Train your congregation to take good photos … by sending them to the Digital Photography School Blog.

This Web site is an excellent resource for teaching your church staff and congregation how to take good photos. It’s packed with tips on composition, taking photos while traveling (i.e. good for mission trip participants before they go), and much more.

At one church I served at, one of our members volunteered to take photos of all our events. He had recently bought a nice digital camera and this allowed him a practical way to serve the church. And he thoroughly enjoyed doing so through photography.

Recruit a member in your church to do the same, give them a little training, and set them loose (within certain parameters, of course).

The Associated Press — which distributes news to more than 11,000 media channels — writes headlines for the web that are less than 40 characters long and “straightforward,” according to this article by the New York Times.

News organizations, like the Associated Press, are wrestling with the “how” of taking products (i.e., news articles) that have historically been used primarily for the printed page and making them “web savvy,” for search engines like Google and Yahoo!

Convert your sermon audio files into the popular MP3 format by using the free software Audacity … there’s also a special Audacity software called “CleanSpeech,” originally titled Sermon Editor.

CleanSpeech exports an MP3 that is a good blend of both quality and file size — essential ingredients for online audio.

A Michigan church reaches out to its community by having a “garage no sale.” Members and others donated items for the event, including “dryers, television sets, dining room table and chairs, as well as kitchenware and gobs and gobs of clothing,” according to the article.

All the church asked for was a registration card, which included three extremely helpful questions:

The North American Mission Board has a helpful resource for coaching missionaries on how to give effective presentations in the local church.

The article is titled “Tips for Missionary Speakers” and can be used to guide short-term mission teams who aren’t used to giving presentations.

Not everything will apply to short-term teams … but there is some good pointers you could pass on.

I also want to add some of my own tips, based on hearing teams report: