12:07 PM
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July 10, 2006

Washington Post on Church Bloggers

The Washington Post dove into church blogging this weekend and offers a few good quotes:

"John Wesley [a prominent 18th-century evangelist] had to travel 250,000 miles on horseback to reach people, and I can do it with one click of the mouse," said Mark Batterson, pastor of National Community Church in Washington, D.C.

"I used to think that the blog supplemented my weekend message," said Batterson, who draws upward of 25,000 visitors a month to http://www.evotional.com. "Now I wonder if it isn't the other way around. It's hard for me to imagine why a church that has younger members wouldn't have a blog component."

"It's no longer enough for a lot of people to get the church's mailing, read the Web site, and sit in the pew for an hour on Sunday," said Brian Bailey, co-author of the upcoming book, Blogging Church. "They might know there was a mission trip last week, but with a blog, they can read about the day-to-day details, see pictures and feel like they're part of something."

"The most common temptation is when you don't know what to write about, and you see that bulletin sitting on your desk," said Bailey. "People are not interested in blogs that are PR announcements. It needs to be the personal voice of an individual."

Posted by Kevin D. Hendricks at 7:46 AM
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June 5, 2006

VBS Meets the 21st Century

VBS--has there ever been a more churchy acronymn? Today those summer church programs for children (Vacation Bible School, for those who aren't in the know) are far from glorified Sunday School. They've got video games, DVDs, Happy Meal-esque prizes and connections to major movies.

"Times have changed, and we have to keep up with our kids and we have to go along with some of the things they like," said [Angila] McLaurine, who will send her two sons, 7 and 14, to vacation Bible school this year. "If not, we're going to lose them."

Posted by Kevin D. Hendricks at 6:06 PM
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Driving Traffic To Your Blog

You've got to love Seth Godin, marketing guru and author of Purple Cow. He posted a wonderfully contradictory post, How to get traffic for your blog, that perfectly illustrates his ideas. In addition to Godin's ideas, here's a few lessons from his lesson:

• Everybody loves a list. Notice it's the first item on his list. And ask yourself if you would have bothered reading the same 56 points in paragraph format.
• Short and sweet. None of the items run more than two lines.
• Lots o' links. His list is full of explanatory links. Though not overly crammed.
• Be different. For the first time Godin opened up the comments, wracking up 81 so far.

It's a perfect little case in point. He's totaled 38 trackbacks so far (and we'll give him another one), so it's definitely making the rounds.

Posted by Kevin D. Hendricks at 5:33 PM
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May 17, 2006

Web 2.0 Series Wrap-Up

For the past month and a half we've been looking at the web 2.0 trend and what it could mean for your church. We've looked at the highs and lows, the possibilities and the dangers and whether or not any of it means anything for telling more people about Jesus.

I find it some what ironic that our series is sandwiched between two articles in high profile media outlets. The first appeared in Newsweek as we were starting our series and covered the web 2.0 trend in general. The second appeared today in the Wall Street Journal and covered how churches are using technology, specifically community driven sites like MySpace and Flicker, some of the same examples we used. I'm not sure if that means we're with it, or out of it or not sure what 'it' is anyway.

Continue reading "Web 2.0 Series Wrap-Up"

Posted by Kevin D. Hendricks at 5:08 PM
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Wall Street Journal on Church Tech

We'll go from west coast to east coast today as the Wall Street Journal covers technology in churches. The piece focuses on churches trying new methods, like MySpace and Flickr (sounds like our web 2.0 series). A few of the good quotes include:

"It's a way for us to say, 'Hey, come and see,'" said Father Gray [of Boston's Church of the Advent, who created a MySpace profile for his parish]. "It gets our name out there. It puts us on the mental map, the emotional map." ...

"We're called to get the word out," said Bobby Gruenewald, new campus development leader at LifeChurch.tv, a group of evangelical churches in Oklahoma, Texas and Arizona. "We want to engage people where they're at. If MySpace is where they are, that's where we want to be." ...

Technology is a tool that Christians should "redeem" for religious use, said Mark Batterson, lead pastor of National Community Church, which holds its services in movie theaters in Washington, D.C. "In the 15th century, Guttenberg used the printing press to make copies of the Bible," he said. "The church needs to find creative ways to help get some great content into these iPods."

Oh, and some guy named Brad Abare is quoted, too.

Posted by Kevin D. Hendricks at 8:29 AM
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May 16, 2006

How Your Church Can Ignore Web 2.0

Part 8 in a series on What Web 2.0 Means for Your Church

Almost a month and a half ago we started talking about web 2.0 and what it could mean for your church. We've covered all sorts of interesting topics, including video, MySpace and the potential to ditch legacy software. Web 2.0 is technology worth talking about.

But not everyone is so excited. There are downsides to web 2.0 and those may be reason enough to keep your church off the bandwagon.

Continue reading "How Your Church Can Ignore Web 2.0"

Posted by Kevin D. Hendricks at 1:18 PM
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May 2, 2006

Church Friendly Web 2.0

Part 7 in a continuing series on What Web 2.0 Means for Your Church

Much of our discussion of web 2.0 sites has focused on mainstream sites intended for a mainstream audience and how those general use sites could be used by churches. But there's also a growing collection of Christian web 2.0 sites with obvious applications for churches.

We'll take a quick look at three of them, though there are plenty more out there. CMS Guest Blogger Tim Bednar has a semi-difinitive list of church web 2.0 projects going.

Continue reading "Church Friendly Web 2.0"

Posted by Kevin D. Hendricks at 12:11 PM
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May 1, 2006

Is Jesus the Next Killer App?

by Mike Atkinson, Guest Blogger

You know what they say: follow the money. And there's lots of it coming from churches trying to match audio/video wits with MTV, concerts and TV. So the big guys have gotten involved. Here's proof:

• "Tech companies are getting religion. Companies such as Sony, Panasonic, Avid and Hitachi are helping churches spread the gospel as part of an effort to cash in on an exploding market known as 'house of worship technology.'"
• "An illustration of the market's growing clout came this week at the National Association of Broadcasters 2006 electronic media conference. For the first time, NAB dedicated an exhibit area to tech and consumer electronics companies that are catering to churches."
• "The dollar value on Lakewood's [Joel Osteen] video and production facilities is about $4 million, according to CIOinsight.com."
• "At Willow Creek Community Church in South Barrington, Ill., the technology budget is $1 million a year out of a total annual budget of $27 million, CIOinsight.com reported."
• "Churches have wanted to get their hands on this technology for years," said Teagarden, managing director of Sharing His Light Productions. "In the past it was too expensive, but in the past few years, prices have dropped. This has allowed even small churches to go high tech."

None of this should be news to anyone here. But the fact that large manufacturers smell money ironically means that more affordable equipment and training may become available for churches who haven't been able to take the media dive.

Posted by Guest Blogger at 5:37 AM
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April 27, 2006

4 Questions About Church Web Sites

by Greg Nilsen, Guest Blogger

I was having a conversation with a fellow church webmaster the other day, and he was discussing placing private church materials (budgets, etc.) on a "roped off" section of a message board for their church. My first reaction was that it wasn't a very good idea because of security reasons, but since then I've found myself continually asking the age-old question: Why?

With all the technology available to us today, it is often easy to lose sight of what we are trying to accomplish with a church web site. In order to regain perspective, I believe that we all need to sit down from time to time and ask ourselves the following four questions:

1. What is the purpose of your church web site?
A church web site should strive towards two goals:

1. Build up the members of its existing congregation.
2. Reach out to seekers.

If your web site isn't working towards either of those two goals, it may be time to step back and seriously rethink your approach.

Continue reading "4 Questions About Church Web Sites"

Posted by Guest Blogger at 6:07 AM
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April 25, 2006

How Your Church Can Ditch Expensive Software

Part 6 in a continuing series on What Web 2.0 Means for Your Church

One of the best things about the whole web 2.0 revolution is how it all works. Asynchronous Javascript and XML, better known as AJAX, powers these new web 2.0 applications enabling them to behave more like desktop applications than web pages. This leads to web based applications, which are hefty little programs that can do some of the same heavy lifting as legacy desktop software like Microsoft Word, but don't pack any of same hit to your wallet or harddrive.

The benefits should be obvious for thrifty churches.

Continue reading "How Your Church Can Ditch Expensive Software"

Posted by Kevin D. Hendricks at 6:31 AM
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April 13, 2006

How Your Church Can Use Squidoo

Part 5 in a continuing series on What Web 2.0 Means for Your Church

So what's Squidoo? It's another player in the exploding world of web 2.0 sites, though it has marketing guru Seth Godin as CEO. Check out recent features from the New York Times and CNN.

The basic idea is that computer-generated search isn't good enough. Squidoo gives self-proclaimed experts (which Squidoo calls lensmasters) the chance to build a single web page (which Squidoo calls lenses) telling people whatever it is they need to know. So you've got the personal knowledge of experts instead of the shotgun approach of Google.

Continue reading "How Your Church Can Use Squidoo"

Posted by Kevin D. Hendricks at 7:47 AM
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April 6, 2006

How Your Church Can Use MySpace

Part 3 in a continuing series on What Web 2.0 Means for Your Church

Let's just open that can of worms called MySpace. If you haven't heard about MySpace, you've surely heard about the MySpace backlash. MySpace is one of many of social networking sites like Facebook, Friendster, Orkut and dozens of others, though MySpace has the distinction of being bought by Rupert Murdoch for $580 million, attracting over 50 million people (many of whom are teens), and being the target of an ugly media backlash over concerns about safety. The safety concerns are justified (just do a Google News search on MySpace), but they're also overblown and uninformed.

What's It All About?
The draw of MySpace is that it's a virtual hangout, complete with easy networking, content creation and interaction. You can blog, post photos, play music, start discussions, post events, chat, add friends to your network and then comment on just about everything. While it has loads of web 2.0 attributes, it's also not design savvy and it's borderline bloated. But that doesn't seem to matter.

What About the Church?
For the church MySpace represents yet another danger or an opportunity, depending on your outlook.

Continue reading "How Your Church Can Use MySpace"

Posted by Kevin D. Hendricks at 5:55 AM
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April 5, 2006

How Your Church Can Use Flickr

Part 2 in a continuing series on What Web 2.0 Means for Your Church

Let's start with the photo-sharing site Flickr. It's the media darling that began as an online game until the creators realized they had made a cool—and profitable—photo site. Fast forward and Yahoo! snatches them up for an undisclosed sum (i.e., millions).

We'll focus on Flickr since they're the most well known, but the idea applies to any photo-sharing site. The basics are pretty simple. You post photos. You share them with your friends. Add comments and tags and notes and all sorts of fun tools to categorize, view and enjoy your photos. Suddenly you have the family photo album digitized and put online so anyone can add a new page. Pair that with the proliferation of digital cameras and you've got yourself a winner.

Continue reading "How Your Church Can Use Flickr"

Posted by Kevin D. Hendricks at 8:23 AM
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April 4, 2006

What Web 2.0 Means for Your Church

Web 2.0 is the latest rage. It's on the cover of Newsweek and everyone is speculating if it's the revenge of the dot com boom.

This is the beginning of an multi-part series on web. 2.0 and what it could mean for the church.

What is Web 2.0?
It depends on who you talk to, if it's a doe-eyed techie or a jaded marketer or a way-too-early adopter. For my purposes, web 2.0 refers to the kinds of sites that build on community or offer a service. Rather than simply offering static information, web 2.0 sites offer interaction.

Continue reading "What Web 2.0 Means for Your Church"

Posted by Kevin D. Hendricks at 10:20 AM
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March 22, 2006

More Tips for Starting a Church Blog

Fortune offers a list of corporate blogging do's and don'ts that are worth checking out for any church exploring the possibility of a blog:

• Know thyself
• Know thy audience
• Engage your audience
• Stay current
• Cover your rear

You may also want to check out some of our previous blog-related posts:

• How Blogging Can Help the Church
• Church Blogging
• The Beginner's Guide to Church Blogging
• Bob Lutz: Jump into Blogging
• Blogging Church: The Book
• Blogging Can Burn Pastors
• Review: Naked Conversations by Robert Scoble and Shel Israel
• Review: Blog by Hugh Hewitt

Posted by Kevin D. Hendricks at 7:03 AM
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February 27, 2006

How Churches Use Technology

Last week I spoke with Jesse Noyes from the Boston Herald about how churches use technology for his article, "Lord Works in High Tech Ways," which basically explores how churches are using emerging technology like blogs and podcasts.

Church Marketing Sucks and our parent Center for Church Communication get a mention, though I didn't say anything smart enough to get quoted. I thought my comment about podcasting enabling pastors to take sermons beyond Sunday was pretty good, though I guess it wasn't incredibly inspired.

Someone definitely smarter than me made a good point about how Christians have always taken advantage of technology:

But since the advent of radio, conservative evangelicals have been the first to embrace the marketing clout technology provides, said Nancy Ammerman, a sociology of religion professor at Boston University. "There is something about the impulse to convert... that has long made evangelicals use whatever tools are available to them,"

I'm no historian, but I think even long before radio you'll find Christians using the latest technology, whether it's the printing press or improved navigation methods to reach people. Web sites are the new visitor packets. Blogs are the new newsletters. Podcasts are the new radio.

Continue reading "How Churches Use Technology"

Posted by Kevin D. Hendricks at 6:21 AM
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February 17, 2006

Technology and Trends Changing Your Church

Tim Bednar over at e-Church (yes, he's the same guy who brought us Mega-Church: The Game) is blogging about the 20 memes changing your congregation from the year 2005. Don't be scared by the techie word 'memes,' it's just Internet speak for an idea that's being passed on and spreading through culture. At least that's how I define it.

At any rate, Bednar is looking at the technologies and trends of 2005 and looking at how they'll change the church. So far he's covered three of them:

• Beta from Google
• Gmail from Google
• Folksonomies and tagging with Del.icio.us and Amazon

It's heady stuff, but definitely full of some cool ideas for churches.

Posted by Kevin D. Hendricks at 7:57 AM
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February 14, 2006

Satan Tagline Church Not The Victim of Hackers

And this is why it's a good idea to be a little skeptical and not jump on every bandwagon that rolls by. The Limerick, Penn. church that appeared to have a tagline from the lips of Satan now seems to be the victim of hackers poor proofing.

At least that's the early word from the Bene Diction blog, and helps explain why the tagline has been replaced with the church's phone number. Rumor is that the church will be posting a statement later today.

Update: The church currently has this statement on their home page: "For those of you who were kind enough to inform us about our previously inaccurate quote...we thank you!" I'm not sure what to make of that.

Update: And now they've added this statement:

We were recently made aware that the former quote we had posted in the header on our site was actually not based on the word of Jesus but was a quote posed to him during his temptation. As soon as we were made aware of this we removed the quote from our site. We removed it...not hackers as some ill-informed bloggers would have you believe. This unfortunate lesson is a demonstration why when using tools online to identify quotes that you think deliver the honest and sincere message you intended you should always view the quotes in their whole context.

You'll also notice our first comment comes from the church's webmaster correcting us. I guess that's what you get for listening to other bloggers and not checking up on it yourself. My bad. Guess I should have taken my own advice and not jumped on the hacker bandwagon.

Continue reading "Satan Tagline Church Not The Victim of Hackers"

Posted by Kevin D. Hendricks at 6:45 AM
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February 13, 2006

Blind User Sues Target Over Web Accessibility

Bruce Sexton Jr. is a 24-year-old student at UC Berkeley. He's also blind. And now he's suing Target because their web site is completely inaccessible for blind users.

"What I hope is that Target and other online merchants will realize how important it is to reach 1.3 million people in this nation and the growing baby-boomer population who will also be losing vision," said Sexton.

Target is basically the scapegoat because they're big, popular and have one of the least accessible sites out there. But the class-action lawsuit is really a warning to all inaccessible web sites.

Who knows where this will lead, but when it comes to web site design your church can either make your site accessible or hope you don't get sued. Either choice sends a pretty clear message.

Posted by Kevin D. Hendricks at 10:38 AM
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February 9, 2006

Miscommunication in Text

As we've recently seen, it's easy for written text to be misunderstood, especially in blogs and e-mail. A new study from the University of Chicago confirms that fact. When reading e-mails people in the study understood the intent only 56% of the time, compared to 75% understanding when listening to a voice recording of the same message. In both cases readers and listeners thought they understood the message 90% of the time. Oops.

Bottom line: we often suck at communicating.

Take the time to re-read what you write and try to understand it from a different perspective. What if you read a sarcastic statement seriously, or a serious statement sarcastically? See how it can dramatically change what you intended. And if all else fails, pick up the phone. (link via Lifehacker)

Posted by Kevin D. Hendricks at 10:47 AM
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February 8, 2006

Blogging Can Burn Pastors

We like blogging. That's fairly obvious, coming from a blog, but we definitely encourage churches and pastors to blog (and we're just waiting for that book). But you have to follow one rule: blog smart. Being less than careful with your language can land you in the New York Times (registration required). And that's not exactly the press coverage you're looking for.

Just ask Kevin T. Bauder, president of Central Baptist Seminary in Minneapolis, who made the following statement on his blog in reaction to the controversy over a gay man starring in the evangelical film End of the Spear:

"Granted, we must not overreact. And it would probably be an overreaction to firebomb these men's houses."

Probably? The statement caused a storm of criticism, prompting Bauder to issue an apology.

The lesson? Blogs may be a little more relaxed and casual, but that doesn't mean you can't get burned. Be careful what you say. And if you do slip up, be smart (like Bauder) and make amends.

Posted by Kevin D. Hendricks at 2:43 PM
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January 20, 2006

You Will Be Judged Mighty Webmaster

Pastor Jeff Hamilton of The Cornerstone Foursquare Church points us to a study released about the amount of time someone spends looking at a web site before making a judgment that will influence the rest of their experience on the site.

Just count to one-twentieth of a second and you'll understand how quick this process is. Yep, 0.05 seconds is all it takes according to the study.

Because design is subjective, it is difficult to reduce behavior down to a prescriptive set of guiding principles when creating your site. However, it may not be a bad idea to test your site out on random group of people (not just those that go to your church) and flash designs in front of them to see which ones engage.

Posted by Brad Abare at 5:43 AM
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January 5, 2006

Podcasting Packs the Pews

Who would have thought that broadcasting your sermons so people don't have to actually come to your church would instead make more people come to your church? Steve Evans of Bridge Chapel Christian church in Liverpool says podcasts work:

"Large numbers of new people are coming down to the church and joining our congregation simply because of the internet downloads and podcasts.

"The sermons are playing a huge role in attracting people of all ages, especially youngsters who are searching for their spirituality.

"People talk about church numbers falling, but those who are making efforts to connect with people through things like podcasting are experiencing rapid growth.

Rev. Dr. Shannon Ledbetter of St Mary's Church in Knowsley Village (who appeared in the 1997 James Bond flick Tomorrow Never Dies, according to the article!?) doesn't think podcasting will encourage people to skip church:

"This will bring church numbers up, because people who tune in will want to experience the full spectrum of worship, the interaction with other parishioners, the singing of hymns and the experience of the building.

"We wouldn't want people to rely solely on an iPod."

(link via Blogging Church)

Posted by Kevin D. Hendricks at 9:13 AM
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December 19, 2005

What Pastors Need to Know About the Internet

Rick Warren's Pastors.com covers some important ground with 8 Things Pastors Need to Know About eMinistry, written by Terrell Sanders of MinistryCom:

1. Your target audience for church growth is Internet-savvy.
2. Your Web site will be your "first impression" for many people.
3. If you're not on the Web, you don't exist to many people.
4. Seekers will visit your Web site before attending your services.
5. A whole generation exists that will seek "religion" online.
6. The Web site is too critical to be run by a volunteer.
7. You can't afford a cheap site.
8. People are viewing your current Web site right now.

(link via eministry notes)

Posted by Kevin D. Hendricks at 7:30 AM
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November 29, 2005

Web Standards Junkies Rejoice

If you dream of a world where every web site uses CSS and tables are relegated to the Smithsonian, then Godbit.com is for you. If you're scratching your head, it's all about web standards.

Godbit is a site dedicated to helping the church learn how to use and make the most of web standards. It may seem like techno-speak to some of us, but using proper web standards can mean the difference between hand-coding a few hundred pages to change the font and making the change in one single motion with CSS. That can translate to big money savings, and that's only part of the reason why you should care.

Posted by Kevin D. Hendricks at 8:38 AM
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November 28, 2005

E-mail Newsletters vs. Bulletins

Tony Morgan of Granger Community Church has some insights about using e-mail newsletters vs. weekly bulletins and even ponders the potential death of church bulletins.

I don't think we'll see church bulletins go away any time soon, though they could lose their position as the primary delivery vehicle for church announcements. E-mail newsletters have great potential for getting the word out, and Tony shares some stats about their e-mail newsletter that are better than the norm.

Granger also sends out a single newsletter to the entire church, as opposed to a different e-mail for every ministry in the church. It's a good way to cut down on clutter, ensure the e-mails are read, and reduce the chances of being considered spam.

It's timely food for thought considering our poll a few weeks back about how often churches send e-mail updates.

Posted by Kevin D. Hendricks at 8:29 AM
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November 3, 2005

Church Web Sites Linking to Pastor's Blogs

More from Mark Oestreicher, this time around the Church Bureaucracy Award of the Month. I know Mark doesn't actually produce these items (like Worst Church Idea of the Month) on a monthly basis, but it must seem that way when you're in a position to constantly hear crazy stories. This time around a youth pastor asked his church leadership if they could link to his blog from the church web site. Here's the response:

The "task force" considered your requests to provide links to your blogs on the Church web site at our last meeting. The following conveys the committee's thinking on the subject at this point.

Whereas blogs are typically personal and should not be controlled, censored, or managed by anyone other than the owner of the blog; and

Whereas links and/or sub-links which may be placed on a blog could have content inappropriate to the purpose and audience of the church web site;

Therefore, the "Information Policy Task Force" of our church states that unless and until the IPTF is able to produce standards to which blogs must conform in order to be consistent with the purpose of the church web site, no blog references will be identified on the church web site.

Continue reading "Church Web Sites Linking to Pastor's Blogs"

Posted by Kevin D. Hendricks at 8:03 AM
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September 21, 2005

Making the Most of Technology for Churches

by Alex Seidel, Guest Blogger

The Body of Christ has traditionally been slow to implement technology to further kingdom objectives. Fear of change as well as fear of the unknown have definitely hindered work in this area. Even a recent post about how churches use technology set off a debate about the place of technology in churches.

But technology is simply a tool. Like any other tool, it can be put to good use or it can be abused. So then, what are the best ways use the web, blogging, and other technologies as effective tools?

Continue reading "Making the Most of Technology for Churches"

Posted by Guest Blogger at 6:48 AM
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September 20, 2005

Web & Blog eBooks from Seth Godin

The bald-headed marketing master Seth Godin (author of Purple Cow and Free Prize Inside) has released two free eBooks worth checking out:

• Knock Knock - It's a 41-page PDF (and the pages are small) billed as the "Incomplete Guide to Building a Web Site that Works." Godin encourages designing web sites with a singular focus, especially for taking advantage of keyword marketing and other situations when you know where the traffic is coming from. If you have a Google ad pitching a Saturday service, send people to a page specifically about that service, not your home page.

  Godin never really explains how these singular focus web pages gel with a traditional web site and the importance of navigation, but he does have a good point when it comes to specifically targeting audiences.

• Who's There? - This one is 45 pages (still small so it's a quick read) and is the "Incomplete guide to Blogs and the New Web." It's the basics of blogging, Seth Godin style. If you're familiar with blogs there's not a ton new, though it's always interesting to get Godin's perspective.

Godin promises a third free eBook in late September and you can also check out an earlier eBook he offered for free, The Bootstrapper's Bible.

Posted by Kevin D. Hendricks at 10:10 AM
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September 13, 2005

Church + Technology = Barna Study

Barna released his report today about the extent to which churches are using technology. From a church's website and e-mail blasts to its use of a projector and video clips, some of the highlights of the survey include:

• Nearly six out of every ten Protestant churches (57%) now have a website. That is up from just one-third of all Protestant churches in 2000, an increase of 68%.

• Among the churches most likely to have a website today are those located in the western states (62%), large churches (84%), and churches whose congregation is primarily white (62%).

• More than six out of every ten Protestant churches (62%) presently use a large-screen projection system in their communications. That is up 59% since 2000, when just 39% used this technology.

• A majority of churches sends e-mail blasts to their congregations. Such technology was relatively inaccessible to churches at the start of the millennium, but 56% now rely on the process for reaching their people.

• Six out of ten Protestant churches (61%) integrate video content into their worship services. That is double the proportion of Protestant churches that did so just five years ago. Incorporating live drama into worship services is also typical these days, with 62% of churches using such presentations in those settings.

