A cool church Web site worth checking out.

Questions to ponder:

* What is their priority is for their home page?
* Who do you think they are seeking to minister to?

I had the privilege of having lunch today with Chris Forbes of MinistryMarketingCoach.com and the Baptist General Convention of Oklahoma.

Let me say … Chris is thinking about and doing things that would revolutionize outreach in the local church. He’s a big-time thinker. I thought I was on the “cutting edge” until I met Chris today.

Don’t let the word “marketing” scare you off.

Chris has a seminary degree in biblical languages from Southwestern Seminary, has been a missionary overseas, and is a gift to the church.

Go over to his site, read all the articles … and download his “25 Free Marketing Tools” e-book today.

Oh, and take his advice to heart — I am!

TheaterChurch.com pastor Mark Batterson lists seven steps for branding your sermons here.

Briefly, they are:

1. “Come up with a series title” – Rick Warren is one of the best at this; Also check out FellowshipChurch.com’s Ed Young
2. “Create a series logo” — I did this for my church, see a sample here.
3. “Design a series evite and invite” — An evite is an electronic invitation via email
4. “Brainstorm Big Ideas”
5. “Shoot a Series Trailer™” – LifeChurch.tv’s Craig Groeschell does this really well
6. “Add Sermon Props” – Mars Hills pastor Rob Bell is reknown for this; he loves interactivity and wants the congregation to experience Scripture and the sermon, even handing out Play-Do for a message
7. “Add Sermon Staging” – One church in Kansas City I visited installed real grass and built a mini-house structure for their “Home Improvement” series.

Check out the articles posted by Batterson at BuzzConference.com.

If you’re looking to record audio, like sermons, here is a cheap “recording kit” to do that.

I use an Olympus Digital Recorder (check out this one for $35 and this excellent one for $57) and a Radio Shack microphone similar to this one ($25).

I’ve found the Olympus brand of digital voice recorders to be very reliable and affordable.

I’ve used the above mentioned recorder several times for both audio and video recording. It’s powered by a small camera-type battery and has a clip. There may be a more affordable version out there, but I’ve found this to be a reliable one that gets the job done.

Check out CopyBlogger, a site designed to help “sell with blogs, email, and RSS.”

Great insights and tips on writings, including headlines, effective articles (or blog posts), and much more.

Here are some of the main resources listed: