Archive for Web 2.0
My Church on Twitter
Posted by: | CommentsToday I learned that my church – Quail Springs Baptist Church in Oklahoma City – is now on Twitter!
Follow our church, plus some of our ministers here:
- QSBC – main church account
- Ray Griffin – minister of education
- Tobin Jackson – youth minister
- Rusty McMullen – middle school minister
- Scott Campbell - college minister
- Brian Hobbs – communications director
Will You Twitter Your Church or Ministry?
Posted by: | CommentsTwitter is an awesome tool!
It allows us to communicate in a way that is totally different from traditional websites, blogs, and e-mails. You can tie in Twitter with your FaceBook account, send voice mesages to Twitter using your phone, TwitPic your photos, and even synch it with your Google iCalendar. The applications are many and you should consider using it for your church or ministry.
Anthony Coppedge (whom I’d love to meet and have missed at a few conferences) launched a website called Twitter for Churches (www.twitterforchurches.com) and offers a PDF book called “The Reason Your Church MUST Twitter” for only $5.00! Having read Anthony’s posts in the past, I think this is going to be a great read and recommend checking out his new website.
Twitter could help your ministry to communicate more efficiently or carry on conversations with people in your community. Don’t miss the boat.
Using Facebook To Announce Your Church Events or FB Spamming Your ‘Friends’
Posted by: | CommentsI don’t like to rant on blogs, especially this one … but now I’m irritated enough to do one.
Here’s the deal … I have over 600 friends on Facebook. I love that I can connect with a bunch of people through it.
I try to be pretty selective with who I add to Facebook besides I use it as a ministry tool also to connect with our college kids. Typically, though, when a minister or someone connected to one of my “ministry friends” adds me as a friend, I usually add them automatically – thinking there’s some watered down discernment factor there.
But lately – in the last couple of months – I’ve been barraged (spammed) with “grand opening” or church announcement messages from some of those.
So much so that today, I actually removed one as a friend.
Hot tip for pastors and ministers using Facebook: Find a way to build momentum for your church without spamming me, or, uh, other ‘friends’ who live thousands of miles away from your church, quite content with their own home church, and get extremely irritated when they have to delete your notification and consequently remove you as their friend.
It’s spam. Don’t do it.
Instead, create an opt-in Facebook Page, Group or event … ask people to sign up for those, in which they know, understand and commit to getting your email updates.
Rant over.
Content Management System (CMS) Providers
Posted by: | CommentsSince we just wrapped up a three part series on The Pros and Cons of Website CMS, I thought I would throw my personal recommendations for CMS providers and web development companies that I have worked with through the years.
- Lynchpin Design: I recently completed the design of Granite State Baptist Church’s new brand image and website. Lynchpin Design did an outstanding job implementing my design but I was really impressed with their IMMIx CMS which they customize for each churches needs, instead of just giving a canned solution.
- Ekklesia 360: It has been a while since I worked with this system but when I partnered with Church Plant Media a few years ago, this was a great Content Management System.
- Discover Sky: This platform is available through Element Fusion and is a nice, cost effective solution if you want import your own design or have a designer create the skin for your website.
- Faith Connector: I designed the Dialogue Church website and then we had Faith Connector implement their CMS into the layout. It works extremely well, but to me, it’s more cumbersome than the rest.
- Another notable CMS/Website Company that recently contacted me and that looks promising is City Gates. I haven’t worked with them personally but I talked with Matt Kirkland and he sounds like a great guy.
This also reminds me of some advice to pass along on this topic.
If you have a designer create the website branding or layout-or if you do it yourself-make sure to communicate every aspect and detail of that design to the company who is going to set up your website to ensure it’s EXACTLY the way you want it. A couple of the designs I previously sent off should have been modified to meet web standards (I’m not a programmer or CSS guru) and when the site was launched it didn’t quite have that great lookas they should have. This can also be attributed to companies who just churn and burn the work out. It’s not their fault but when you rush out so many designs per week, it opens up the chance for missing important details like columns being too small for human readable text!
Please check out these companies if you need a website or Content Management System!
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James Dalman specializes in church branding, church consulting, and church marketing. He is the editor at Church Communications Pro and wants Holland to win Euro 2008.
Uploading Your Sermons to WordPress Blogs
Posted by: | CommentsIn case you haven’t heard about it there is a plug-in for WordPress blogs that allows you to upload your sermons.
Mark Barnes recently sent me an e-mail about his Sermon Browser WordPress Plugin that allows churches to simply upload sermons to their WordPress website, where they can be searched, listened to, and downloaded. It is easy to use with comprehensive help and tutorials.
While I haven’t tried it out personally (because I’m a WordPress dummy) – it sounds really cool! Feel free to check it out for yourself.