George Barna unsurprisingly concludes that "during the next half of this decade we expect increased broadband access, podcasting, and ubiquitous adoption of handheld mobile computing devices by consumers to further alter the way churches conduct ministry.”

Posted by Brad Abare at 9:53 AM
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September 10, 2005

Blogging Church: The Book

This isn't exactly breaking news anymore, but pastor/blogger Terry Storch and web guy/blogger Brian Bailey (both of Fellowship Church in Grapevine, Texas) are writing what looks to be the definitive book on church blogging: Blogging Church: Sharing the Story of your Church Through Blogs (I don't think that's the official subtitle, but it gives you the gist of it, so we'll go with it).

Of course being the only book on church blogging gives it a great shot at being definitive. But seriously, it sounds like a cool and much-needed book. Too bad we have to wait until next year to read it.

Until then you can read the book's blog (what else?), which is full of all kinds of bloggy goodness—and a podcast or two.

Posted by Kevin D. Hendricks at 11:46 PM
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August 11, 2005

Met Storch, Need Words

This past weekend I had the privilege of spending some time with Terry Storch from Fellowship Church in Dallas, Texas. If you know of Terry, you know he has just gone through a massive transition from being the church's chief technology officer and director of CreativePastors.com, to now being the lead pastor for one of Fellowship's nearby locations.

After meeting with Terry and attending a service, I was nearly speechless. Not only was I thrilled by what Fellowship has to offer the Dallas/Ft. Worth Metroplex, I was equally encouraged that they don't let it stop there. As do most churches of this size, Fellowship doesn't let their knowledge stop with them. They share it with other churches who can benefit.

Continue reading "Met Storch, Need Words"

Posted by Brad Abare at 6:32 AM
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July 19, 2005

Search Engine Marketing for Churches

Last week we talked about a church successfully using keyword advertising. The story was mentioned in an article from the Search Engine Guide and covers churches and search engine marketing. Check it out for an overview of keyword marketing and how more and more churches and ministries are taking advantage of it.

Posted by Kevin D. Hendricks at 1:27 PM
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Bob Lutz: Jump Into Blogging

Some days I feel like I'm beating a dead horse, but in case you've missed our previous calls for pastors to blog, maybe you'll listen to General Motors vice chairman Bob Lutz. For those who don't know, he's one of the most well-known corporate bloggers.

The key is to leave the corporate-speak behind and keep the tone conversational, open, and honest. Anyone who has read our blog sees the real deal, as produced by us and not polished by several layers of trained communications pros. ...

To me, the blog is a way for GM to be culturally relevant. It allows us to be on the leading edge of new technology while getting our strong views out there about our cars and trucks. So far, response has been outstanding, with more than 5,000 visits and 13,000 page views a day.

To any senior executive on the fence about starting a corporate blog, I have a word of advice: Jump.

(link via Jordon Cooper)

Posted by Kevin D. Hendricks at 5:16 AM
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July 14, 2005

Learning from Churches that Work

Terry Storch (who brought us Church Marketing Sucks, What Works For You?) along with Tony Morgan have put together a list of Top 10 Innovative Churches. Every church's web site is listed so you can check them out and see what makes them innovative (at least what you can gather from the web).

And while we're learning from other churches, Northminster Presbyterian Church in Las Cruces, N.M. analyzes the web sites of the 100 Fastest Growing and Largest Churches in the U.S., as listed by Outreach Magazine. Not everything these megachurches do will apply to smaller churches, but there's still plenty to learn.
(link via Jordon Cooper via Tall Skinny Kiwi)

Posted by Kevin D. Hendricks at 3:43 AM
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July 13, 2005

Top 10 Ways to Keep a Web Visitor from Being a Church Visitor

Tony Morgan of Granger Community Church in Granger, Ind. shares his list of Top 10 Easy Ways to Keep Me from Visiting Your Church Because I Visited Your Website, including such gems as:

• Avoid telling me what's going to happen at your church this weekend.
• Make it as difficult as possible for me to get directions, services times, or find information about what will happen with my kids.
• Use lots of purple and pink and add pictures of flowers. (reminiscent of our Why Do Men Hate Church? entry)

Some entries in his list are probably open to debate, including his suggestion to avoid pictures of the church building (the church is people, not buildings) or the pastor and spouse on the main page. I can see arguments going either way, though I'd hate to make a definitive statement to never have a picture of your church building or your pastor and spouse.

(link via eQuip)

Posted by Kevin D. Hendricks at 10:23 AM
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July 12, 2005

Keyword Advertising for Churches

Search term advertising has been the latest rage. It's cheap, incredibly trackable, easy to do—and often effective. Is your church trying it?

The Rock at Church Ranch in Westminster, Colo. has tried keyword advertising and it's working for them. Ryan Dickinson, the church's Outreach Coordinator and a partner at the Denver area Harper Design, shared that in less than a month they increased visits to their web site from 5 per day to 45 per day. They've had little competition for the keywords, so they pay around 10 cents per click.

Last month they spent a whopping $32.42 on keyword marketing, drawing 291 click thrus. They've averaged 28 visitors per month, or about two new families every week. They haven't had a Sunday yet without at least one visitor who came to the church thanks to their web site. So far this summer their attendance has hit a high of 147, compared to 115 last summer.

Continue reading "Keyword Advertising for Churches"

Posted by Kevin D. Hendricks at 7:13 PM
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July 8, 2005

Google Church Map

Check it out: All the churches in a 500 mile radius of my zip code with a Dallas Theological Seminary graduate as pastor. Well, sort of. It appears to be U.S. only, and I can tell you that most of Kansas, Missouri, Kentucky and farther south are definitely more than 500 miles away. But it's still cool.

The DTS Church Search is a potential new feature for the DTS web site that they're currently testing. John Dyer blogged about setting it up and passed it along to us. It uses the Google Maps API, which is technically speaking over my head, but the application is that just about anybody can use a Google map on their web site. DTS came up with a pretty cool use, but I imagine any church could use a slick map.

Imagine the possibilities: You could plot the locations of your church members (OK, creepy) to organize geographic house groups. Or you could plot every church within one mile of yours and team up to reach your community. It seems more like a fun toy than anything, but sometimes a fun and useful toy will make people come back.

Posted by Kevin D. Hendricks at 6:39 AM
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June 27, 2005

Web Site or Web Ministry?

Does your church have a web site or a web ministry? Silas Partners is a company that helps ministries with web solutions and they've put together an article exploring the difference between web sites and web ministries. This is an issue often raised by Andrew Careaga and the Internet Evangelism Coalition, but it's always worth repeating.

