Office Hours: Conferences & What’s Exciting

Office Hours: Conferences & What’s Exciting

January 23, 2013 by

Every week I hold online office hours and answer questions from folks like you. This week we’ve got a question about church conferences and what’s exciting. Take a look and be sure to join me every Wednesday from 2-4 p.m. CDT for online office hours!

I understand that there are technology, marketing and social media conferences. Are there any conferences like these specific to church media?

My Response:

In direct answer to your question, no, there are no church-specific social media conferences (to my knowledge).

Having said that, Echo conference is church-centric, but its focus is more broad, dealing with all types of media (e.g. video, web, social media, etc.). It’s one of my favorites and worth checking out.

Hope that helps!

What are two or three things you’ve done in the last 12 months that were effective or exciting for you?

My Response:

Wow. What an interesting question!

I suppose there are a few things right off the bat:

1. The Social Church. I am writing a book with Moody Publishers called The Social Church: A Theology of Digital Communication. Needless to say, I’m pretty amped about the opportunity. More importantly, the conversations sparked by the book will (hopefully) shape the thought of churches when considering digital communication. The book is due to be released February 2014.

2. Email marketing. Communicating through email is something all of us do, but few know how to do it well. I’ve been studying the patterns of how to structure, write and link an email in a way that gets results. If my experiments are any indication, I think I’m onto something!

3. House music. This one’s a little random, but I’ve discovered some amazing EDM artists recently: Diplo, Bro Safari, 3LAU, Kap Slap, Hardwell and more. It’s not everyone’s bag, but house music provides the productivity soundtrack for my day!

Thanks for asking. It’s rare I get to share anything personal in the office. What a treat!


Thanks for the great questions everybody! Hopefully this information will help you get from where you are to where you want to go. See you next time in the office!

Post By:

Justin Wise


Justin Wise lives in West Des Moines, Iowa, with his wife and son. He likes coffee, reading, running and blogging.
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One Response to “Office Hours: Conferences & What’s Exciting”

  • Brian Johnson
    January 24, 2013

    I imagine you’re only looking for US-based conferences, but in the UK we have had the pleasure of the Christian New Media Awards and Conference for the last few years. As with Echo, it doesn’t solely focus on social media – but this is of course a big part of it.

    The 2012 conference website was here: http://www.newmediacentreofexcellence.org.uk/cnmac/conference

    Or have a look at #cnmac12 on Twitter.


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