Posted by Kevin D. Hendricks at 10:52 AM
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June 22, 2005

Online Donations Justify the Web

Tim Bednar makes the connection between online donations and web sites, building off our earlier conversation about paying church webmasters. He notes some surprising facts about online donations:

• Online donations increased 58% in 2004 to $3 billion.
• On average, online donors give 50% more.
• 22% of online donors give all their donations online.

What a concept—churches relying on income outside of the Sunday morning offerings.

And with those facts and that idea in mind he makes the case for the importance of a web site for any organization, especially a church. He also gives good suggestions for making the most of a web site. By way of a disclaimer, Bednar does hype my writing services (thanks!) and is himself a web designer, but it's good advice, regardless of who does your writing or design.

Update: CT's weblog points to an article on declining income for churches, which makes the argument for accepting online donations that much more urgent.

Posted by Kevin D. Hendricks at 2:39 PM
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June 7, 2005

Volunteer Church Webmasters Should Quit

Everyone's talking about Michael Boyink's post about how church webmasters should stop working for free, for good reason. Effective Web Ministry Notes tipped us off, and Heal Your Church Web Site adds to the discussion. The comments are rolling in on Boyink's site, so I'd encourage you to check those out.

The basic idea is that churches who don't pay for web work won't appreciate the work. They'll be willing to toss it aside at a moment's notice because, well, it didn't cost them anything.

It's an interesting discussion and applies to for more than just church web sites. Any design, writing or other creative work that's volunteered can easily be overlooked. I'd hate to say that no one should volunteer for their church, since little would get done then, but it is a wake up call that churches need to take these efforts more seriously. Just because it's volunteer doesn't mean it's second rate, and it doesn't mean you can ignore it.

Perhaps invoicing a church for your volunteer work, even if you have no intention of getting paid, would be a good way to show them the value of your work.

Posted by Kevin D. Hendricks at 7:02 PM
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May 25, 2005

How Blogging Can Help the Church

We've said it before, but sometimes it helps to hear it from someone else: Lifeway offers four ways blogging can help the church, based on the BusinessWeek article, "Blogs Will Change Your Business" from a few weeks back. (link via effective web ministry notes)

Posted by Kevin D. Hendricks at 2:41 PM
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May 13, 2005

Church Blogging

Brian Bailey, the Internet Manager for Fellowship Church in Dallas, was interviewed by Shel Israel for the forthcoming business blogging book by Israel and Microsoft blogger Robert Scoble (chapter 5 includes a section on Fellowship). Bailey talked about Fellowship's blogging efforts, which include the recent launch of their church blog (see Bailey's FAQ), executive Terry Storch's blog (you may remember we wrote a piece for Terry's blog) and 20 staff members who blog.

There's plenty of gold in the above links, but I did find a few choice bits.

Continue reading "Church Blogging"

Posted by Kevin D. Hendricks at 8:25 AM
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Evangelism & IT Lessons by Robert Scoble

Not sure how we missed this (probably because it pre-dates us), but last year Microsoft blogger Robert Scoble visited Fellowship Church in Dallas and wrote the Ten Evangelism and IT Lessons from one of America's Biggest Churches. It's heavy on the techie side, but there's plenty of interesting gems:

1. Make it easy for everyone to learn about you—on their terms. Scoble notes that the only thing visible from the freeway is the church's url.
2. Make it easy to experience your product's special attributes. Scoble was given a DVD with an overview of the church.
3. To get word-of-mouth advertising you need to be remarkable. 50 manned computer registration stations, all-digtal sound system, plasma screens everywhere, etc.
4. Use IT to efficiently get close to your customers and take care of their needs. A high-tech system to register kids quickly and easily.
5. If you want to be better, make sure you're better from the first minutes of someone's experience. The church makes a sports fan feel at home.
6. If you want to be seen as bleeding edge, invest to be bleeding edge and do so throughout your company. They are the first church to film all their services in HDTV.
7. Extend the usefulness of your plant. They make WiFi available to their congregation during the week.
8. Design your systems so they never go down and can expand for future growth. they've got redundancy all over the place.
9. Don't be religious about technology, choose what gets the job done best for the least amount of money and staff time. While they heavily rely on Microsoft's technology, they also use Macs and Linux when those platforms work better.
10. When you become successful, bottle up what got you there and sell it to others. They sell their own software: FellowshipOne.

Brian Bailey, Fellowship's Internet Manager and the one who originally invited Scoble, blogs about the experience as well.

Posted by Kevin D. Hendricks at 6:03 AM
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April 5, 2005

How to Podcast

For those interested in podcasting, Nick Ciske of Creative Church offers his notes from his podcasting session at the Internet Evangelism Conference this past weekend.

Posted by Kevin D. Hendricks at 12:58 PM
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March 22, 2005

Lenten Blogging

The Miami Herald covers Lenten blogging:

"The idea is that church is not a Sunday thing anymore; it's going to be something that permeates your life," said Jeff Sharlet, editor of the Revealer, the blog of the Center for Religion and Media at New York University. "These blogs help you to suffuse your day with spirituality."

Nearly two-thirds of online Americans use the Internet for religious purposes. If your church isn't doing active ministry online, you're missing the boat. Perhaps you should consider celebrating Internet Evangelism Day.

Posted by Kevin D. Hendricks at 11:34 AM
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March 8, 2005

It's Time To Catch Up: iPod Church Finder

by Andy Havens, Guest Blogger

In a well written, pithy press release, the "Irish Pubs Directory" people announced that you can now download the iPod version of their list and ratings:

"You won't always have access to the web when you're travelling, especially at the exact moment you're looking for a pub. That's why we are making it possible for you to take the directory with you.Now you can have the directory of pubs along with descriptions and ratings always to hand. Never waste time looking for that perfect Irish pub again! You can choose from two versions...our popular PDA Directory and our new iPod Guide. Both versions contain the pubs, descriptions, ratings and more. All at hand when you need them."

I've got nothing against Irish pubs. But why is it I can now find an Irish pub (with reviews!), a Buffalo Wild Wings (with menu!), a Kinkos/FedEx (with service listings!)in 10 seconds, but I can't find a complete listing of Methodist churches in Columbus, Ohio that tells me which has traditional vs. contemporary services? Or if any has childcare? Or a choir? Or nursery school? Or Bible study? Or... Or... Or...

Wake up and smell the electrons. I don't care what your denomination is. When the "Irish Pubs Directory" is better organized and has better Internet and electronic, portable, personalized marketing than any and all of the major Christian denominations, there's some serious catching up to do.

Posted by Guest Blogger at 5:49 AM
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March 7, 2005

Improving Your Church Web Site

Mike Atkinson presents a series of articles on how to improve your church web site. Mike's got plenty of experience and wisdom worth gleaning.

Posted by Kevin D. Hendricks at 2:04 PM
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Missionary Blogging

I love blogs. This is why. It's the blog of a medical missionary in Kenya. It used to be that missionary updates came during furloughs or Missionary Sunday or maybe the occassional letter. But now you can keep tabs on a missionary 24/7, giving them the chance to connect with supporters back home, spread the word about current needs, and I'd imagine make the job of raising support easier. Obviously not every jungle has wifi and a missionary still needs to be sensitive about what info they give out, but what an opportunity.

How connected are you to the missionaries your church supports? How would that change if they had a blog? (link via John I. Carney)

Posted by Kevin D. Hendricks at 1:37 PM
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February 15, 2005

Designing Web Sites For Teens

Not all teens are techno-geniuses, according to the latest study from usability guru Jakob Nielsen. Youth workers designing sites for teens should pay attention to the results:

Design – While teens do pay more attention to a site’s design than adults do, they tend to like clean designs. Glitzy sites were often hard to use, and thus not used.

Tech Savvy – Contrary to popular opinion, teens are not savvier than adults when it comes to technology. When asked to complete a perfectly feasible task, only 55% of teens could do it, compared to 66% of adults. Nielsen blamed poor reading skills, less sophisticated research strategies and a bigtime lack of patience.

Boredom – It’s the kiss of death for teens. They have a short attention span and want to be entertained.

Reading – Teens aren’t big on reading. Text that’s easy to scan and using graphics to illustrate concepts are good ways to deal with their dislike for reading. Teens also don’t like small font sizes, not because of poor eyesight, but because they often sit back from the computer.

So what works? Nielsen recommended the following features that give teens a chance to interact with a site:

• Online quizzes
• Forms for providing feedback or asking questions
• Online voting
• Games
• Features for sharing pictures or stories
• Message boards
• Forums for offering and receiving advice
• Features for creating a website or otherwise adding content

For more read Nielsen’s Alertbox column, the Wired story, or you can just buy the entire 129-page report online.

Posted by Kevin D. Hendricks at 5:48 PM
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February 10, 2005

Web Sites Hook Young Families

An article in Church Executive Magazine is a good reminder of the value of web sites, especially in hooking tech-friendly young families. The author takes his time getting to the point, but then it's good stuff:

1. If you're not on the web, you don't exist.
2. The first impression of your congregation will be from the web.
3. A poor web site will actually turn people away.

Posted by Kevin D. Hendricks at 8:23 AM
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February 9, 2005

Are Unsolicited Church E-mails Considered Spam?

Several sites have discussed the question of whether or not church e-mail is considered spam. The short answer is no. The Federal CAN SPAM Act went into effect January 1, 2004 and anyone sending mass e-mails would be wise to be aware of its stipulations.

While churches probably don’t need to worry about breaking spam laws, they do need to worry about breaking trust. While it may not be illegal, mass e-mails from your church may quickly be classified as spam by the recipient—and that’s really the person who matters.

E-mail can be a powerful and efficient communications tool—just make sure you’re using it right. Learn some E-mail 101 and avoid anything resembling spam:

• Use clear, helpful subject lines.
• Send your message from a recognizable e-mail address (yourname@yourchurch.org would be good).
• Provide unsubscribe information.
• Clearly identify yourself (give a mailing address).
• Don’t abuse your list. Stick with strictly church business—no forwards.
• Use the ‘BCC’ field for mass e-mails (it stands for blind carbon copy and means everyone’s e-mail address will be hidden).

Posted by Kevin D. Hendricks at 12:40 PM
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February 3, 2005

Web Pages That Suck

Web Pages That Suck presents the Biggest Web Design Mistakes of 2004. It includes some great pointers, including the reminder that your web site exists to meet people's needs--not yours. Your site doesn't exist to promote Corner Community Church, it exists so Joe Neighbor can find out what time the service starts, so Sally Mom can check out your children's program. It's a subtle difference, but it can mean the difference between a helpful site and a frustrating site. Is your site meeting needs or just blowing smoke?

Though as much as we like the name, Web Pages That Suck could really stand to take some of their own advice.

Posted by Kevin D. Hendricks at 8:03 AM
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January 27, 2005

More Web Site Advice

Sometimes you have to hear it a second, third or fourth time, so here's more church web site tips from TheosLogic Productions. (thanks to Chris Taylor for the link)

Posted by Kevin D. Hendricks at 12:15 PM
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January 24, 2005

The Church & Technology

A recent study shows a deep gap between large and small churches when it comes using technology. Only 52% of Protestant churches have a web site, but the numbers vary greatly based on church size: 88% of large churches (those with 200+ members) have a web site compared with only 28% of small churches (those with less than 100 members).

Small churches may be missing out on a relatively cheap and efficient method of communication.

Posted by Kevin D. Hendricks at 7:50 AM
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January 18, 2005

First Podcasting Church

Podcasting is yet another word to add to your techno vocabulary. It's essentially broadcasting audio over the Internet in a format people can listen to at their leisure. Just like TiVo allows people to record their favorite shows and watch them later, podcasting delivers new shows to your iPod so you can listen when you feel like it (or check Wikipedia for a better explanation).

At the forefront of this latest techno-wonder: Bluer, a Minneapolis church. The Pioneer Press covers the spreading technology, giving a few lines to Bluer and a quote to their resident techie, Nick Ciske (who in hindsight wishes he'd said something different).

Posted by Kevin D. Hendricks at 12:06 PM
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Creativity Matters

In a span of ten days 11-year-old Dylan Verdi went from normal kid to being heralded as the youngest videoblogger in the world and featured on ABC News. She posted her first entry on December 20, 2004 and on December 30, 2004 she appeared in the ABC News segment declaring bloggers the People of the Year in 2004. Her dad tells the whole tale in (what else?) video.

How cool would it be to see churches embracing a funky new technology like videoblogging? I can imagine youth groups cranky out weird and hip videos about their current discussion topic, recapping past events, hyping upcoming events, or just expressing themselves in general. Churches seem like a ripe venue for such a viral, communal activity. All it takes is a church brave enough to let their members be that creative.

Posted by Kevin D. Hendricks at 11:19 AM
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January 17, 2005

The Beginner's Guide to Church Blogging

ChangeThis is offering a free download, The Beginner's Guide to Business Blogging, for a limited time (expires Jan. 25, 2005). Though it is a bit repetitive, the guide covers all the basics (including 'what is a blog?') and explains how a blog can be good for business. It's a small step to see how the same can be true for churches as well.

Update: The PDF is no longer available from ChangeThis, but the expired version says if we have a copy we're allowed to post it on our web site, so here it is: The Beginner's Guide to Business Blogging (680 KB, 41 pages)

Posted by Kevin D. Hendricks at 7:51 AM
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October 5, 2004

Church Blog

Blogging isn't just a hip new trend for techies and information junkies. Businesses are jumping on the blog bandwagon.

Blog software itself enables a non-technical person to post uniform content on a web site and have it be easily categorized and archived, all without calling in the web expert. A blog doesn't have to simply comment on the latest news. Weekly announcements, sermons, prayer requests, and daily scripture are all uniform content that would be ideal for a blog. A blog is really just a technical tool that makes updating a web site simple.

Maybe your church should jump on the blog bandwagon.

Posted by Kevin D. Hendricks at 8:49 AM
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September 20, 2004

E-mail and the Youth Pastor

Youth Specialties offers some advice for how youth workers can make the most of e-mail. The basic lesson is e-mail won't replace mailings or phone calls as the communication vehicle of choice (why not? of the e-mails the author collected, less than half actually read and responded to e-mails when tested). But for those who have embraced e-mail, it can be effective. Know the difference and take advantage of it.

(and we'll forgive the author for continually referring to e-mail as "eMail")

Posted by Kevin D. Hendricks at 7:51 AM
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September 13, 2004

Mike Atkinson: Poor Church Web Sites Can Be Costly

Mike Atkinson, former web guru for Youth Specialties, talks about church web sites in an interview with Good News, etc., a San Diego Christian newspaper (which could use some web design advice itself).

"It has been proven over-and-over that sites with poor navigation lose money for companies. That principle can hold true for a church as well."

That principle can also extend to the more important issue of a poor web site losing potential visitors, as I'm sure Mike would agree. Watch for Mike's upcoming monthly column on church web sites in Good News, etc.

Posted by Kevin D. Hendricks at 11:52 AM
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E-mail 101

I wish it weren't so, but churches (and the general population) are rookies when it comes to e-mail. Goofy forwards, typing in all caps, and the biggest e-mail sin of all -- sending a mass e-mail using the CC field.

If you have no idea what's so horrible about that last sentence, then you need to read these nine simple things everyone should know about e-mail (free 10-page PDF).

Once you can avoiding the rookie mistakes then maybe it's time to consider putting e-mail to work for your church.

Posted by Kevin D. Hendricks at 11:18 AM
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September 10, 2004

Heal Your Church Web Site

A blog covering church web sites, just one more reason why there's no excuse for having a sucky site. (link via Knightopia)

Though they happen, don't they? One reason may be because it's easy to get a site up and running, it's managing the site, filling it with content, and keeping it going that's the tricky part.

Posted by Kevin D. Hendricks at 9:06 AM
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September 3, 2004

AKMA: Why Churches Should Have Web Sites / Nielsen: Simplicity

Ordained priest and blogger AKMA offers four reasons churches should have web sites, which includes a healthy discussion in the comments section. (link via e-vangelism.com)

Andrew over at e-vangelism.com also offers some wise web advice from the web design guru Jakob Nielsen: simplicity.

Posted by Kevin D. Hendricks at 12:24 PM
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August 30, 2004

Church Web Site Suck? Try a Blog!

Church web sites can be a cemetery for outdated information and worse – spinning barrels and other animated graphics that shouldn't be. Perhaps a blog can be the cure for what ails church web sites.

The technology makes web publishing easy and affordable and lets your church web site be more than a glorified brochure. A blog can foster and encourage online as well as offline community, and make your site a regular destination for church members.

Continue reading "Church Web Site Suck? Try a Blog!"

Posted by Kevin D. Hendricks at 8:35 AM
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August 16, 2004

Hot or Not?

In the vein of such, well vain, sites as AmIHotOrNot.com comes Hot or Not Church Sites, a site that lets you view and rate church web sites. Give each site a rating between 1 (not) and 10 (hot) and then see how the site faired with other visitors.

The site also offers several resources to improve your church web site, including tips, a professional evaluation and a free "webinar". (link via e-vangelism.com via eQuip)

Posted by Kevin D. Hendricks at 8:03 AM
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E-mail and Your Church

Do you maintain a list of e-mail addresses for everyone in your church? If not, consider some ways you could benefit from this fast, effective, and inexpensive form of communication:

• Save money and time over snail mail
• Notify/remind volunteers of their upcoming times to serve
• Communiqué from the pastor (biblical insights, sermon notes, etc.)
• Alert congregation to the sermon topic and invite someone who could use it
• Send a regular newsletter
• Notify congregation of service cancellations (i.e., snow storm)
• Thank new visitors for coming and give contact info if they have questions

There are countless ways you can tap into the effectiveness of keeping a database of e-mail addresses for the people in your church, and there are several free and paid services available for maintaining it.

Continue reading "E-mail and Your Church"

Posted by Brad Abare at 6:48 AM
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August 9, 2004

Not Everything Has to Suck

A desire to improve church web design and unemployment prompted the growth of Great Church Websites, a web site founded by David Gillaspey. The site features screen shots of church web sites Gillaspey has deemed "great." So far he's reviewed about 5,000 sites and added 318 to his gallery. His site also includes basic web do's and don'ts.

"The pastor or church staff has to have a vision for the use of a website to reach unchurched people," Gillaspey said in a recent interview. "They need to view having a church website as an important ministry tool for reaching the lost."

"I'd be happy if I accomplished nothing more with Great Church Websites than to wake church webmasters up to the fact that their website is out of date, but could easily be made acceptable by their simply eliminating the use of dated web design techniques," said Gillaspey.

Posted by Kevin D. Hendricks at 3:37 PM
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